So, You Want To Be An Energy Pundit

In the last half century, energy has frequently been a primary topic in the news, academia, the halls of Congress and other equally disreputable places. Energy pundits however are sometimes related to real knowledge the way Kardashians are to intellectuals, that is, much more hype than substance. As a long-time pundit who is more Ben Stein than Kim Kardashian, here are some observations as to how to be successful (at least, more than I am).

First, self-identify as important. As the George Santos escapade shows, few people check credentials. My favorite are those who label themselves as ‘keynote speaker’ which I guess means they don’t stoop to lesser appearances, like the rest of us mortals. It’s also quite easy to be president of a ‘company’ with little corporate depth (I would know), and almost any academic credential can be stretched to suggest expertise that is thin to non-existent. Also, saying you’re an expert is sometimes the only qualification for many.

The Venkman: Saying you’re a scientist is common, even amongst people with bachelor degrees. It’s also reminiscent of the scene in Ghostbusters where, asked what he’s a doctor of, Peter Venkman replies that he has degrees in psychology and parapsychology. Many peak oil advocates were physicists, one was an oceanographer, and another a computer scientist, none fields that supported research into oil production trends. But they were ‘scientists’.

The next best thing is to find people who love your arguments and will lavish praise on you, often out of proportion to reality. Peak oilers would often describe other advocates as leading experts regardless of their small footprint in expert circles. Most, in fact, produced little research aside from their peak oil work and were not featured significantly in their professions. Paul Ehrlich has won numerous awards from environmental groups, but few from scientific groups which are often dismissive of his substandard (to say the least) research.

Writing a book helps. Few people actually read the books or know whether they are any good or not. Richard Heinberg wrote a peak oil book called The Party’s Over which is filled with inaccuracies and Jeremy Rifkin’s books on energy and resources are lacking in serious content. But the covers look nice and many assume that publishing requires at least a minimal level of expertise, when the reality is you just need a good story (and/or a friend at the publishers).

Confidence is key. T. Boone Pickens is one of the rare pundits who would admit to mistakes, especially about oil prices, but he’s the exception that proves the rule. Cable business news often features economists who joke about uncertainty, but more commonly no shadow of a doubt is present. Dan Gardner notes that Paul Ehrlich denies his mistakes and James Howard Kunstler, who warned of the Y2K crisis, claims it was solved because of his warnings rather than admit he was off base.

Many pundits remind me of the old game ‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon’ where the goal is to find a connection between a randomly chosen actor and a Kevin Bacon movie, the point being that almost everything is connected if the string is long enough. It’s the same with energy, where you can claim to be connected to the industry no matter how tenuously, and few will challenge it. Being, say, a banker to the oil industry would presumably give you some expertise, but not in petroleum engineering, as one prominent peak oiler was thought to possess. Having been a government official with a job related to energy could result from expertise, but it might also just mean that you are a bureaucrat or, if a Department Secretary, a politician.

When oil company CEO’s were queried by a Congressional committee about oil prices, one dared to respond that it wasn’t his area of expertise. Generally, oil company CEO’s are pretty knowledgeable about their industry, but most do not possess deep knowledge of the industry’s history or economics. Most understand OPEC, for example, but don’t realize that many other cartels preceded it or the aspect of game theory that applies to its behavior.

Short and sweet is a valuable aspect of punditry: the more details, the more likely you will get something wrong. Hand-waving is not just for the British monarchy after all, and most ‘top’ speeches at places like Davos tend to be low on context. Their might be many in the audience who would recognize that a statement like, “We built the internet, we can build the hydrogen economy,” is nonsense, but the odds of one of them getting a microphone and having hard numbers to hand are small.

Know your audience: Saying things that shock people can be valuable and earn you a reputation, but it is vital to avoid addressing those with more expertise than you have. One peak oiler famously made a lot of points about petroleum engineering in Washington, but curiously omitted them when speaking to the Society of Petroleum Engineers, presumably afraid they would recognize the fallacies.

BE EXTREME! Nobody wants to hear that things are not going to change much or, as forecasters say, the business as usual scenario—unless that leads to disaster. Moderates on issues like climate change, the energy transition, peak oil, etc., get far less attention than those at both ends of the spectrum. This helps when addressing non-expert crowds, which is most of them, where outrageous statements are likely to go unchallenged. Usually you should be careful to choose a favorable crowd, that is, don’t say climate change is going to kill us all tomorrow at a coal industry forum, or that it’s a Chinese hoax in front of an environmentalist confab. Granted, sometimes organizers want to appear even-handed or just want someone to demonize, so that rule is far from absolute.

Give the people what they want: Everybody from James Bond to the Kinks has mentioned this and it tends to be very true. Telling the oil industry that prices have to rise, that they don’t need to be regulated, and that the government should assist them will be very popular with an oil industry crowd, just as telling environmental activists that dumping fossil fuels is easy will make you popular with them. Certainly, more serious, professional groups will be less impressed but those are usually the nerds, not the media stars.

It sometimes amazes me to read about, for example, Abraham Lincoln giving a weighty address on politics and leaving his audiences wowed, but more common is the story of Dan Yergin, one of the premier oil experts, being ignored at a conference while Shai Agassi, who suggested using robots to exchange car batteries instead of charging stations, was mobbed. The latter was talking about something NEW, EXCITING, HIGH-TECH and REVOLUTIONARY, while the former was simply discussing the world’s largest, most vital industry. It’s not only sex that sells, but definitely it’s sexy that gets the attention.