The U.S., given its substantial production of resources, is considerably autarkic and has been relatively insulated from these shortfalls. Nevertheless, those commodities such as fuels that are exposed to global markets and actively traded internationally are subject to price impacts due to the Hormuz closure.
At the wholesale level, U.S. diesel and jet fuel benchmarks have both risen $1.71 to $4.25 and $4.14 per gallon, respectively (or 67.3% and 70.3%) since the end of February. During the same period, the increase in the gasoline benchmark has also been considerable but not as pronounced, rising $1.23 to $3.31, or 59%
At the national level since the end of February, gasoline and diesel prices have risen 40.3% and 48.1% to $4.12 and $5.64, respectively. Gulf Coast retail prices for gasoline and diesel, where half of U.S. refining is located, were $0.33 and $0.23 below their respective national averages. However, they were up 50% and 55.2% since the end of February.
EPRINC’s research was cited this week in Politico, in a story by Scott Waldman examining how President Trump’s blockade of Iran is disrupting energy and commodity markets beyond oil — including fertilizer and helium supplies.
Politico drew on EPRINC’s Chart of the Week data to note that while the U.S. leads global helium production at 44 percent, Qatar is the second-largest producer at 35 percent — and that war damage to Qatari facilities could take years to repair, tightening an already thin market.
Read the full article here.
The Chart of the Week referenced in the article can be found in full here.
EPRINC Director of Research Max Pyziur was quoted in La Tercera — one of Chile’s leading national newspapers — in a piece surveying how the Strait of Hormuz closure is reshaping daily life around the world. Author Diego Quivira spoke with economists and energy experts to document the on-the-ground effects: Egypt ordering commercial establishments to close by 9:00 PM, Thailand asking public employees to dress lighter to reduce air conditioning loads, and Pakistan and Bangladesh suspending in-person schooling to conserve energy.
Pyziur explained that while crude oil can still exit the Gulf via pipeline, the same is not true for other commodities: LNG, fertilizers, and helium have no comparable overland alternative. He highlighted the particular severity of the disruption for countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and India, which depend on Qatari LNG for electricity generation — and noted that India faces a compounding problem, as gas is also a feedstock for agricultural fertilizers.
EPRINC’s Special Focus page on the Strait of Hormuz crisis tracks the underlying data in detail, including tanker traffic, benchmark prices, LNG exports, fertilizer markets, and helium supply.
The Energy Policy Research Foundation is pleased to announce the release of Power Vision 2050: Creating a Sustainable Pathway to Secure the American Economy (Version 3.0), an expansion of EPRINC’s ongoing multi-year initiative to help policymakers navigate the mounting challenges facing the U.S. electric power sector.
Building on three workshops and the foundational research conducted under the Power Vision 2030 project, this updated framework extends the analytical horizon to mid-century and substantially broadens the initiative’s scope.
The near-term pressures documented in the 2030 project have not abated. U.S. electricity consumption is projected to grow by 30 to 50 percent or more by 2050, driven by the electrification of transportation and buildings, industrial expansion, and the relentless power appetite of AI infrastructure and data centers. Against this backdrop, premature retirements of dispatchable generation continue to compress reserve margins in key regions, with NERC and independent researchers flagging serious reliability risks in the PJM and MISO footprints.
The Power Vision 2050 framework retains the 2030 project’s core focus on near-term natural gas deployment, regulatory reform, and transmission efficiency, while adding an extended set of research questions oriented toward the structural transformation of the grid over the coming quarter century.
The most significant addition to the 2050 initiative is a dedicated research strand on nuclear energy. The existing U.S. fleet, the largest source of carbon-free baseload electricity in the country, faces an aging profile, with the oldest units reaching end-of-life well before 2050 absent license renewals. Supply chain constraints and protracted licensing timelines have slowed the deployment of new capacity, even as interest in advanced reactor designs and small modular reactors continues to grow.
Power Vision 2050 will examine what policy, regulatory, and financing reforms are needed to accelerate deployment of both conventional and advanced nuclear technologies; how the United States can maintain its competitive position in global nuclear markets where China and Russia are aggressively expanding their export footprints; and what role innovative applications, including maritime nuclear propulsion and off-grid industrial power, might play in reinforcing energy security.
The decisions made in the next five to ten years on permitting reform, fuel supply chain investment, workforce development, and advanced reactor commercialization will largely determine whether the United States arrives at 2050 with a power system capable of sustaining its economy. EPRINC’s Power Vision 2050 initiative will convene industry experts, academics, and policymakers to address these questions with the analytical rigor they demand.
The full Power Vision 2050 project overview is available here. For inquiries, contact EPRINC at contact@eprinc.org.
“I’ve known EPRINC through most of its long history. I am delighted to join my dear colleague and friend Lou Pugliaresi and the EPRINC team to help move vital energy and materials thinking to the next stage.” — Michelle Michot FossDr. Michot Foss is an Advisor at L’Acadie Network and a collaborator at Rice University’s Carbon Hub, focused on commercializing advanced carbon materials. She retired as chief energy economist and head of the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was also an executive instructor at McCombs School of Business and an ExxonMobil Instructor of Excellence. She created the Bureau’s Center for Energy Economics while at the University of Houston, where she served as a research professor and Shell Interdisciplinary Scholar. Earlier in her career she served as director of research at investment bank Simmons & Company International and at Rice Center. Her career research includes major projects for the Texas Comptroller, U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, World Bank, Japan’s External Trade Organization, and the Saudi Arabia-led Future Minerals Forum. She led industry research consortia for U.S.–Mexico natural gas trade and LNG development in North America, and implemented technical assistance programs sponsored by USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources in more than 20 countries, including Central Asia, Ukraine, West Africa, Uganda, India, Bangladesh, and Mexico. Her capacity-building program New Era in Oil, Gas & Power Value Creation was recognized twice by World Oil Awards for excellence. Dr. Michot Foss serves on the board of directors of Consumer Energy Alliance and on advisory councils for Energy Intelligence Group, the North American Energy Standards Board, and Missouri University of Science & Technology’s O’Keefe Center for Critical Minerals. She is past president of both the International Association for Energy Economics and the United States Association for Energy Economics, where she was named a senior fellow. She holds degrees from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Houston.
All of us at the Energy Policy Research Foundation mourns the loss of Professor Antonio Zichichi (15 October 2029 – 9 February 2026). He was one of Italy’s most distinguished physicists and a major figure in 20th century nuclear and subnuclear physics. We offer our condolences to Professor Zichichi’s family, friends, and the global scientific community who all benefitted from his unique contributions and accomplishments. EPRINC has had the privilege to present our research before the annual meeting of the Ettore Majorana in recent years.
An obituary from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, where Zichichi held a membership since 2000, can be found here.
Also, a tribute from the San Grasso Science institute honoring Zichichi is here.
On Wednesday February 11, 2026, new Energy Policy Research Foundation Distinguished Fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth testified during the House Committee on Space and Technology’s Research and Technology Subcommittee Hearing “Accelerating Progress: U.S. Surface Transportation Research.” Her testimony can be found here, and the full overview of the hearing with the other testimony is here.
She was joined by Hon. Greg Winfree, Agency Director of theTexas A&M Transportation Institute and Dr. Henry Liu, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation for Mcity and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI)
Diana’s testimony covered suggestions for how to prioritize transportation research, including automating vehicles to reduce collisions, protecting GPS systems, and incentivizing the domestic production of transportation equipment and components like batteries to avoid espionage from the nation’s enemies. A video of the entire hearing is available on the Committee’s YouTube channel, here.
Diana can be reached at her Energy Policy Research email address, Dianafr@eprinc.org.
Energy Policy Research Foundation’s Distinguished Fellow Dominick Blue and Director of Research Max Pyziur have been published in The National Interest. Their piece entitled: “The End of Voluntary Energy Security: America’s New Doctrine of Active Sovereignty”, which discusses how “The events of January 2026 reveal that Washington is moving to a war footing. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is becoming an operational arm of national defense, wielding a new strategy of “Shield and Sword.” Further, “Washington is replacing voluntary energy security with active sovereignty—treating grids and resources as battlefields and energy firms as instruments of power.”
The Energy Policy Research Foundation is excited to announce the addition of Diana Furchtgott-Roth as a Distinguished Fellow. Diana, an Oxford-educated economist, served in President Trump’s first term as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation and Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury. Diana also served in the White House under President Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, and President George W. Bush. Diana is the author or coauthor of six books on economic policy and hundreds of articles. She is a frequent guest on TV and radio shows and writes regularly for the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
EPRINC Research Director Max Pyziur was quoted in Utility Dive regarding the recent congressional appropriations bill for the Department of Energy.
The bill provides $3.1 billion in funding to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, significantly exceeding the White House’s requested $880 million, and includes funding for solar and wind programs that the administration had requested zero funding for. Pyziur noted that the reallocation of approximately $3.1 billion toward the Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Deployment Program “makes sense, because it’s continued funding for safeguarding the U.S. nuclear fuel supply for the grid, continuing research in that particular realm.” He also observed that the funding helps support the national labs, calling it “very important work and very useful work.”
The article is available at Utility Dive.
EPRINC team members Max Pyziur, Matthew Sawoski, and Lucian Pugliaresi were cited in a recent JustTheNews article for their analysis of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and its role in contemporary energy security. The article examines various proposals to refill the SPR, which was depleted to its lowest level since the 1980s by the Biden-Harris administration.
Notably, the piece references EPRINC’s Op-Ed published in the National Interest on October 20, 2025, “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: 50 + 2 Years Since the Key Inciting Incident,” which analyzes how the SPR’s original purpose has evolved given that the U.S. is now the world’s largest oil producer rather than heavily dependent on Middle Eastern imports.
The article can be read at Just The News, and EPRINC’s National Interest Op-Ed is available here.
EPRINC Research Director Max Pyziur was quoted in The Observer’s analysis of recent U.S. actions in Venezuela and their limited impact on global oil markets.
In the article, Pyziur assessed the investment climate for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela, stating: “The attractiveness of pursuing investment in Venezuela from a political-legal framework, as well as from a commercial framework, right now is far diminished, if it is there at all. It’s a bearish scenario.”
The piece examines the challenges facing any potential revitalization of Venezuela’s oil industry, including the deteriorated infrastructure, uncertain political framework, and current low oil prices that reduce incentives for major capital investment. Despite President Trump’s ambitions for U.S. oil companies to invest billions in rebuilding Venezuelan oil production, experts note it could take over a decade and $100 billion to restore production to previous levels.
The full article is available at The Observer.
The Energy Policy Research Foundation and the Institute for Energy Research cohosted a full-day, in-person workshop, Dominating Power: Charting the Next Decade of America’s Electricity Growth at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
This conference was part of EPRINC’s Power Vision 2030 Series. Its purpose was to inform the policymakers and industry stakeholders of the challenges and potential remedies to achieve both affordability and reliability for the U.S. power sector in light of surging demand from the AI economy and the manufacturing renaissance. As part of our ongoing mission, the Energy Policy Research Foundation remains committed to addressing critical policy choices facing all segments of the U.S. energy sector.
This event featured discussions on the central tasks necessary to meet U.S. growing power demand, major cost and reliability challenges, and realistic pathways to overcome them. U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Katie Jereza, pictured with EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi and IER President Tom Pyle, delivered keynote remarks. The panels centered around the following panels:
A writeup of the workshop can be found here. The slides used during the workshop are here.
The Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRINC) is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Distinguished Fellows: Dominick Blue and Dr. Kang Wu . These accomplished professionals bring extensive expertise in global energy markets, infrastructure resilience, and emerging technologies to EPRINC’s research initiatives.
Dominick Blue brings a unique blend of technical expertise and leadership experience to EPRINC, where his research focuses on energy resilience, reliability, and the secure integration of emerging technologies into the power sector. His work examines critical intersections of AI and data center demand, grid modernization, nuclear sector revival, and gas-to-power infrastructure. Before joining EPRINC, Dominick held senior leadership roles in infrastructure, technology, and risk management, and served as a U.S. Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer Two in CBRN Defense.
Dr. Kang Wu joins EPRINC with decades of experience in energy demand, supply, trade, and policy across the oil, gas, petrochemical, and power sectors. Based in Singapore, Dr. Wu has held senior positions at S&P Global Energy, the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), and the East–West Center, among others. His research expertise spans global macroeconomic trends, market outlooks, and energy transition dynamics, with particular emphasis on the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and global energy security.
We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Dr. Wu and Dominick to our team of Distinguished Fellows. Their complementary expertise—spanning global energy markets, emerging technologies, and infrastructure resilience—will significantly enhance EPRINC’s capacity to provide timely, rigorous analysis on the most pressing energy policy challenges facing decision-makers today. The addition of these Distinguished Fellows underscores the Energy Policy Research Foundation’s commitment to expanding its research portfolio and delivering actionable insights across the full spectrum of energy policy issues, from traditional markets to the energy transition and next-generation infrastructure needs.
Read more about the members of EPRINC’s team, or review their full bios below.
Dominick Blue, Distinguished Fellow
Dominick Blue is a Distinguished Fellow at the Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRINC), where his research focuses on energy resilience, reliability, and the secure integration of emerging technologies into the power sector. His current work examines the intersection of advanced computing, infrastructure planning, and national energy security. Dominick’s research portfolio includes analysis of AI and data center electricity demand—forecasting regional load growth, reliability implications, siting dynamics, and market coordination. He also leads studies on grid modernization and energy security, assessing resilience investments, interconnection constraints, and federal–state coordination under higher load scenarios. His additional work explores the revival of the U.S. nuclear sector, financing and licensing pathways for advanced reactors, and rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity to support the nuclear supply chain. Further research areas include gas-to-power infrastructure, pipeline and turbine capacity, and the role of gas in maintaining reliability within a diversified generation mix. Across these topics, Dominick focuses on translating complex technical findings into accessible policy insights for decision-makers at DOE, FERC, and state regulatory agencies. Before joining EPRINC, Dominick held senior leadership roles in infrastructure, technology, and risk management, including Managing Partner and Director of Client Innovation for private investment and global critical infrastructure firms, respectively. A former U.S. Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer Two in CBRN Defense, he brings a mission-driven perspective to energy resilience and safety. He holds a Masters of Business from the University of Southern California and has completed graduate studies in Computer Science at Georgia Tech, with research interests in AI systems, resilient infrastructure, and energy transition security.
Dr. Kang Wu, Distinguished Fellow
Dr. Kang Wu has decades of research and consulting experience spanning energy demand, supply, trade, policy, energy transition, and energy security—particularly in the oil, gas, petrochemical, and power sectors. Based in Singapore, he currently collaborates with JLC Network Technology Co., Ltd., the National University of Singapore, and other organizations on cross-commodity and energy transition research, with a particular focus on global macroeconomic trends as well as oil and gas market outlooks. From 2018 to 2025, Dr. Wu worked at S&P Global Commodity Insights (renamed S&P Global Energy in November 2025), holding vice president and other senior roles with responsibility for global macroeconomics, oil demand, market risk assessment, and Asia-focused energy analytics. Before that, he served as Director of Markets & Industrial Development and Senior Research Fellow at the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) in Riyadh, where he led research on global oil, gas, and coal markets and industrial development, with a particular focus on the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa. Earlier in his career, Dr. Wu was Vice Chairman for Asia at FGE, an international energy consultancy, and spent two decades as a Senior Fellow and Research Leader at the East–West Center in the US. In these roles, he conducted extensive research on economic development, oil and gas markets, energy security, power sectors, decarbonization, and other environmental issues across the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Western Hemisphere, and other regions, all within a global context. Dr. Wu is a frequent speaker at international conferences, forums, workshops, seminars, webinars, and training programs. He is the author or co-author of numerous research papers, analytical reports, project studies, journal articles, books, book chapters, and other publications. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
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