This article was orginally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is re-published here with permission. 

Momentum is a crucial factor in success in all walks of life. In sports, a high-performance team builds confidence and enthusiasm, often leading to a string of wins. In politics, legislative victories or a growing list of endorsements pressures others to line up in support of a cause or candidate. And in business, a rising stock or product often continues to climb because its momentum attracts attention and leads to growing demand.

In the energy business, momentum in recent years was on the side of renewables, primarily thanks to government subsidies financing wind and solar initiatives and regulations designed to erect roadblocks to legacy energy enterprises.

Clearly, things have changed. The momentum has shifted. Thanks to the Trump administration removing barriers for our most affordable and reliable energy sources, a whirlwind of activity designed to deliver natural gas to consumers across the nation is underway at a frenetic pace.

Just during the last couple of weeks of October alone, various companies announced a flurry of activity. To highlight just a few:

In Louisiana, Williams Companies unveiled a strategic partnership with Woodside Energy “to advance Louisiana pipeline and liquefied natural gas projects,” leading to more capital investment.

The deal involves an investment in the Louisiana LNG project in which Williams “will acquire 80% ownership in and become operator of Driftwood Pipeline LLC, which includes the construction of Line 200, a fully permitted greenfield pipeline connecting Woodside’s Louisiana LNG facility to multiple pipelines, including Transco and Louisiana Energy Gateway.”

Williams said it expects its investment “will total $1.9 billion in capital for development of the pipeline and LNG facilities.”

In Tennessee, East Tennessee Natural Gas, owned by Enbridge, announced that “construction on the 122-mile pipeline through the Upper Cumberland for the Ridgeline Expansion Project will begin soon.” The company said it received a notice to proceed on Oct. 7 from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Construction was expected to begin Nov. 1, according to Enbridge. “The pre-construction activity began on Oct. 20,” according to the report. The pipeline “will supply natural gas to the new Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Energy Complex.”

In Ohio, a new bill, SB 294, mirrors federal legislation recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson (R) aimed at qualifying natural gas as clean energy and designed to “compel the Ohio Power Siting Board to favor energy projects it deems both ‘clean and reliable,’” as one industry site described it.

The bill would also “declare renewable sources like wind and solar ‘unreliable.’”

In Texas, Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan Inc. announced “the commencement of a binding open season for transportation service on the Western Gateway Pipeline (Western Gateway), a newly proposed refined products pipeline system.”

The project “will facilitate the transportation of refined products from origin points in Texas to key downstream markets in Arizona and California, with connectivity to Las Vegas, Nevada via Kinder Morgan’s CALNEV Pipeline.”

A press release spelled out an impressive delivery network across parts of Texas, Arizona, Missouri, California and Nevada.

Compare the level of excitement and activity for legacy energy with the worries and warnings coming from the renewables industry about its own state of play, including on the world stage.

BloombergNEF recently held a London summit with renewables leaders to address the fact that “the European renewables boom is colliding with growing systemic pains. Record levels of negative power prices, particularly in Spain, are reshaping how risk is distributed across producers and buyers of renewable electricity.”

One of the topics was Europe’s Contract for Difference (CfD) model, which amounts to a contract between a renewables company and a government-backed counter-party agreeing on a fixed price for wholesale electricity. The idea is to stabilize revenues for renewables while encouraging investment by removing fear of volatile electricity prices. In other words, it’s one more way for the government to artificially prop up the renewables industry.

Encouragingly, one panelist at the summit seemed impressively grounded in reality. Dr. Alexandra von Bernstorff, managing partner for Luxcara, a German-based company specializing in renewable energy investments, said she was not a fan of CfDs because “they made the industry lazy.”

“We need to face the fact that we have a product and we have to sell the product like everyone else,” she said. “And I need to think about, do I have connections or not? Do I have customers or not? Can I produce cheap enough or not? As an industry, we should have gotten into these questions much earlier. So I’m a big fan of having free market negotiations. And if it’s difficult, then become creative.”

Wow. Such refreshing economic practicality almost provides hope for the renewables industry after all. Sadly, as Dr. von Bernstorff noted, her opinion on CfDs is not widely shared across the European renewables industry.

The renewables industry is dealing with “systemic pains” and second-guessing its approach in Europe, despite the overwhelming support of government leaders, as Europeans nervously face an uncertain energy future. In the U.S., meanwhile, new projects and improved delivery networks for our most affordable and reliable energy sources are being regularly implemented across multiple states.

For most households and businesses, long-term economic success depends on dependable and cost-efficient energy. In the U.S., momentum is on their side.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing columnist for , which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.