Enemies of Energy: an executive summary

Editorial note: next week the Capital Research Center will release Enemies of Energy, a research report that profiles the 15 most influential anti-energy NGOs, their 15 largest known donors, and ten of the biggest myths and misconceptions they rely on to amplify their power and influence. The following is the executive summary. 

Some of the contents have already appeared in the most recent issue of Capital Research magazine.

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Everything that created and sustains modern industrial civilization depends on reliable access to abundant and inexpensive energy, nearly all of which comes from either hydrocarbons (coal, oil, and natural gas) or nuclear reactors. These four fuels account for 85 percent of the planet’s energy consumption and 88 percent of American energy consumption.[i]

This report profiles the largest and most influential American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that oppose the use of these fuels, and their largest known funding sources. These NGOs promote instead an industrial civilization run on so-called “renewables” or “clean energy,” marketing euphemisms that in practice mean replacing the reliable fuels with weather dependent and intermittent wind turbines and solar panels.

Though the policy players in this movement present themselves as environmentalists, we should refer to them instead as anti-energy NGOs.

If their world ever exists, then our world will not. Those without access to reliable hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels toil in primitive circumstances. Half of sub-Saharan Africans live without enough electricity to power basic lighting, a radio, or charge a cell phone for more than four hours per day. ^[ii]

Energy poverty is the real crisis.

There are at least two-hundred NGOs that oppose American energy abundance. For the sake of brevity, this report profiles only the fifteen largest and most influential. The most recently reported combined annual revenue of just these fifteen exceeds $2 billion, which means they collectively rake in an average of $5.4 million per day.

Myths and misconceptions

The first section of this report examines ten of the most important myths and misconceptions that have made the anti-energy movement possible.

One myth is the belief that sea level increases have triggered a climate “crisis” or “emergency.” Many enemies of energy, such as the World Wildlife Fund and Al Gore, darkly claim that seas could rise 20 feet and inundate most of Florida. But this report shows that NASA has identified less than 4 total inches of sea level increase since 1993, or three millimeters per year. At that rate of increase, it will take nearly 1,400 years for seas to rise another 20 feet.  ^{[iii] [iv]}

That’s not a crisis.

Another misconception is that preserving the actual environment is the goal of the anti-energy movement. An April 2021 study in Bloomberg Green calculated that solar energy needs 140 times the land area to produce the same kilowatts as a natural gas plant, 47 times more than an emissions-free nuclear plant, and nearly 18 times more than a coal-fired power station. The comparisons were even worse for wind.^[v]

The old advice about the wisdom of investing in land is relevant: “they aren’t making any more of it.” A so-called “environmental” movement that wants to needlessly fill up the environment with far more machines than necessary has truly lost the plot.

And then there is China.

Even as they try to shut down access to reliable American energy, groups such as the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) celebrate supposed accomplishments against CO₂ emissions in China. A January 2021 RMI news release praised the authoritarian regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping for providing “responsible global leadership” toward achieving “carbon neutrality before 2060.” ^[vi]

Xi rarely deserves praise. This was no exception.

China has cranked up its coal burning by 231 percent since 1995, and by 2024 was burning nearly 12 times as much coal as the United States. (And relative to 1995, American coal use has declined by more than half). By 2024 China accounted for 31.8 percent of the planet’s industrial CO₂ emissions—by far the world leader—and is planning to build 100 new coal-fired power plants in 2026 alone. ^{[vii] [viii] [ix]}

Despite being the planet’s undisputed economic superpower, the United States produces a comparatively small share of CO₂ emissions relative to our massive economy; a little less than 13 percent of the total. American CO₂ emissions in 2024 were identical to the USA carbon dioxide emissions from 1988. ^{[x] [xi]}

Examples of other myths and misconceptions addressed in this report include concerns about the safety of nuclear power, the alleged benefits of electric vehicles, world energy prices and the truth about plastic pollution. For example, despite producing 25 percent of the world’s economic output, the United States is responsible for a tiny 0.25 percent of ocean plastic waste. ^[xii]

The anti-energy movement

The main sections of this report profile the most influential anti-energy NGOs and their major known donors.

Some of the NGOs are becoming richer and more powerful. The Rocky Mountain Institute was founded in 1982 and as recently as 2012 was a little-known nonprofit with total revenue of just $10 million. But by 2024 RMI reported total revenue of $164.7 million and was one of America’s richest anti-energy nonprofits. ^[xiii]

Others have encountered serious recent challenges. Greenpeace is facing a legal judgement that could bankrupt it, and the Sierra Club has endured staff turmoil, leadership controversies and serious funding shortfalls.

But the main feature of all these profiles is an examination of the misinformation and hypocrisies that make up the agenda and messaging of the enemies of energy.

As demonstrated in the first section of the report, nuclear power is America’s safest and largest source of emissions free electricity. It is also our most reliable source of electricity and one that has a functionally limitless potential for expansion. Anyone concerned about limiting carbon dioxide emissions should be a strong supporter of more nuclear power.

This report notes that The Nature Conservancy is the rare example of a very big, yet pro-nuclear, environmental nonprofit. But all fifteen anti-energy NGOs profiled in this report have either explicitly opposed the deployment of nuclear reactors or implicitly done so by amplifying exaggerated fears about safety and waste disposal.

In place of nuclear as an emissions-free electricity source, the anti-energy groups are strong promoters of weather dependent wind and solar energy. Because of the land-gobbling nature of these intermittent options, these self-identified “environmentalists” are promoting needless overuse of the environment. But as shown in many of the profiles that follow, none of them acknowledge this irony. Many have loaded up their websites with photos of wind turbines and solar panels filling up and blocking the view of otherwise pristine mountains and other landscapes.

These hypocrisies and controversies are also common to the fifteen largest known donors to the anti-energy movement.

Some of these donors are the world’s wealthiest people. As profiled in the pages that follow, a lot of these billionaires own mega-yachts that annually consume more hydrocarbon fuel than hundreds of middle-class people.

Some of these billionaires, like the anti-energy recipients of their grants, also amplify the lie that China is a leader in the fight against carbon emissions. And at least one, in line with the bad old days of China’s “one child” policy, uses his grants to promote reducing the size of the human population.

A better way

The Sierra Club is more than a century old and is now “unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy” and the hydrocarbon fuels. But in 1966 the Sierra Club’s board voted 9-1 to support construction of California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power station. ^{[xiv] [xv]}

Back in those days, today’s enemies of energy were more commonly and justifiably known as “conservationists” because their objective was to preserve the creatures and natural features that please humans. The founding of our oldest national parks and the saving of the bald eagle from extinction are just two of the conservation movement’s objectively great historical accomplishments.

If this report has a singular purpose, then it is to demonstrate that protection of the natural world never needed to become the enemy of reliable energy abundance—and need not remain so.

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Endnotes:

[i] “Energy Mix | Energy consumption by source.” Our World in Data. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix

[ii] “Number of people with and without electricity access, Sub-Saharan Africa (WB).” Our World in Data. Accessed February 16, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-and-without-electricity-access?country=~WB_SSA

[iii] “Six ways loss of Arctic ice impacts everyone.” World Wildlife Fund. Accessed January 8, 2026. https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/explainers/six-ways-loss-of-arctic-ice-impacts-everyone/

     Braun, Ken. “Al Gore’s 30-plus years of climate errors.” Capital Research Center. March 2, 2026. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/al-gores-30-plus-years-of-climate-errors/

[iv] “Understanding Sea Level.” NASA. Accessed January 8, 2026. https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/key-indicators/global-mean-sea-level/

[v] Merrill, Dave. “The U.S. Will Need a Lot of Land for a Zero-Carbon Economy.” Bloomberg News. April 29, 2021. Accessed January 16, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20210430145128/https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-energy-land-use-economy/

[vi] “China’s carbon-neutrality goal increases the urgency of meeting 100 percent of the nation’s new electricity demand growth with zero-carbon sources.” Rocky Mountain Institute. January 15, 2021. Accessed March 20, 2026. https://rmi.org/press-release/chinas-carbon-neutrality-goal-increases-urgency-of-meeting-nations-demand-growth-with-zero-carbon-sources/

[vii] “Energy consumption by source: China, United States, World.” Our World in Data. Accessed February 5, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&time=1995..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_WRL

[viii] “Share of global CO₂ emissions: China.” Our World in Data. Accessed February 5, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-share-of-co2-emissions?country=~CHN

[ix] Millard, Rachel. “China pushes coal-fired power projects alongside renewables.” January 15, 2026. Accessed January 15, 2026. Accessed January 15, 2026. https://www.ft.com/content/103a731c-91cc-45bc-8769-ee4cadf3ce40

[x] “GDP (current US$)” World Bank. Accessed January 14, 2026. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

[xi] Ritchie, Hannah; Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. “Per capita, national, historical: how do countries compare on CO2 metrics?” Our World in Data. Accessed January 14, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

[xii] Ritchie, Hannah. “Where does the plastic in our oceans come from?” Our World in Data. May 1, 2021. Accessed January 26, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

[xiii] Rocky Mountain Institute. (EIN: 74-2244146). ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. IRS Form 990 reports (2001-most recently available). Accessed January 30, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/742244146

[xiv] “Nuclear Free Future.” Sierra Club. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.sierraclub.org/nuclear-free

[xv] Schrepfer, Susan R. “Diablo Canyon and the Transformation of the Sierra Club, 1965-1985.” California History. Summer 1992, Volume LXXI, No. 2. Reposted at FoundSF: The San Francisco Digital History Archve. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.foundsf.org/Diablo_Canyon_and_the_Transformation_of_the_Sierra_Club,_1965-1985

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