Trump, China and 300 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil
As the US powers ahead with its plans to recover Latin America’s ‘oil El Dorado’, we explore Venezuela’s environmental and geopolitical outlook
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For more than three decades, the word Chernobyl has become synonymous with catastrophic failure and with disaster. Its legacy weighed on popular perceptions of nuclear power for years, and it came to symbolize Soviet decline. Chernobyl is now attracting renewed attention these days, with a popular HBO miniseries and a tremendous new book, Midnight in Chernobyl, written by Adam Higginbotham.
In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by Adam Higginbotham to discuss his new book, a thrilling, chilling, and gripping account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The book holds lessons today, too, as we contemplate the role of nuclear power in trying to achieve a decarbonized world to address the threat of climate change.
Adam has written extensively on a variety of topics for The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, and many more publications. He’s also the former U.S. correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph.
Jason and Adam sat down to discuss Midnight in Chernobyl, the causes and consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, the future of nuclear power, and much more.
From the affordability crisis and the data center boom, to the US government’s campaign to reinvigorate the Venezuelan oil market, energy is dominating headlines in unusual ways. And...
Great power competition—particularly between the United States and China—is intensifying. This rivalry is reshaping everything from technology supply chains and energy security to the future of artificial intelligence. ...
Early on January 3, 2026, the United States apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and removed Maduro from power. Maduro was transported to New York, where he now faces federal charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
This has been a crucial year for US energy policy. The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated many of the clean energy incentives that were...
Venezuela holds 70% of Latin America's natural gas reserves, which it could export to Colombia and Trinidad to increase revenues.
Models can predict catastrophic or modest damages from climate change, but not which of these futures is coming.
The US intervention in Venezuela may jeopardize both the flow of discounted Venezuelan oil to China's teapot refineries and the role of Chinese oil companies in Venezuela’s upstream business.
In discussing the dramatic seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, over the weekend, President Donald Trump declared that the United States would now “take back” the country’s oil. Yet he has offered little clarity on what exactly this means.