C3 Journal on

Natural Resources

Essays, evidence, and original arguments from the writers shaping this conversation.

The C3 Journal newsletter

Field Notes

A weekly briefing of essential essays—including the newest thinking on Natural Resources.

All essays

Natural Resources archive

Energy

How to Make Rare Earths More Plentiful

“The West does not need to develop a home-grown substitute for the entire Chinese rare-earth industry to reduce the threat China’s monopoly poses,” the Economist article concluded. Indeed, “the West could ‘significantly derisk’ by cutting its reliance on China to 60-70 percent of consumption. That would provide sufficient alternative supply for the most critical uses.”

→

Infrastructure

The Need for SPEED: Why Permitting Reform is Essential to Our Economic Progress and Environmental Ambitions

In the need to innovate, invest, and build for a cleaner, more prosperous future, time is far from a neutral variable. It can be a competitive advantage or a competitive disadvantage, depending on what you’re building and where you’re building it. Permitting reform will create more opportunities where investing and building in America is a competitive advantage, enabling us to meet our energy and infrastructure needs, as well as our environmental ambitions.

→

Energy

Natural Gas: Powering America’s AI Revolution

Just look at the numbers. U.S. data centers used 176 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2023, triple what they consumed less than a decade earlier. By 2030, we’re talking about 400–500 TWh every year, enough to power 20 to 30 million homes. That’s not a blip on the chart. That’s a new industrial revolution. So what fuels this surge? Natural gas.

→

Energy

Let’s Go Deep on Geothermal

During his 2024 campaign, President Trump frequently talked about the “liquid gold” under our American feet. He meant oil and natural gas reserves. We have fossil fuels in…

→

Conservation

Making America Beautiful Through Better Federal Land Management 

But these landscapes and ecosystems cannot thrive without intentional conservation and responsible stewardship. That’s why it was fitting that the President signed the “Make America Beautiful Again” executive order one day before Independence Day, an initiative aimed at conserving and restoring America’s natural environment for future generations.

→

Conservation

New USDA Rule Seeks to Streamline Environmental Reviews

Energy developers, foresters, and farmers alike are all too familiar with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). At the USDA, NEPA has stifled progress through lengthy environmental impact statements and redundant environmental assessments for projects ranging from farmland conservation to forest management and livestock grazing.

→

Introducing C3 Journal

A new Journal. A bigger conversation.

C3 News Mag is now C3 Journal—a complete rethink of what an energy and environmental publication can be. Original essays. Leading contributors. The issues that matter, examined by some of America’s best policy minds. Built for the people making consequential decisions about energy, the environment, and our shared future.

C3 News Mag is now C3 Journal. A new home for original essays, leading policy minds, and the ideas shaping energy and the environment.

Get Field Notes, the C3 Journal newsletter.