A Tribute to Ronald Stein, P.E.: Champion of Energy Literacy and Unyielding Truth-Teller

By Stephen Heins, The Word Merchant

A Tribute to Ronald Stein, P.E.: Champion of Energy Literacy and Unyielding Truth-Teller

By Stephen Heins, The Word Merchant

In an era where soundbites often eclipse substance, and greenwashing drowns out the hard facts of human progress, Ronald Stein, P.E., stands as a beacon of unflinching clarity. As an engineer, energy consultant, author, and founder of PTS Advance, Ron has dedicated his career to demystifying the energy conundrum that powers our world—and the illusions that threaten to short-circuit it.

Today, on November 6, 2025, as we reflect on the voices that refuse to be silenced, we pay tribute to this ambassador for energy and infrastructure, whose work reminds us that true freedom begins with understanding the very forces that sustain it.

Ron’s journey is one forged in the rigor of real-world engineering, not the echo chambers of policy think tanks. A co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Clean Energy Exploitations: Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses that Support ‘Clean’ Energy, published in 2021 alongside public policy consultant Todd Royal, Ron has become a relentless advocate for what he calls “energy literacy.”

This isn’t just jargon; it’s a call to arms. In his writings for America Out Loud News, Ron hammers home a simple, sobering truth: Wind turbines and solar panels, for all their noble intentions, generate only sporadic electricity, but are incapable of making any of the more than 6,000 products and transportation fuels that are made from fossil fuels. They can’t manufacture the steel for our bridges, the plastics for our medical devices, or the fertilizers that feed billions. As he often quips, renewables are “unreliable breezes and sunshine” masquerading as saviors, while the backbone of civilization—the products and transportation fuels from oil, and the continuous and uninterruptable electricity from natural gas, and nuclear—gets demonized.

The book itself serves as a cornerstone of Ron’s message, offering a critical examination of the hidden costs of the global push for renewable electricity sources such as wind, solar. Stein and Royal argue that while “clean” electricity is promoted as a solution to climate change, it often relies on exploitative practices in developing countries, including child labor in cobalt mines, environmental degradation from rare earth extraction, and unsafe working conditions in supply chains dominated by nations like China and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They highlight ethical inconsistencies among green advocates, who demand sustainable sourcing for consumer goods like coffee or diamonds but overlook similar abuses in battery and renewable tech production.

Key themes in Clean Energy Exploitation include the ineffectiveness of policies like the Green New Deal in meaningfully reducing global emissions, the perpetuation of “energy racism” and inequality, in which wealthy nations benefit from poor countries’ resources, and the limitations of renewables in meeting reliable electricity demands without fossil-fuel and nuclear backups.

The authors emphasize that environmental problems would persist even without the U.S., advocating for an “electricity agnostic” approach that prioritizes ethical, balanced strategies over ideologically driven ones that exacerbate human rights violations and ecological harm. A 2022 Pulitzer Prize nominee in General Nonfiction, the book aims to foster “energy literacy” by urging readers to consider the full lifecycle impacts of green technologies and to question who actually bears the burden of pollution reduction. Overall, it’s a call for more humane and realistic electricity policies that don’t trade one form of exploitation for another.

What sets Ron apart isn’t just his expertise—he’s a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, after all—but his moral compass. He ties electricity to human rights with a passion that’s as rare as it is vital. In articles like those exploring how electricity energy poverty stifles developing nations or how misguided policies exacerbate global inequalities, Ron doesn’t just crunch numbers; he humanizes them.

His national TV commentaries alongside Rick Amato cut through the noise, delivering data-driven takedowns of virtue-signaling agendas that prioritize headlines over heat and light. Through PTS Advance, the California-based staffing augmentation firm he founded, Ron has consulted on projects that bridge infrastructure gaps, proving that innovation thrives when grounded in practicality rather than ideology.

Ron’s voice resonates because it’s unapologetically pro-humanity. In a world racing toward net-zero fantasies that could leave billions in the dark without electricity and without the more than 6,000 products that supported the population growth from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years, he champions a balanced path: Leverage all energy sources, innovate relentlessly, and never forget the 8 billion lives depending on reliable power, products and transportation fuels. His book and articles aren’t dry tomes; they’re wake-up calls, laced with wit and wisdom that make complex topics accessible. As he advocates, energy literacy isn’t optional—it’s the foundation of informed citizenship, the spark of the First Amendment’s fire.

Ronald Stein, your words don’t just illuminate circuits; they light the way for generations. Thank you for your courage, your clarity, and your commitment to a world where electricity serves people, not slogans. Here’s to more voices like yours—loud, lucid, and leaving the lights on.

For deeper dives, explore Ron’s latest at America Out Loud News. His book is a must-read for anyone serious about the energy literacy.