Avi Salzman
Avi Salzman focuses on how shifts in global energy supply, prices, and technology ripple through companies, markets, and investors. His coverage spans oil and gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy, with a recurring emphasis on the political and corporate consequences of the energy transition.
Energy prices and political fallout
A core strand of Salzman’s work examines energy price swings and the risks they pose for companies and markets. In coverage of rising electricity prices, he traces how higher power bills can provoke political backlash and regulatory responses that reshape the operating environment for utilities and energy-intensive businesses. He writes in similar detail about red flags for oil prices in Europe and China, linking demand shifts and policy developments abroad to pressure points for producers and energy investors. Across these pieces he treats energy not just as a commodity story but as a driver of corporate earnings, government action, and sector-level performance.
Power for data centers, bitcoin miners, and AI
Salzman devotes substantial attention to the new wave of power demand from data centers, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure. In a feature on data center politics and bitcoin miners, he explains how local permitting fights, grid constraints, and policy incentives can unexpectedly benefit mining companies that can flexibly modulate their power use. His reporting on Walmart’s first nuclear power deal extends that lens to major corporate buyers, showing how large retailers and technology users are turning to advanced nuclear projects to secure long-term, low-carbon electricity for data centers and other energy-hungry operations. He treats these stories as case studies in how corporate procurement, emerging technologies, and infrastructure policy intersect, rather than as isolated technology pieces.
Oil, gas, and energy stocks
Another through-line in Salzman’s work is close tracking of oil and gas markets and the companies that depend on them. He regularly covers the outlook for oil and gas prices, drawing out implications for energy producers, refiners, and investors in sector-focused funds and equities. On Barron’s Live and other discussions, he breaks down themes in energy investing, from the resilience of traditional oil and gas companies to the competitiveness of renewables in a higher-rate environment.
His pieces often bridge commodity fundamentals - such as supply discipline from producers or demand trends in key regions - with practical takeaways for investors in energy stocks and related sectors.
Texas growth, energy build-out, and long-form features
Salzman also writes longer narrative features that situate energy within broader economic shifts. In a cover story on the Texas economic boom, he examines how AI, oil, and what he calls “Y’all Street” are driving rapid growth in the state, detailing how a concentration of headquarters, job creation, and both clean and conventional energy projects is reshaping its economy. A companion sidebar on new stock exchanges in Texas extends that reporting into market structure, showing how local financial hubs emerge alongside energy and industrial build-outs. Earlier in his career he has reported on broader business and personal finance topics, including a retirement-planning interview that explored longevity annuities, savings behavior, and the role of major asset managers and public policy in supporting longer lifespans. This mix of feature writing and service-oriented finance coverage informs his current approach to energy, where he blends corporate case studies, policy context, and investor-focused analysis.
Experience across news and business outlets
Salzman brings experience from both general news and business-focused publications to his current beat.
In addition to his energy work at Barron’s, he has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Businessweek, and the Hartford Courant, giving him a background that spans breaking news, metro and regional coverage, and markets-oriented reporting. He now uses that range to anchor energy stories in concrete developments - such as price spikes, corporate power contracts, and regional growth spurts - while keeping an eye on how policy, politics, and market structure shape outcomes for companies and investors.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.