Thanksgiving was this week. We are thankful for our many blessings and successes. Did you ever think to be thankful for your failures and disappointments? They can be better teachers than success.

Lynnda and I have been married for over 50 years. We are thankful for finding each other and being able to stay together for 50 years. We had bouts with cancer. Lynnda had a serious car accident in 2012. My job kept me on the road a lot early in my career and our marriage. We are blessed with three children and nine grandchildren.

Lynnda and I connecting was a result of failures and disappointments. My degree from WVU was in agricultural engineering. I interned with the U.S. Soil Conservation Service the summer before my senior year in college. I loved the work. My plan was simple: be an engineer with the SCS in West Virginia. As graduation approached, the federal government had a hiring freeze. I needed a Plan B.

I started interviewing companies. A company called Halliburton was looking for engineers of all types. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry was expanding following the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s. I didn’t know our region produced oil and natural gas. Halliburton hired me. It was my only job offer and I took it.

I packed my belongings into the trunk of my Plymouth Duster and left family, friends and girlfriend behind for Albion, Michigan, where unknown to me, Lynnda lived.

Lynnda wanted to be a nurse as a young girl working in the hospital as a candy striper. She found a mentor who inspired her. Lynnda’s high school guidance counselor was discouraging, telling Lynnda, “You are too stupid to be a nurse.”

Lynnda chose to join the U.S. Navy and became a corpsman (medic). After leaving the Navy, because of her experience, she was able to enter nursing school, becoming a licensed practical nurse and later a registered nurse.

If my original plan succeeded, I would have been an SCS engineer in West Virginia. If Lynnda’s plan was successful, she goes to nursing school out of high school, instead of the Navy, and gets a job somewhere as an RN instead of coming home to Albion where we eventually met. If either one of us had “succeeded,” we wouldn’t be together. Failure was a blessing.

Our boys high school soccer teams have won eight state championships. Every one of those teams experienced major failure before winning the championship. Our 2008 team scored first and outshot Pocahontas County 32-3 in the State Semifinal Game. Pocahontas County got three shots on goal scoring on two. We lost 2-1. The boys were devastated.

After the game, the juniors surrounded me outside the locker room in Beckley. “Coach, we are going to come back next year and win the state championship.” I told them, “That’s great. Don’t wait until next August. Start on Monday.”

That winter when I went to the YMCA to work out, the boys were leaving after their workouts. Their parents called them “screwballs.” They had no idea how motivated the boys were.

In 2009, those “screwballs” won our first state championship. Their failure was the fuel that drove them to success.

As long as we don’t quit, our setbacks show us what didn’t work. We must learn from them and adjust. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. My baby brother grabbed a hot charcoal when he was 2 years old. He never did that again.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. just released its 2025-2026 Winter Reliability Assessment. It showed rising electricity demand of 2.5% or 20 GW nationally over last winter. The report showed demand in the PJM (our regional power grid) will grow 3% over last winter. This is the result of increased electrification, data centers, AI and increased industrial load. The report shows adequate resources for normal winter peaking load. Extreme weather conditions for an extended period over a wide area could cause electricity shortfalls.

We learned at the West Virginia Governor’s Energy Summit that for the last four years, 95% of PJM’s power additions were intermittent renewables, due to a focus on carbon emissions. In the same period, base load coal power plants were shut down, creating a peak load energy shortfall. PJM recognized the failure and is now adding new natural gas power plants for base-load.

The COP 30 climate conference just ended with calls from politicians and activists to phase out fossil fuel use, but to what? It is easy to say, hard to do. People want clean air and water. They want to stay alive, feed their family and have a level of comfort. Without base load power people freeze to death like we saw in Texas in 2021. My electric heat pump runs on fossil fuels. Activists and politicians are clueless about energy poverty. People need economical, dependable energy to live. They need to be able to buy food, shelter and medicines.

In 2024, 87% of the world’s energy came from oil, natural gas and coal. Only 6% came from renewables. After over 30 years of trying to transition to renewables, 6% is a disappointment. No business could do that and exist. We need to learn from the disappointment and make changes. Renewables are important to our energy mix when used properly. As a total replacement for fossil fuels, they make no sound engineering sense. Fossil fuels are required to make them.

The calculations are easy. Base load power is needed to keep the lights on. PJM recognized this and made corrections. Nuclear power, geothermal energy or something else may be our base load power of the future. Should they have received the focus we gave renewables? Politicians and activists need to let true scientists and engineers do their jobs.

Like my brother and the hot charcoal, we need to learn from our failures and disappointments to achieve real success. We all have much to be thankful for. Disappointment and failure are the seeds of success if we choose to learn and move forward.

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Greg Kozera, gkozera@shalecrescentusa.com, is the director of marketing for Shale Crescent USA. He is a professional engineer with a masters in environmental engineering and over 40 years of experience in the energy industry. Greg is a leadership expert, high school soccer coach, professional speaker, author of four books and many published articles.