RICHARD LYON — PRESS BIOGRAPHIES
richardlyon.net/press

50 WORDS

Richard Lyon spent more than twenty-five years as a senior operations manager in international oil and gas exploration and operations. He is an electrical engineer, petroleum engineer and energy economist, and the author of The Energy Trap: Why the Renewable Energy Transition Can’t Work – and What Can (Swift Press, 2026).

150 WORDS

Richard Lyon spent more than twenty-five years as a senior operations manager in international oil and gas exploration and operations, working in the UK, Norway, Azerbaijan, the Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. He comes at energy the way an operator does: measure first, argue second. He is an electrical engineer, petroleum engineer and energy economist, with a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, an MEng in Petroleum Engineering and an MSc in Energy Economics; his master’s research measured how optimistic institutional estimates of remaining oil reserves are. His book The Energy Trap: Why the Renewable Energy Transition Can’t Work – and What Can is published by Forum, an imprint of Swift Press. He writes the newsletter The State of Britain and runs the UK Subsidy Clock, a public tally of what energy subsidies have cost British consumers since 2002. His writing has appeared in The Telegraph and CapX.

300 WORDS

Richard Lyon spent more than twenty-five years as a senior operations manager in international oil and gas exploration and operations, running operations in the UK, Norway, Azerbaijan, the Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. He comes at energy the way an operator does: measure first, argue second.

He is an electrical engineer, petroleum engineer and energy economist. After a first degree in electrical engineering and service in the Royal Air Force, he took a second degree, in petroleum engineering, and joined the oil and gas industry. Part way through his career, a request for a memo on ‘Peak Oil’ became a master’s degree in energy economics, and a research project measuring how optimistic institutional estimates of remaining oil reserves are. He holds a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, an MEng in Petroleum Engineering and an MSc in Energy Economics.

His book, The Energy Trap: Why the Renewable Energy Transition Can’t Work – and What Can, was published by Forum, an imprint of Swift Press, on 24 September 2026. It grew from a conviction, formed over three decades of producing, managing and studying energy, that the gap between energy policy and physical reality has become dangerous, and that the public are perfectly able to understand the physics and challenge the policies being made in their name.

He writes the newsletter The State of Britain, which checks the arithmetic behind Britain’s energy policy and references every figure so that readers can check it rather than trust it, and runs the UK Subsidy Clock (subsidyclock.co.uk), a public tally, built from official sources, of what energy subsidies have cost British consumers since 2002. His writing and interviews have appeared in The Telegraph, CapX and the Sunday Post, and on The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast and Times Radio.


THE BOOK

The Energy Trap: Why the Renewable Energy Transition Can’t Work – and What Can
Richard Lyon
Forum, an imprint of Swift Press · published 24 September 2026
ISBN 9781800757356 · eISBN 9781800757363

In this short, sharp book, Richard Lyon – electrical engineer, petroleum engineer and energy economist – strips the energy debate back to the physics. What he finds is alarming: fossil fuels are running out, the proposed replacements can’t do the job and the people in charge don’t understand the science well enough to realise, much less pursue solutions.

The consequences could be severe, but they are not yet inevitable. In a series of lucid chapters, The Energy Trap sets out the problem and proposes a way forward – provided we are willing to stop wasting our remaining resources on energy systems that can’t work and get on with building one that can.
(Publisher’s description, Swift Press.)


PHOTOGRAPHS AND JACKET

richard-lyon-colour.jpg and richard-lyon-bw.jpg: author photographs, 4681 × 7021 px, 300 dpi.
the-energy-trap-jacket.jpg: front cover, 3116 × 4816 px, 600 dpi.

ENQUIRIES

Interviews, comment, review copies and extracts: richardlyon.net/press