Private Equity Is Circling Utilities as AI Reshapes the Grid

While it seems that Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on much of anything these days, there’s at least one common enemy that’s bringing both sides of the aisle together: data centers. Representatives on both sides of the aisle are increasingly pushing back against hyperscalers who are developing massive data center campuses on local energy grids, driving up energy demand and therefore causing electricity prices to skyrocket for everyone, whether they benefit from the artificial intelligence boom or not. The Trump administration…

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The Race to Unlock the World’s Hidden Hydrogen Reserves

Countries around the globe are racing to become the world’s first geologic hydrogen hotspot. A few years ago, the United States Department of Energy released a bombshell report that estimated that there are trillions of metric tons of natural hydrogen deposits sitting in underground pockets around the world – and that a considerable amount of that could be extracted for industrial use. Energy companies around the world have been eagerly exploring for the most ideal locations to put that theory to the test – and they’re zeroing…

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Iraq Wants to Double Oil Output—and Needs OPEC to Get Out of the Way

Iraq wants to more than double its oil production within six years. First, it needs OPEC to let it. Baghdad is targeting output of between 8 million and 10 million barrels per day, up from roughly 4 million bpd before the Iran war, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said Friday. Iraq dispatched its oil and finance ministers to Saudi Arabia the same day to make the case for a higher OPEC production quota. OPEC+ has hired DeGolyer and MacNaughton to independently assess the maximum sustainable production capacity of most members, including Iraq. The consultancy…

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Europe Dodges a Rhine Crisis for the Worst Possible Reason

The Rhine has slightly risen from its mid-August record low (when Kaub’s water level gauge – at the river’s decisive chokepoint – was below 10 cm), but the relief is mostly optical. Barges still cannot carry normal loads through it, leaving the industrial corridor from Rotterdam and Antwerp to southern Germany, eastern France and Switzerland short of transport capacity. The immediate result is expensive freight, constrained chemical production and uneven fuel supply. However, the more troubling conclusion is that Europe…

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The Gas Turbine Shortage Just Became AI’s Biggest Constraint

Order a heavy-duty gas turbine from GE Vernova today and it won’t arrive until 2031. That’s the company’s actual production schedule, confirmed on its July 22 earnings call, and it’s the fact sitting underneath every AI data center power plan announced in the last two years. It comes up far less often than the announcements do. Goldman Sachs put hard numbers on the demand side in May. U.S. data center power demand climbs from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 41 GW this year and 66 GW in 2027. Year-over-year capacity additions accelerate…

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Clean Energy Spending Tracking Toward Record $180 Billion in 2026

Donald Trump is accidentally overseeing a massive buildout of the country’s renewable energy capacity and infrastructure. Not only are investments in renewable technologies soaring to new highs, the national energy grid is rapidly transforming to accommodate an increasingly solar- and wind-powered energy mix.  Despite massive rollbacks of Biden- and Obama-era clean energy incentives and financial supports, investment in clean energy tech keeps soaring to new heights, buoyed by market forces far outside of the federal government’s…

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Every Chokepoint That Isn’t Hormuz

For six months the entire conversation about oil logistics has been about one strait, and you can hardly blame anyone for that. Hormuz has been effectively closed since late February, when the war between Iran and the U.S. and Israel started, and the EIA reckons only 4.9 million barrels a day of crude and liquids made it through in the second quarter. In the last quarter of 2025 that number was 21.6 million. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in June that management of the strait “will never return to the way it was before the…

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IEA: Southeast Asia Needs Grid Investment to Nearly Quadruple by 2050

Southeast Asia needs to invest heavily in upgrading and modernising its transmission networks if countries across the region hope to deploy larger quantities of renewable energy over the next decade. With investment in green energy growing ever higher, the grid systems in countries such as Indonesia, India, and Vietnam simply cannot keep up with capacity growth, creating a bottleneck in power distribution. Upgrading and expanding transmission networks would respond to the growth in regional power demand while reducing dependence on fossil fuels. …

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China’s New Five-Year Plan Preps the Nation for Peak Oil

China's energy strategy has largely shielded it from the fallout of the war in Iran and the resultant closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global oil and gas trade. However, the country's newest five-year plan for its oil and gas sector reveals ongoing anxieties about geopolitical tensions, future conflicts, reliance on energy imports, and the country's dwindling crude supplies. Released to the public on Monday by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, the newest five-year plan focuses…

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The Race to Unlock the World’s Hidden Hydrogen Reserves

Countries around the globe are racing to become the world’s first geologic hydrogen hotspot. A few years ago, the United States Department of Energy released a bombshell report that estimated that there are trillions of metric tons of natural hydrogen deposits sitting in underground pockets around the world – and that a considerable amount of that could be extracted for industrial use. Energy companies around the world have been eagerly exploring for the most ideal locations to put that theory to the test – and they’re zeroing…

Continue ReadingThe Race to Unlock the World’s Hidden Hydrogen Reserves