This is phenomenal.
I showed you a brief clip of from NextEra CEO John Ketchum a few weeks ago, where he described how renewables could meet new demand much more quickly than gas or nuclear.
Here he goes deeper and describes the impact from a shortage of gas turbine hardware,(see below) and further underlines the competitiveness of renewables right now.
There is also discussion of the recent letter signed by 21 Republicans pleading for the preservation of tax incentives for wind, solar and battery under the Inflation Reduction Act, which I’ve also mentioned here.
Ketchum ends by saying “Renewables are the bridge” that will get us to a future where we can, I guess, build all that great gas. I remember 15 years ago it was supposed to be gas that was the “reliable bridge fuel” that would get us to the renewable energy.
In the meantime, renewable prices have plummeted, fossil gas challenges have multiplied, and we live in a different world.
Investors are betting on natural gas. If these demand projections aren’t just hot air, the energy resource fueling all this growth will be, so to speak. Where actually deploying new gas power is concerned, however, there’s a big problem: All major gas turbine manufacturers, slammed by massive order growth, now have backlogs for new turbine deliveries stretching out to 2029 or later. Energy news coverage has mentioned these potential project development delays sometimes in passing, sometimes not at all. But this looming mismatch between gas power demand and turbine supply is a real problem for the grid and everyone who depends on it.
What is unsaid here is, that if the Trump administration succeeds in blocking wind, solar and battery projects, rolling brownouts will follow.
I’m pretty sure Ketchum has been drinking in the video. Understandable, maybe, at a convention, depending on what time the interview was done, but it seems pretty…irresponsible? to me.
His message about all of the above is OK, except for the all part, but he’s still an energy owner parroting the self-serving conventional wisdom that AI & crypto are going to vastly increase energy demand, a dubious argument being used to pump life into nuclear & fossil zombies. Even when they’re right they’re wrong.
The key here is that they know that labor and materials (and insurance!) costs for big construction projects like gas and nuclear power plants are going to climb, so they’re pushing for quicker and cheaper solar and storage.