Can America Have Its “Cake” and Export It Too?

For energy folks, the rise of America's liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports is very well known. But our work is not for energy folks. It is for The People, the American public, who may not know what is happening here, or why it matters to their energy bill.

How we got here

Starting in the mid-2000s, new drilling methods unlocked a giant supply of natural gas under our feet. We suddenly had far more than we could use. Gas got cheap. Power companies and factories started using more of it, and it quickly became the fuel behind much of the country's electricity. Today, about four out of every ten units of electricity in America are made by burning natural gas. It also heats tens of millions of homes.

But cheap gas is valuable to other countries too. So U.S. companies began to chill it into a liquid and load it onto ships. That is what LNG is: liquefied natural gas. In 2016, we sent out almost none. Today, America ships more gas overseas than any other country on Earth.

You can see that turn in the chart above. The line barely moves for nearly twenty years, then climbs sharply after the first big export terminal opened in 2016.

The part that gets less attention

You have probably heard that data centers are hungry for power. The computers that run AI need a lot of electricity, and much of that electricity is made by burning natural gas. That worry is fair. But it is only half the story.

Here is the other half. By 2030, America is on track to ship overseas more than three times the gas that data centers are expected to use.

So the same supply of American gas now has two new big customers pulling on it. One is here at home, in the data centers. One is far away, in the countries that buy our LNG. Both want the very same gas we use to keep our lights on and our homes warm.

Why it matters

It is one resource. And two ginormous new customers are now gobbling it up. The gas that runs our power plants and heats our homes is the same gas that is powering the Artificial Intelligence boom AND the same gas being loaded onto ships bound for other countries.

So the next time someone starts talking about how much energy data centers are consuming, and how it is driving up our energy costs, ask them what they know about LNG. If they say "What's that?" then drop some truth.

Can America have its “cake” and export it too? Can it stake its economic future on a single technology, and then ship off the gas it needs to fuel AI’s growth at home? And what will happen to The People’s energy costs if America tries?

Add those questions to the mounting pile of uncertainties to be answered in the coming years.

Want to learn more about LNG? We strongly recommend watching this video.