Russelville Powerplant by Edibobb
By Jo Nova
Remember all the people who said coal was a stranded asset?
The two largest economies on Earth are throwing money at it.
The AI boom is pushing the USA to invest in fossil fuel power in a big way(especially gas).
America Bets $50 Billion On Coal And Gas Power, More Than China, As Electricity Demand Soars
Irena Slav, OilPrice
U.S. companies are set to spend some $50 billion on power generation from coal and natural gas this year, the International Energy Agency has said, as quoted by the Financial Times.
This would be the first time in decades that U.S. spending on coal and gas generation would be higher than what China is investing in the two fuels, with the difference at $3 billion.
That is some transformation — wow.
Financial Times/ Zerohedge.
Waiting times have blown out for gas turbines:
The report cited a Rystad Energy analyst as saying prices for gas turbines have gone up from $800 per kWh to over $2,500. In addition to data centers, whose owners have bet on baseload power supply from gas power plants—and coal, too—the expansion of wind and solar has also prompted stronger demand for baseload generation to keep the grid balanced when the weather is unfavorable for either wind or solar generation, or both.
While demand for electricity soars, gas turbine production has been flat over the past few years, resulting in a deficit. Siemens Energy, one of the world’s top three gas turbine makers, reported in February that its gas services business had seen a record quarter in orders, with a total of 102 new turbines in the backlog. As much as 40% of these new orders came from the United States, and another 35% came from Europe.
As a commenter at Zero Hedge opined:
China spends $50B on coal plants and builds 50 new coal plants.
US spends $50B on coal plants and that pays for the permits, environmental studies and 10 years of litigation in the courts for one new coal plant.
We hope Trump has got rid of some of that red tape.
Still, it’s hard to sell the end of coal when the biggest economies are spending gangbusters on fossil fuels.