Many of this year’s most popular RBN blogs gravitated toward familiar energy market themes — rising exports, shifts in oil production, weak natural gas prices, surprising NGL pricing dynamics and the like. However, we also noted a significant uptick in interest in topics beyond the traditional energy realm, including hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), electric vehicles (EVs) and even the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers. It’s not that RBNers have shifted their focus away from oil, gas and NGL markets. Rather, it reflects a growing recognition that the renewable and alternative energy landscape — fueled by regulations, subsidies and tax incentives — is reshaping the energy world. For anyone in the energy business, staying one step ahead (or maybe three steps) means understanding how these trends intersect with traditional energy markets. In 2024, our readers made it clear: The interplay between renewable and conventional energy commodities is becoming increasingly important.
Renewables
Texas is the fastest-growing state for electricity consumption in the nation and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is responsible for about 90% of the state’s electricity service, said earlier this year that peak power demand could nearly double in just six years — from about 85 gigawatts (GW) currently to as much as 150 GW by 2030. The sudden increase is driven primarily by data centers and artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrency mining, the state's growing population and increasing temperatures. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss how Texas intends to address its growing appetite for power.
Over the past few years, tax credits and other incentives — both financial and regulatory — have breathed life into the U.S. market for sustainable aviation fuel, whose production is now ramping up, with more SAF capacity on the way. But the sector may experience turbulence under the incoming Trump administration, which has pledged to undo much of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and pull back on the stepped-up decarbonization efforts that helped define the Biden presidency. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the latest developments in the SAF space and the choppiness the still-fledgling sector may soon face.
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
Texas and California are opposites in many ways, including their expectations for power prices in the summer ahead. Texas set single-day demand records several times last year and is anticipating more sizzling temperatures — and higher power prices — this year with demand expected to be near available supply. It’s the opposite for California, where the state’s extensive renewable buildout and higher-than-normal hydropower resources are helping keep a lid on power costs. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine the factors impacting Texas and California that are causing these polarizing power conditions.
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
Rising global interest in clean ammonia — plus the potential for earning generous federal tax credits — spurred a host of project announcements over the past couple of years, with the first new production capacity slated to start up as soon as 2025. But reality is setting in regarding the pace of clean-ammonia demand growth and the financial, regulatory and other challenges of developing complicated, big-dollar projects, particularly those involving carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). In today’s RBN blog, we provide an update on the major clean ammonia proposals we’ve been tracking.
The growing number of energy-intensive data centers coming online across the U.S. is spurring utilities to ramp up their plans for adding new sources of power generation — including a slew of gas-fired plants — and also complicating their efforts to rely more on renewable resources and decarbonize the power grid. The push to quickly develop new energy infrastructure is also running into well-documented issues with permitting such projects. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the proliferation of massive data centers — many of them catering to the surge in interest in artificial intelligence (AI) — and what that means for utilities and power-related demand for natural gas.
The intermittent nature of renewable energy is a well-documented thorn in the side of efforts to decarbonize the power grid, especially with more wind and solar generation coming online every year. But while those sources of clean energy are not available all the time, it’s also true that they can sometimes produce more power than transmission lines or a power grid can handle during other periods, leading to curtailments. An increasingly important tool that can lessen the impact of both problems is power storage. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll address the limitations of today’s storage options and look at how long-duration energy storage (LDES) could play a critical role in the years ahead.
Listen to Paul Simon’s “The Sound of Silence” and you hear the words of a teenager coming to terms with the disconnect between the world his parents promised and the real world yet to come. In the LNG market, there’s a similar generational divide. A business built on long-term contracts, rigid trade patterns, and the promise of substantial growth potential is being met with a more skeptical outlook, one in which a large amount of incremental LNG supply has been locked up but serious questions remain about LNG demand. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, an entire generation of LNG supply is being built on the presumption of selling it for $10/MMBtu or more, but a shortfall in demand growth could leave it selling for considerably less. And if that happens … sunk-cost economics, here we come.
When the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was passed into law in August 2022, it earned near-unanimous acclaim from longtime supporters of renewable energy and decarbonization efforts. Industry types also approved of the bill’s focus on incentives to fuel new developments. One of its most ambitious elements was creation of the 45V production tax credit (PTC) for clean hydrogen, a central part of the Biden administration’s efforts to build a clean-energy economy. But while the PTC may have a significant impact on the U.S. energy landscape over the long run, the December 2023 rollout of the proposed rulemaking has generated no small amount of criticism. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll lay out some of the changes that some say should be included in the final rulemaking to help the clean-hydrogen economy make a quick break from the starting gate instead of getting left at the back of the pack.
The federal government’s Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (PTC), also known as 45V, provides the highest incentives for hydrogen produced using clean sources of power generation, like wind and solar. That might seem like great news for current and potential hydrogen producers looking to take advantage of the credit, since the U.S. has added significant renewable generation capacity in the last several years, but the reality is much different. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explain how “additionality” fits into the “three pillars” of clean hydrogen, how it would be calculated under the proposed guidance, and some ways the rules might be adjusted to give hydrogen producers and power generators a little more flexibility.
Everyone in Texas remembers the infamous Winter Storm Uri of three years ago. What started out as a simple cold snap for many quickly turned into something far more serious: the biggest power outage in state history, with billions of dollars in property damage and hundreds of lives lost. Since then, the expected arrival of frigid temperatures has been met with some trepidation, but the critical failures of February 2021 have so far been avoided in subsequent storms. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the steps the state has taken in recent years to weatherize its power grid, show why January’s cold snap turned out to be no big deal, and explain why renewables are playing an increasingly important role in grid reliability during extreme weather conditions.
Think energy markets are getting back to normal? After all, prices have been relatively stable, production is growing at a healthy rate, and infrastructure bottlenecks are front and center again. Just like the good ol’ days, right? Absolutely not. It’s a whole new energy world out there, with unexpected twists and turns around every corner — everything from regional hostilities, renewables subsidies, disruptions at shipping pinch points, pipeline capacity shortfalls and all sorts of other quirky variables. There’s just no way to predict what is going to happen next, right? Nah. All we need to do is stick our collective RBN necks out one more time, peer into our crystal ball, and see what 2024 has in store for us.