Energy News Beat

Amid surging demand from data centers (AI, cloud, crypto) and increasing share of EVs.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The quantity of electricity generated in the US by all sources, from natural gas to rooftop solar, rose by 3.1% in 2024 from 2023 to a record of 4,304,039 gigawatt-hours (GWh), according to data from the EIA today.

This is now clearly a breakout in demand, after 14 years of stagnation, from 2007 through 2021, when electricity users, to reduce their costs, invested in more efficient equipment – lights, appliances, electronic equipment, industrial equipment, heating and air-conditioning, etc. – and in better building insulation, shading, etc., to reduce their power costs. This relentless drive for greater efficiency kept demand roughly stable for years despite the growing economy and population. And it mired many power generators and electric utilities in a no-growth business where it was difficult to justify investment.

Now the scenario has changed, largely due to the growth in demand from data centers (AI, cloud, crypto) and the increasing penetration of EVs in the national vehicle fleet – EVs accounted for over 10% of US vehicle sales in 2024.

The share of total electricity generated by source:

Natural gas rules. Power generation from natural gas rose by 3.3% to a record of 1,864,874 GWh in 2024.

The share of natural gas as source for power generation remained roughly unchanged in 2024, matching the record of 42.7% of 2023, about double its share in 2007. Natural gas had surpassed nuclear in 2006 and coal in 2016 (blue in the chart below).

The US is the largest natural gas producer and the largest LNG exporter in the word. Production has oversupplied the US market and has caused the price of natural gas to collapse since 2009.

The modern combined-cycle gas turbine powerplants have a thermal efficiency of around 65%, nearly double that of older coal powerplants. These two – low price of US natural gas and the high efficiency of the combined-cycle plants – made natural gas immensely attractive for power generators.

Coal power generation fell by 3.3% to 652,760 GWh in 2024. Its share dropped to a record low of 14.9% of total power generation, down from 51% in 2001 (black in the chart below).

Coal cannot compete with cheap natural gas and the efficiency of a combined-cycle gas turbine powerplant. More recently, wind power became more cost-efficient than coal. It all boils down to costs. Gas is cheap. With renewables, the “fuel” is free; and all methods of power generation require costly plants, equipment, maintenance.

Power generators have not built any new coal-fired power plants over the past decade. They’re too inefficient and expensive to operate.

And they’ve been retiring their old inefficient and expensive-to-operate coal-fired power plants. In 2025, of the 12.3 Gigawatts (GW) of capacity that power generators plan to retire, 66% are old coal-fired plants, 21% are old natural-gas-fired plants, 13% are old petroleum-fired plants.

Generation from all renewables combined – wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass – rose by 3.1% to a record 1,061,258 GWh, driven by surging generation from wind (+7.7%) and solar (+26.9%).

The share of all renewables combined increased to 24.2% of total power generation (red). More on them separately in a moment.

Nuclear power generation edged up 0.9% to 781,979 GWh, and its share edged down to 17.8% of total generation (green).

The share of petroleum liquids and petroleum coke declined to 0.3%, having nearly vanished as source of power generation. The planned retirements this year will further reduce generation (purple).

Power generation from renewables.

Wind power generation jumped by 7.7% in 2024, to a record 453,454 GWh. Its share grew to 10.3% of total power generation (red in the chart below).

The Big Five states for utility-scale wind-power generation in 2023, according to separate EIA data, in GWh and % share of US wind power generation:

1. Texas: 119,836 GWh, 28%
2. Iowa: 41,869 GWh, 10%
3. Oklahoma: 37,731 GWh, 9%
4. Kansas: 27,462 GWh, 6.5%
5. Illinois: 22,054 GWh, 5%

Solar power generation – utility scale and rooftop solar – surged 26.9% to 303,167 GWh. Its share ballooned to 6.9% of the total power generated, surpassing hydropower (yellow).

Wind and solar combined had a share of 17.2% of total power production in the US, a higher share than coal, and close to nuclear.

Power generation from small-scale solar – such as rooftop systems on homes, retail stores, parking garages, etc. – jumped 15.3% to 84,630 GWh, for a share of 1.9% of total power generated in 2024.

Hydropower generation dipped 1.1% to 242,226 GWh. Its share declined to 5.5% of total power generation (blue).

Biomass power generation declined 1.0% to 46,740 GWh, and its share eased to 1.1% of total power generated. Biomass includes wood and wood-derived fuels, landfill gas, and other waste biomass (black).

Geothermal remained at a minuscule share of 0.4% of total power generated. Most geothermal plants were built in the 1970s in California (green).

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Daily Standup Top Stories

Green Swindle Loses Again: EV Automaker Runs Out Of Juice

February 25, 2025 Stu Turley

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:10 – Green Swindle Loses Again: EV Automaker Runs Out Of Juice

02:45 – NY’s Net Zero Dream Unravels As Utopian Climate Plans Face Lawsuit Woes

05:22 – Markets Update

07:24 – Civitas Resources, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results

08:48 – Chord Energy Reports Strong Q4, Increases Dividend

09:32 – Outro

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

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Michael Tanner: [00:00:10] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Wednesday, February 26th, 2025 edition of the Daily Energy Newsbeat Standup. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, green swindle loses again, EV automaker runs out of juice. The story of Nikola and the trucking business. We will cover all that. And then finally, in the new segment, New York’s net zero dream unravels as utopian climate plans face lawsuit woes. I will then jump over quickly to cover what happened to oil and gas markets. Oil prices fell off a little bit of a cliff that it will cover about why. And then the two earnings I want to highlight. One, Civitas, mainly because their stock absolutely cratered on some news that may be not be related to their actual stock price. But then as we jump over, we will also look at Chord Energy, who we’ve talked a little bit on my Deal Spotlight podcast. And we will dive into all that and a bag of chips, guys. As always, I am Michael Tanner rocking a solo show today. Stu is out on assignment. Let’s go ahead kick this off. All right. [00:01:09][59.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:01:10] First up, green swindle loses again. EV automaker runs out of juice. If you guys don’t remember Trevor Milton and his hyped up Nikola, they were supposed to be the EV replacement for semi trucks. They were kind of a splash competitor up there with Tesla. You know, they went public, if anyone remembers, in the hype of June of 2020 with their market value jumping all the way to 27 billion. We actually had it higher than Ford, even though they had had really not sent a single vehicle. But it is a lot of stuff turned out to be pretty false there in 2022. Their founder, Trevor Milton, as I mentioned, went to jail for fraud. Their infamous vehicle rolling down the hill was actually doing just that, which was rolling. They were supposed to have a thousand mile ranges on all electric trucks. The issue is they only actually delivered about 500 of the 14 ,000 promised trucks. And they had to recall about 209 of them over battery fire issues. The median price tag on these trucks was $250 ,000, which is about twice the speed of an internal combustion engine. And so they finally, even after firing him, trying to reconsolidate, have gone bankrupt. And it’s pretty crazy. And so it was, you know, again, pretty unbelievable what happened with them. You talk about going from 27 billion all the way down to zero now to basically be sold for parts. It really goes to show that these automakers, you know, Tesla being, I think, the exclusion of this, all these automakers that are other than the normal established ones really traded these really crazy multiples. I think this goes into kind of the green new scam that we’re going to talk about. [00:02:44][94.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:45] So let’s jump over to the next one. New York’s net zero dream unravels as utopian climate plants face lawsuit woes. You know, New York was really relying on theoretically wind and solar to save its electrical woes, but they, and they had multiple, multiple contracts to build very large wind farms to replace some of their fossil fuel generation. But all of them or most of them have already been completely canceled or rebuilt at a much higher and uneconomic prices, which is the minority. Basically, you know, the reason why this situation has got worse is because since president Trump has taken place, he began dismantling the federal support and subsidies for these, which means, which goes to show that these projects can’t stand up without any subsidies. According to this, this executive order, which temporarily withdrew all outer continental shelf from leasing wind power. You know, there are, you know, basically all if, you know, most, if not all of New York’s offshore wind is actually on these leases. So they really can’t actually build anything. But, you know, basically what, what this goes to show is that New York was relying on many billions of dollars to prop up wind, solar, and green. It’s pretty unbelievable to see what’s happened. To give you guys an idea, the New York state climates leadership and community protection app of 19 of 2019 actually remains on the books. The statute commands the complete restructuring of New York’s energy economy. I’m reading straight from the article now to reach quote net zero greenhouse gasses by 2050 with an immediate first deadline of 20, 70 % of electrical generation renewables by 2030, though they actually never had a plan to achieve that that was supposed to be on the book. So it goes to show you that all this green stuff is, is, is, was being subsidies. If one, if, if, if by a stroke of a pen, a president by just pulling away subsidies can absolutely decimate an injury. It goes to show you really how much they do rely on subsidies and, and, and how it really can’t hold its weight under, you know, scrutiny relative to other sources. So wind farms, they’re falling left and right. [00:04:42][116.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:42] Let’s go ahead and jump over now and quickly look at finances guys. Before we do that, we got to pay the bills as always. Thank you for checking us out here on the world’s greatest website, www .energynewsbeat .com, the best place for all your energy and oil and gas news, Stu and the team do a tremendous job, making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. You can hit that description below for all links to the timestamps, links to the article, shout out to sponsor of the show, Reese Energy Consulting. Go check them out guys. ReeseEnergyConsulting .com for all your oil, gas marketing and LNG needs. And as always guys, invest in oil .energynewsbeat .com if you want to become Billy Bob Thornton from Landman. [00:05:20][38.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:22] But let’s jump over here. Market headlines here guys. S &P 500 down about a half a percentage point. NASDAQ down a full 1 .2 percentage points, two and 10 -year yields went out 1 .7 and 2 .3 % respectively. Dollar index fairly steady at about down about three -tenths of a percentage point. Bitcoin down to 88 ,000, shed about 3 % or about $3 ,000 day over day. Crude oil, pretty monstrous day, down about three percentage points. 69 .11 as it currently trades right now as we record this about 5 .45 here central time on the 25th. Brent oil was down somewhat less down to 73 .19. Natural gas was down about three percentage points all the way to $4 .12. XOP was our E &P securities contract and was actually down 2 .36 percentage points. So not a great day for oil stocks. Mainly, part of the reason why prices are down to its two -month low has a lot to do with complications specifically from the U .S. economy. A lot of tariffs going on, specifically some weak economic news coming out of the United States and Germany. We saw consumer competence fell to its lowest and sharpest pace in the last three and a half years with 12 -month inflation going higher. With Trump’s plans to increase higher tariffs that has raised inflation worries around the Federal Reserve, which means they could keep interest rates higher, which is again going to slow economic growth and energy demand. Tariffs beginning on Canada and Mexico imports are scheduled to start March 4th. So I think people are awaiting that. He did have a quote that say they are on time and on schedule, which may boost oil prices by reducing supplies from both countries. So that was offset a little bit by that. We did see the fact that the deal between Russia and Ukraine that’s being negotiated kind of without, a little bit without U .S. or the Ukraine’s involvement. But it’s very interesting, folks, what’s going on with some of those, some of those negotiations and whether or not anything will actually be accepted by Ukraine considering their negotiating upon their behalf. But we will be following that. And I think that’s really what’s driving prices. [00:07:23][121.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:24] Let’s quickly look over at Civatas, guys. They go ahead and release their earnings today. It’s pretty fascinating to see. Basically, I think the thing to see here is that their earnings were okay. I mean, you saw about $1 .3 billion of free cash flow, net income at $151 million, adjusted net income at $171 million, operating cash flow at about $858 million, sales volumes of about $352 billion a day, oil volumes of about $164 billion a day, capex of about $279 million, and adjusted free cash flow at about $519 million. Stock got absolutely hammered, though, down 18 percentage points, shed about $9 all the way down to $40 .35, really due to the fact that they, out of a whim, terminated their COO without cause. And basically, T. Hodge Walker, the COO, was officially terminated without cause, effective immediately, the company said. He was originally their VP of their Chevron, of the Chevron’s Rockies divisions prior to becoming Sibatos COO in April 2020. So he can’t even last two years. Not great there. And they also did say they’re eyeing a 10 % workforce reduction, which means all doesn’t quite go well. Yay, cash flow numbers look great, but they’re still eyeing a little bit of it up. So the street didn’t like any of those numbers. [00:08:48][83.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:48] Chord Energy also dropped earnings today. They had about a decent quarter. The market didn’t like it that much. Their oil volumes were actually up relative at the high end of their fourth quarter guidance at 153 .3 thousand barrels per day. The funny part is, if you look at that over a quarter to quarter, they actually shed about 5 ,000 B crude oil, barrels per oil per day, and they spent about $275 million in capex to do that. So I think the street, they were down slightly more than the XOP contract at 2 .42 % of the street. Didn’t really like those numbers. Again, show business is hard, guys. You spend a lot of money to barely increase production or in Chord’s case actually shed production. [00:09:31][43.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:32] So guys, with that, I’m going to let you get out of here. Short show for me. Appreciate you all checking us out here on the World’s Greatest Podcast. Check us out www .energynewsbeat .com for Stuart Turley and Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:09:32][0.0][557.8]

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