Executives from two major energy giants in the United States, Chevron Corporation and ExxonMobil, announced on Wednesday that they are considering entering the power industry and discussing the use of natural gas and carbon capture technology to power artificial intelligence data centers in the technology industry.
Jeff Gustavson, President of Chevron New Energy, revealed in an interview at an industry conference that Chevron has been in negotiations for over a year to provide natural gas power generation and carbon capture technology to data centers.
Prior to Gustavson's remarks, ExxonMobil also announced similar news on Wednesday - the company stated that it is working to provide low-carbon electricity to data centers by the end of this decade (2030) by combining carbon capture technology with natural gas power plants.
Gustavson said that we are studying this issue, and Chevron's experience in supplying natural gas and operating natural gas power generation equipment globally enables the company to meet the booming electricity demand of data centers well.
This aligns with many of our capabilities - natural gas, construction, operations, and providing low-carbon electricity to customers through CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage), geothermal, and other technologies, "Gustavson said.
Business Expansion
Previously, American oil companies typically only produced electricity for their own business. However, amidst the current surge in demand, they are attempting to enter a broader electricity market.
With the rise of the AI wave, many American tech giants are currently investing funds in artificial intelligence infrastructure. According to the data compiled by the media, Alphabet、 Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta Platforms are expected to invest over $200 billion next year, with the majority going towards building data centers.
The latest December Short Term Energy Outlook report released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) this week shows that US electricity consumption is expected to reach historic highs in 2024 and 2025. EIA predicts that the total electricity consumption in the United States will increase to 4086 billion kilowatt hours this year and further increase to 4165 billion kilowatt hours next year. The electricity consumption in 2024 and 2024 will both exceed the previous record of 4067 billion kilowatt hours in 2022.
The urgent demand for electricity has prompted the US power industry to invest in building new natural gas infrastructure and push for delayed retirement of fossil fuel power plants.
At the same time, this urgent need has even led some large technology companies to retract their commitments focused on controlling climate change. These companies have previously required their energy intensive artificial intelligence data centers to only use renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.