Data Centers Are About To Burn More US Natural Gas Than Almost Every Country On Earth

American data centers are on track to consume more natural gas than nearly every country in the world within the next decade as the artificial intelligence boom drives electricity demand higher, according to a new BloombergNEF outlook.

Natural gas consumption used to generate electricity for U.S. data centers is projected to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day through 2035, according to BloombergNEF. The projection accounts for the possibility that many data center projects currently planned across the country will never be built.

“In short, the resource base and producer response are sufficient, but the mix would shift toward higher-cost dry-gas drilling, supporting moderately higher gas and electricity prices than a high-oil-price, high-associated-gas world,” Stuart Turley, president and CEO of the Sandstone Group and host of the Energy News Beat podcast, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The additional demand alone would exceed the amount of natural gas currently consumed by every country except China, Russia, Iran and the United States, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

BloombergNEF’s latest estimate is also more than twice its December forecast, which projected data centers would require an additional 6.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, according to a report citing the firm’s latest outlook.

Natural gas is expected to provide 69% of the electricity needed by new grid-connected facilities under BloombergNEF’s forecast. Power-sector gas consumption is projected to climb from roughly 36 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 54 billion by 2035, according to the report.

BloombergNEF did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The projected surge comes as grid operators are already confronting rapidly rising electricity demand from data centers. Data center load growth is the primary driver of PJM Interconnection’s recent and expected tight supply-demand balance and high capacity prices.

PJM, the nation’s largest power grid operator, has warned that the power sector is shifting from an era of managing excess electricity supply to one of managing scarcity as data centers come online. Building new natural gas generation can take at least four years even under optimistic assumptions, while permitting and transmission constraints can further delay bringing new power supplies online, according to a May memo from PJM.