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A little insulation goes a long way toward decarbonizing.
When you think about ways to decarbonize, your mind will likely go straight to shiny new machines — an electric vehicle, solar panels, or an induction stove, perhaps. But let’s not forget the low-tech, low-hanging fruit: your home itself.
Adding insulation, fixing any gaps, cracks or leaks where air can get out, and perhaps installing energy efficient windows and doors are the necessary first steps to decarbonizing at home — though you may also want to consider a light-colored “cool roof,” which reflects sunlight to keep the home comfortable, and electric panel and wiring upgrades to support broader electrification efforts.
Getting started on one or multiple of these retrofits can be daunting — there’s lingo to be learned, audits to be performed, and various incentives to navigate. Luckily, Heatmap is here to help.
Cora Wyent is the Director of Research at Rewiring America, where she conducts research and analysis on how to rapidly electrify the entire economy.
Joseph Lstiburek is the founding principal at the Building Science Corporation, a consulting firm focused on designing and constructing energy efficient, durable, and economic buildings.
Lucy de Barbaro is the founder and director of Energy Efficiency Empowerment, a Pittsburgh-based organization that seeks to transform the home renovation process and help low and middle-income homeowners make energy efficiency improvements.
Definitively, yes! When people hear the word “insulation” they often think of how it can protect them from the cold. And while it certainly does do that, insulation’s overall role is to slow the transfer of heat both out of your home when it’s chilly and into your home when it’s hot. That means you won’t need to use your air conditioning as much during those scorching summer days or your furnace as much when the temperatures drop.
Quite possibly! The most definitive way to know if your home could be improved by weatherization is by getting a home energy audit —- more on that below. While a specific level of insulation is required for all newly constructed homes, these codes and standards are updated frequently. So if you’re feeling uncomfortable in your living space, or if you think your heating and cooling bills are unusually high, it’s definitely worth seeing what an expert thinks. And if you’re interested in getting electric appliances like a heat pump or induction stove, some wiring upgrades will almost certainly be necessary.
Energy efficient appliances like electric heat pumps or induction stoves are fantastic ways to decarbonize your life, but serve a fundamentally different purpose than most of the upgrades that we’re going to talk about here. When you get better air sealing, insulation, windows, or doors, what you’re doing is essentially regulating the temperature of your home, making you less reliant on energy intensive heating and cooling systems. And while this can certainly lead to savings on your energy bill and a positive impact on the environment at large, these upgrades will also allow you to simply live more comfortably.
This is the starting point for making informed decisions about any energy efficiency upgrades that you’re considering. During a home energy audit, a certified auditor (sometimes also referred to as an energy assessor or rater or verifier) will inspect your home to identify both the highest-impact and most cost-effective upgrades you can make, including how much you stand to save on your energy bills by doing so.
Wyent told me checking with your local utility is a good place to start, as many offer low-cost audits. Even if your utility doesn’t do energy assessments, they may be able to point you in the direction of local auditors or state-level resources and directories. The Residential Energy Services Network also provides a directory of certified assessors searchable by location, as does the Department of Energy’s Energy Score program, though neither list is comprehensive.
Audits typically cost between $200 and $700 depending on your home’s location, size, and type, as well as the scope of the audit. Homeowners can claim 30% of the cost of their audit on their federal taxes, up to $150. To be eligible, make sure you find a certified home energy auditor. The DOE provides a list of recognized certification programs.
Important: Make sure the auditor performs both a blower door test and a thermographic inspection. These diagnostic tools are key to determining where air leakage and heat loss/gain is occurring.
Your energy audit isn’t the only thing eligible for a credit. The 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit allows homeowners to claim up to 30% of the cost of a variety of home upgrades, up to a combined total of $1,200 per year. This covers upgrading your insulation, windows, doors, skylights, electrical wiring, and/or electrical panel. Getting an energy audit is also included in this category.
While $1,200 is the max amount you can claim for all retrofits combined, certain renovations come with their own specific limitations. Let’s break it down:
State and local incentives:
Depending on where you live, there may be additional state and local incentives, and we suggest asking your contractor what you are eligible for. But since incentive programs change frequently, it’s a good idea to do your own research too. Get acquainted with Energy Star, a joint program run by the Environmental Protection Agency and the DOE which provides information on energy efficient products, practices, and standards. On Energy Star’s website, you can search by zip code for utility rebates that can help you save on insulation, windows, and electrical work.
“Starting by looking at your local utility programs can be a great resource too, because utilities offer rebates or incentives for weatherizing your home or installing a new roof,” said Wyent.
Everyone wants to minimize the number of times they break open or drill into their walls. To that end, it’s useful to plan out all the upgrades you might want to get done over the next five to 10 years to figure out where efficiency might fit in.
Some primary examples: Installing appliances like a heat pump, induction stove, or Level 2 EV charger (all of which you can read more about in our other guides) often require electrical upgrades. Even if you don’t plan to get any of these new appliances now, pre-wiring your home to prepare for their installation (with the exception of a heat pump — see our heat pump guide for more info on that) will save you money later on.
De Barbaro also notes that if you’re planning to repaint your walls anytime soon, this would also be a convenient time to add insulation, as that involves drilling holes which then need to be patched and repainted anyway. Likewise, if you were already planning to replace your home’s siding, this would be a natural time to insulate. Finally, if you’re planning to get a heat pump in the coming years, getting better insulation now will ensure this system is maximally effective.
Conversely, if you’re cash-strapped, spreading out electrical and weatherization upgrades over the course of a few years allows you to claim the full $1,200 tax credit every year. Whether those tax savings are enough to cover the added contractor time and clean-up costs, though, will depend on the particulars of your situation.
“Come in with a plan and talk to the contractor about everything that you want to do in the future, not just immediately,” said Wyent.
Unlike solar installers, which are often associated with large regional and national companies, the world of weatherization and electrical upgrades is often much more localized, meaning you’ll need to do a bit of legwork to verify that the contractors and installers you come across are reliable.
Wyent told me she typically starts by asking friends, family, and neighbors for references, as well as turning to Google and Yelp reviews. Depending on where you live and what type of work you want done, your local utility may also offer incentives for weatherization and electrification upgrades, and can possibly provide a list of prescreened contractors who are licensed and insured for this type of work.
These questions will help you vet contractors and gain a better understanding of their process regardless of the type of renovation you’re pursuing.
Common wisdom says you should always get three quotes. But that doesn’t mean you should automatically choose the cheapest option. Lstiburek says the old adage applies: “If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true.” Be sure that your contractors and installers are properly licensed and insured and read the fine print of your contract. Beyond this, how to find qualified professionals and what to ask largely depends on the type of upgrade you are pursuing. So let’s break it down, starting with the biggest bang for your buck.
Air sealing and insulating your home is usually the number one way to increase its energy efficiency. Energy Star says nine out of 10 homes are underinsulated, and many also have significant air leaks. In general, homes lose more heating and cooling energy through walls and attics than through windows and doors, so air sealing and adding insulation in key areas should be your first priority.
“People don't realize how collectively, small holes everywhere add up. So on average here in Pennsylvania, typically those holes would add up to the surface of three sheets of paper, continuously open to the outdoors,” said de Barbaro.
Determining where air is escaping is the purpose of the blower door test and the thermographic inspection, so after your energy audit you should have a good idea of where to begin with these retrofits. This guide from the Department of Energy is a great resource on all the places in a home one might consider insulating.
Choosing an insulation type:
Every home is different, and the type of insulation you choose will depend on a number of factors including where you’re insulating, whether that area is finished or unfinished, what R-Value is right for your climate, and your budget. You can check out this comprehensive list of different insulation types to learn about their respective advantages and use cases. But when it comes to attic rafters and exterior walls, De Barbaro said that one option rises above the rest.
“The magic word here is dense-packed cellulose insulation!” De Barbaro told me.
This type of insulation (which falls under the “loose fill and blown-in” category) is made from recycled paper products, meaning it has very low embodied carbon emissions. It’s also cheap and effective. For exterior walls and attic rafters, be sure to avoid loose-fill cellulose, as that can settle and become less effective over time — although for attic floors, loose-fill works well. Both are installed by drilling holes into the wall or floor space and blowing the insulation in under pressure.
We recommend discussing all of these options with your contractor, but here are the other materials you’re most likely to come across:
In addition to asking friends, family, and your local utility for contractor recommendations, Energy Star specifically recommends these additional resources where you can find licensed and insured contractors for insulation work.
While air sealing and insulation should definitely be number one on your weatherization checklist, plenty of heat gets lost through windows, doors, and skylights, as well. Single pane glass is a particularly poor insulator, and while fewer houses these days have it, upgrading to double or triple pane windows or skylights can be a big energy saver. Likewise, steel or fiberglass doors are much better insulators than traditional wooden doors.
But be warned: These can be pricey upgrades. The cost of installing windows alone ranges from hundreds of dollars up to $1,500 per window, and many homes have ten or more. It’s unlikely you’ll fully recoup the outlay through your energy savings, so before going about these retrofits, be sure that you’ve taken care of the easy stuff first.
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to schedule a consultation with an installer, who can help you refine your project needs, discuss design and installation options, and provide you with a quote.
“So if you pick a Marvin window, make sure that you have a Marvin certified installer in your location, installing the Marvin window according to the Marvin instructions.” said Lstiburek.
Insulating your attic floor or your roof rafters is the best way to ensure that your home is sealed off from the elements. But if you live in a hot climate and need a new roof anyway (most last 25 to 50 years), then you might consider getting a cool roof, which can be made from a variety of materials and installed on almost any slope. However, they won’t lead to energy efficiencies in all geographies, so be sure to do your research beforehand!
Last but certainly not least is a retrofit that’s a little different from the rest. Unlike getting insulation, new windows, or a new roof, upgrading your wiring or electric panel doesn’t lead to greater energy efficiency by regulating the temperature of your home. What it does instead is enable greater energy efficiency by making it possible to operate an increasing number of electrified appliances and devices in your house.
For example, getting an electric or induction stove or dryer, a standard heat pump, a heat pump water heater, or an electric vehicle charger will require that you add new electric circuits to support these devices. And as these new loads add up, you may need to install a larger electric panel to support it all.
After sourcing electrician recommendations from family and friends, a good place to turn is Rewiring America’s contractor directory network. (Rewiring America is also a sponsor of Decarbonize Your Life.)Networks in your area can then provide you with a list of qualified electricians.
“Most people are really only using somewhere around 40% of what their current panels space. So you can actually add a fair amount of new circuits to your existing panel and upgrade your wiring while not having to upgrade your panel at all,” Wyent said.
Once you have three quotes in hand, all that’s left to do is evaluate your options, choose a contractor or installer, and sign a contract. Cost will likely be a major factor in the decision, but you’ll also want to ensure that the cheapest quote doesn’t mean corners will be cut. Here’s what to look out for.
Pay close attention to warranties. This applies both to the warranty for the work being performed and to the warranties for the products themselves. If an installation job or a product is well priced but comes with a short warranty, this should give you pause.
Avoid “same day signing specials.” If you’re being rushed into signing a contract, this is also a bad sign. Be sure to read the fine print — most cost estimates should be good for a few weeks at minimum.
Get specific. Your quotes should specify the type of work being performed, the scope of the work, cost (broken down by materials, labor, permits, and other expenses), payment method, and a tentative timeline for completion. A quote is much less formal than a contract, so if some of this information isn’t provided up front, don’t hesitate to ask for clarification so that you can make apples-to-apples comparisons between different contractors.
When you get a contract in hand, double check that:
Then it’s time to sign, sit back, and enjoy the soothing sounds of hammering, drilling, insulation blowing, and wire tinkering, content in knowing that you’re decarbonizing your home down to its very bones!
Now that you’re living comfortably in a maximally energy efficient home, you’re probably wondering when you’ll start seeing all those incentives you researched pay off. First off, know that you must wait until all renovations are complete and paid for to claim your federal tax credit. That means that even if you purchased new windows this year, if you have them installed in 2025, you’ll file for a tax credit with your 2025 return. Here’s how to go about it.
For state and local incentives, check the website for your local utility as well your local and state government and energy office to see what documentation is required. When in doubt, keep all of your records and receipts!
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Tax credit transferability is a wonky concept, but it’s been a superpower for clean energy developers.
One of the most powerful innovations in the Inflation Reduction Act was a new vehicle to finance clean energy projects. In addition to expanding the nation’s tax credits for climate-friendly projects, Congress gave developers freedom to sell these credits for cash. If a battery factory couldn’t take full advantage of the tax credits itself, it could transfer them to someone else who could.
Now, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee have proposed getting rid of this “transferability” provision as part of a larger overhaul of the tax credits. A draft bill published on Monday would end the practice starting in 2028.
Nixing transferability isn’t the bill’s most damaging blow to clean energy — new sourcing requirements for the tax credits and deadlines that block early-stage projects pose a bigger threat. But the ripple effects from the change would permeate all aspects of the clean energy economy. At a minimum, it would make energy more expensive by making the tax credits harder to monetize. It would also all but shut nuclear plants out of the subsidies altogether.
Prior to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, if renewable energy developers with low tax liability wanted to monetize existing tax credits, they had to seek partnerships with tax equity investors. The investor, usually a major bank, would provide upfront capital for a project in exchange for partial ownership and a claim to its tax benefits. These were complicated deals that involved extensive legal review and the formation of new limited liability corporations, and therefore weren’t a viable option for smaller projects like community solar farms.
When the 2022 climate law introduced transferability across all the clean energy tax credits, it simplified project finance and channeled new capital into the clean energy economy. Suddenly, developers for all kinds of clean energy projects could simply sell their tax credits for cash on the open market to anyone that wanted to buy them, without ceding any ownership. The tax credit marketplace Crux estimated that a total of $30 billion in transfers took place last year, only about 30% of which were traditional tax equity deals. In the past, tax equity transfers have topped out at around $20 billion per year.
Schneider Electric, which has long helped corporate clients make power purchase agreements, now facilitates tax credit transfers, as well. The company recently announced that it had closed 18 deals worth $1.7 billion in tax credit transfers since late 2023. The buyers were all new to the market — none had directly financed clean energy before the IRA, Erin Decker, the senior director of renewable energy and carbon advisory services, told me.
It turns out, buying clean energy tax credits is a win-win for brands with sustainability commitments, which can reduce their tax liability while also helping to reduce emissions. Some companies have even used the savings they got through the tax credits to fund decarbonization efforts within their own operations, Decker said.
By simplifying project finance, and creating more competition for tax credit sales, transferability also made developing renewable energy projects cheaper. Developers of wind and solar farms have been able to secure upwards of 95 cents on the dollar for transferred tax credits, compared to just 85 to 90 cents for tax equity transactions. The savings go directly to utility customers.
“State regulators require electric companies to pass the benefits of tax credits through to customers in the form of lower rates,” the Edison Electric Institute wrote in a policy brief on the provision. “If transferability were repealed, electric companies once again would rely on big banks to invest in tax equity transactions, ultimately reducing the value of the credit that flows directly through to customers.”
Many of the companies that can’t count on tax equity deals will still have other options under the GOP proposal. Tax-exempt entities, like rural electric cooperatives and community solar nonprofits, can use “elective pay,” another IRA innovation that allows them to claim the credits as a direct cash payment from the IRS. For-profit companies developing carbon capture and advanced manufacturing projects also have the option to use elective pay for the first five years they operate. All of this raises questions about whether axing transferability would furnish the government with meaningful savings to offset Trump’s tax cuts.
But the bigger danger for Trump would be his nuclear agenda. Prior to the IRA, low power prices meant that many nuclear operators couldn’t afford to extend the licenses on their existing plants, even ones that had many years of useful life left in them. The IRA created a new tax credit for existing nuclear plants that made it economical for operators to invest in keeping these online, and even helped bring some, like the Palisades plant in Michigan, back from the dead.
This wouldn’t have worked without transferability, Benton Arnett, the senior director of markets and policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, told me. Going forward, finding a tax equity partner would be nearly impossible because of the unique rules governing nuclear plants. Federal regulations require that the owners of a nuclear power plant be listed on its license, so bringing on a new owner means doing a license amendment — a headache-inducing process that banks simply don’t want to take on. “We’ve had members reach out to tax equity groups in the past and there was very little interest,” Arnett said
While a few plant owners might have enough tax appetite to benefit from credits directly, most have depreciating assets on their books that greatly reduce their liability. “Without transferability, for many of our members, it’s very difficult for them to actually monetize those credits,” said Arnett. “In a way, nuclear is disproportionately impacted by removing that ability to transfer.”
In February, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright declared that “the long-awaited American nuclear renaissance must launch during President Trump’s administration.” But so far on Trump’s watch, between the proposed loss of transferability and early phase-out of nuclear tax credits, plus cuts to loan programs at the Department of Energy, we’ve only seen policies that would kill the nuclear renaissance.
On Trump’s Gulf trip, budget negotiations, and a uranium mine
Current conditions: Highs in Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin could break 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday afternoon, with ERCOT anticipating demand could approach August 2023’s all-time high of 85,500 megawatts • Governor Tim Walz has called in the National Guard to respond to three fires in northern Minnesota that have burned 20,000 acres and are still 0% contained• The coldest place in the world right now is the South Pole of Antarctica, which could drop to -70 degrees tomorrow.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
The White House on Tuesday announced a $600 billion investment commitment from Saudi Arabia during President Trump’s trip to the Gulf. In exchange, the U.S. offered Riyadh “the largest defense cooperation agreement” Washington has ever made, with an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, Reuters reports. The deals announced so far by the White House total just $283 billion, although the administration told The New York Times that more would be forthcoming.
Among the known commitments in the health and tech sectors, the U.S. also reached a number of energy deals with Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Aramco, which agreed to a $3.4 billion expansion of the Motive refinery in Texas “to integrate chemicals production,” OilPrice.com reports. Aramco additionally signed “a memorandum of understanding with [the U.S. utility] Sempra to receive about 6.2 million tons per year of LNG.” (Aramco is responsible for over 4% of the planet’s CO2 emissions, according to the think tank InfluenceMap, and would be the fourth largest polluter after China, the U.S., and India, if it were its own country.) Additionally, Saudi company DataVolt committed to invest $20 billion in AI data centers and energy infrastructure in the U.S.
Senate Republicans are reportedly putting the brakes on the House Ways and Means Committee’s proposal to overhaul the nation’s clean energy tax credits and effectively kill the Inflation Reduction Act. “[S]ome Senate Republicans say abruptly cutting off credits and changing key provisions that help fund projects more quickly could stifle investments in energy technologies needed to meet growing power demand, and lead to job losses for manufacturing and electricity projects in their states and districts,” Politico reports. North Dakota’s Republican Senator John Hoeven, for one, characterized the Ways and Means’ plan as a “starting point,” with “some change” expected before agreement is reached.
As my colleague Emily Pontecorvo reported earlier this week, the House proposal “appears to amount to a back-door full repeal” of the IRA, including cutting the EV tax credit, moving up the phase-out of tech-neutral clean power, and eliminating credits for energy efficiency, heat pumps, and solar. But as she noted then, “there’s a lot that could change before we get to a final budget” — especially if Republican senators follow through on their words.
The Interior Department plans to expedite permitting for a uranium mine in Utah, conducting an environmental assessment that typically takes a year in just 14 days, The New York Times reports. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the fast-track addressed the “alarming energy emergency because of the prior administration’s Climate Extremist policies.” Notably, Burgum also recently issued a stop-work order on Equinor’s fully permitted Empire Wind offshore wind project, claiming the project’s permitting process had been rushed under former President Joe Biden. That process took nearly four years, according to BloomberNEF.
Critics of the Velvet-Wood project in San Juan County, Utah, said the Interior Department is leaving no opportunity for public comment, and that there are concerns about radioactive waste from the mining activities. Uranium is a fuel in nuclear power plants, and its extraction falls under President Trump’s recent executive order to address the so-called “national energy emergency.”
Clean energy investment saw a second quarterly decline at the start of 2025, but nevertheless accounted for 4.7% of total private investment in structures, equipment, and durable consumer goods in the first quarter of the year, a new report by the Rhodium Group’s Clean Investment Monitor found. Among some of its other notable findings:
You can read the full report here.
A Dutch environmental group is suing oil giant Shell, arguing that the company is in violation of a court order to make an “appropriate contribution” to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, France 24 reports. Amsterdam-based Milieudefensie previously won an historic precedent against Royal Dutch Shell in 2021, with the court ruling the company had to cut its carbon emissions by 45% of 2019 levels by 2030 because its investments in oil and gas were “endangering human rights and lives.” Shell appealed the decision, moved its headquarters to London, and dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name; subsequently, a Dutch appeals court sided with Shell and reversed the 45% emissions reduction target, while still insisting the company had a responsibility to lower its emissions, Inside Climate News reports.
Now, Milieudefensie is suing, claiming Shell is in breach of its obligation to reduce emissions due to its “continued investment in new oil and gas fields and its inadequate climate policy for the period 2030 to 2050.” Sjoukje van Oosterhout, a lead researcher on the Shell case for Milieudefensie, said in a press conference, “The impact of this case could really be enormous. Science is clear, crystal clear, and the ruling of the appeals court was also clear. Every new field is one too many. That’s why we have this case today.”
AstraZeneca
UK regulators this week approved the use of AstraZeneca’s new medical inhaler, which uses a propellant with 99.9% lower global warming potential than those currently in use. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the discharge and leakage of planet-warming hydrofluoroalkane propellants from inhalers was responsible for 2.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents in 2020, or about the same emissions as 550,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year.
Tuesday’s encouraging inflation data concealed an ominous warning sign.
The Trump administration’s policy of increased natural gas exports abroad, plus increased industrial and artificial intelligence investment at home, plus cuts to green energy tax credits could add up to more energy price volatility for Americans.
On Monday, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled its plan for deep cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act, including early expiration dates and restrictions on the core clean energy tax credits that would effectively gut America’s signature climate law.
But Tuesday’s good news about inflation also contained a troubling omen for electricity prices.
Overall, prices are rising at their slowest rate in years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that overall prices have risen 2.3% in the past year, the slowest annual increase since February 2021. But electricity prices were up 0.8% just in the past month, and were up 3.6% over last year.
This is likely due in part to rising natural gas prices, as natural gas provides the better part of American electricity generation.
The benchmark Henry Hub spot price for natural gas was $3.26 per million British thermal unit last week,according to the latest Energy Information Administration data — around twice the price of a year ago. And there’s reason to think prices for both gas and electricity will continue to rise, or at least be vulnerable to spikes, explained Skanda Amarnath, the executive director of Employ America.
European demand for liquified natural gas has been high recently, which helps pull the American natural gas price closer to a global price, as Europe is a major buyer of U.S. LNG.
During the early years of the shale boom in the 2010s, before the United States had built much natural gas export capacity (the first LNG shipment from the continental United States left Louisiana in early 2016, believe it or not), American natural gas consumers benefited from “true natural gas abundance,” Amarnath told me. “We had this abundance of natural gas and no way for it to get out.”
Those days are now over. The Trump administration has been promoting LNG exports from day one to a gas-hungry global economy. “We’re not the only country that wants natural gas, and LNG always pays a premium,” Amarnath said.
In March, Western European gas imports hit their highest level since 2017, according to Bloomberg. And there’s reason to expect LNG exports will continue at that pace, or even pick up. One of the Trump administration’s first energy policy actions was to reverse the Biden-era pause on permitting new LNG terminals, and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has issued a number of approvals and permits for new LNG export terminals since.
The EIA last week bumped up its forecast for natural gas prices for this year and next, citing both higher domestic natural gas demand and higher exports than initially expected. And those are in addition to all the structural factors in the United States pulling on electricity demand — and therefore natural gas demand — including the rise in data center development and the boom in new manufacturing.
But we’re in the era of “drill, baby, drill,” right? So all that new demand will be met with more supply? Not so fast.
Increased production of oil overseas — pushed for by Trump — is playing havoc with the economics of America’s oil and gas companies, which are starting tolevel off or even decrease production. The threat of an economic slowdown induced by Trump’s tariffs also influenced some of those decisions, though that fear may have eased with the U.S.-China trade deal announced on Monday.
While it’s the price of oil that largely determines investment decisions for these companies, a consequence can be fluctuations in natural gas production. That’s because much of America’s natural gas comes out of oil wells, so when oil wells go unexploited, natural gas stays in the ground, too.
“A drop in crude oil prices over the past three months has reduced our expectations for U.S. crude oil production growth, and we now expect less associated natural gas production than we did in January,” the EIA wrote last week.
“Together, these factors mean we expect natural gas prices will be higher in order to incentivize production and keep markets balanced.”
At the same time, Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration look to choke off policy support for a boom in renewables investment with their planned dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act. This means a less diversified grid that will be more reliant on natural gas, Amarnath explained.
When natural gas prices spike, “it’s very useful to have non-gas sources of supply,” Amarnath told me. The alternative fuel can be anything as long as it’s not fossil. It can be solar, it can be wind, it can be nuclear — all three of which would be hammered by the IRA cuts.
What these sources of power do — besides reduce greenhouse gas emissions — is diversify the grid, so that America’s electricity consumers are “not held hostage to what Asian or European LNG buyers want to pay,” Amarnath said.
“The less you rely on a fuel source for electricity, the more stable you are from a price spike. And we’re more at risk now.”