CERAWEEK HIGHLIGHTS: Critical mineral gap poses risks to US; gas set to power AI

Executives examined the US' lack of supply security for critical minerals, the natural gas' advantage in meeting rising data center-driven electricity demand, and the challenges around US grid expansion at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston on March 13 and 14.

Highlights of the coverage by Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights:

Critical minerals crisis

The US is in a "very scary and dangerous position" when it comes to the metals and minerals needed for a wide array of defense, technology and energy applications, said Robert Friedland, founder and executive co-chair of Ivanhoe Mines.

Friedland said that he is encouraged by the recent shift to the Trump administration and its initial efforts to help miners, but that Wall Street does not understand the industry.

"Wall Street doesn't understand the scale of the problem," Friedland said. "It's too short term. Mining is a very long-term business. It takes 10 or 20 years to find a mine. It takes 5 or 10 years to build it, and it runs for 100 years."

Gas' advantage to power AI

US natural gas market stakeholders are confident that rising data-center-driven electricity demand will translate into material gas demand growth in the years ahead as the marketplace contemplates various scenarios for how developers will meet their power needs.

Computing efficiency gains and penetration of non-fossil generating sources are among the major contingencies that could ultimately limit gas' share of power demand growth, but gas producers and at least one federal regulator insist that gas will be the resource to prevail because of its abundance and firm, dispatchable characteristics.

"With the tech crowd, whether we're talking about powering rockets or data centers, the energy portion of that bill is so small," said Toby Rice, CEO of Appalachian shale gas producer and midstream operator EQT. "Unfortunately, it's the bottleneck, which means they're going to do what it takes to make sure they get security there, and it's going to create opportunities for us."

Grids as the missing piece

While the US holds abundant gas and renewables potential, much remains to be done on the accompanying grid expansion, Hunter Armistead, CEO of Pattern Energy, told the Energy Evolution podcast at the conference.

Arshad Mansoor, president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute, said grid planning and capacity optimization in the US have much room for improvement, for instance through new AI capabilities. Increased flexibility could stave off the potential of rising power bills for general consumers in light of the country's rapid load growth, he said.