How US vitality executives are navigating Trump’s America | USAEMALL.com

Good morning, and welcome back to Energy Source, coming to you from New York.

Greenpeace has been ordered to pay more than $600mn in damages over its protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota, a decision the environmental campaign group said could bankrupt its US operations.

The verdict concludes a nearly decade-long legal battle between Greenpeace and pipeline operator Energy Transfer, which was co-founded by Kelcy Warren, a billionaire and prominent donor to Donald Trump.

Protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline galvanised the country in 2016, drawing thousands of demonstrators to oil-rich North Dakota, and became a flashpoint for indigenous rights and fossil fuel expansion. The protests started when members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe set up camps near the reservation, fearing the pipeline’s route endangered their drinking water and sovereignty.

Lawyers and activists warn Energy Transfer’s victory against Greenpeace will set a dangerous precedent for free speech and dissent under Trump, who has championed the oil and gas sector and targeted activists and political opponents. Read more on how the oil and gas sector has used the country’s judicial and legislative systems to its advantage here.

In other news, over in Europe, energy group Iberdrola is warning Spanish policymakers that power prices will surge if they proceed with plans to phase out the nation’s nuclear reactor fleet.

Thanks for reading,

Amanda

Energy executives at CERAWeek react to Trump

Last week, thousands of energy executives and politicians descended on downtown Houston to attend S&P Global’s annual CERAWeek conference, often hailed as the Super Bowl of energy.

This year’s conference arrives at a moment of flux for the sector, with a new Trump administration that is unabashedly pro-fossil fuel expansion and a global oil market in oversupply.

Energy Source interviewed nearly three dozen leaders over the course of the conference and attended numerous panels. Here are four takeaways on how industry is making sense of this new political era:

Gas is everyone’s favourite molecule

Natural gas was the talk of the town at this year’s conference, with executives pointing to the US’s abundance of the fuel as key to meeting the round-the-clock electricity needs in the race to lead in artificial intelligence, as well as to strengthen relationships with allies.

“With rising gas prices, the time has come for the Haynesville,” said Murray Auchincloss, chief executive of BP, referring to the gas formation underneath Louisiana and Texas. Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron, told executives on his panel that off-grid gas-fired plants was the solution to alleviate power bottlenecks for AI data centres.

The excitement around gas arrives as the proliferation of AI data centres prompts a historic surge in the US’s electricity demand and the Trump administration lifts restrictions on fossil fuel production and moves to speed up permitting for projects such as pipelines and export terminals.

Climate action, meanwhile, is on the backburner: Gregory Ebel, chief executive of Enbridge, the North American pipeline company, said the energy transition would be significantly delayed, with the Paris Agreement goal of net zero by 2050 potentially being pushed back as much as two decades. “The IEA has been wrong on virtually everything . . . A lot of people are talking about 2070, and even the bank folks are moving away from the 1.5 degrees to 2 degrees.”

. . . but we shouldn’t risk becoming a ‘one-trick pony’

Despite the excitement around gas, renewable project developers at the conference caution that an over-reliance on the energy source will hurt the country’s competitiveness on AI and result in higher prices because of supply chain constraints for gas turbines.

“If we become a one-trick pony, just leaning into gas-fired generation as our only option, only two things can happen: you’re going to build less [power capacity] and it’s going to be at a higher price,” said John Ketchum, chief executive of NextEra Energy, the largest US renewables developer, who called for the preservation of clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump vowed to ‘terminate’.

About 90 per cent of the 100 gigawatts of new US electricity generation capacity expected to come online over the next couple of years is forecast to come from renewable sources and batteries, according to BloombergNEF. Siemens Energy and GE Vernova, two of the largest gas turbine manufacturers, told ES that a customer looking to purchase a large turbine today will have to wait until almost the end of the decade to receive one.

Sandhya Ganapathy, chief executive of EDP Renewables North America, said the need for renewables was “not about ideology”. She told ES: “It’s more about how do we as a nation ensure we are energy sufficient.”

Tired of tariffs

Trump’s mercurial agenda on trade is creating a problem for energy executives.

“I can’t tell you what is my exposure because [tariffs] are coming and going faster than we can react,” said Andreas Schierenbeck, chief executive of Hitachi Energy, an electrical equipment manufacturer, adding tariffs would raise prices for customers.

Last week, Ontario, Canada’s most populated province, retaliated against Trump’s tariff threats with a 25 per cent surcharge on exports of electricity to the US. This was quickly retracted when Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium. The US president has repeatedly threatened levies on Canada and Mexico, from where the country imports a significant amount of grid equipment, crude and automobiles.

Several executives expressed anxiety about Trump’s tariff whiplash, warning levies were counter to his plans to slash electricity prices and made it difficult to invest in the US.

“When we make investment decisions to invest, we want to have clarity about the supply chain and also visibility about potential tariffs,” said Markus Krebber, chief executive of RWE.

Larry Coben, CEO of NRG Energy, a power producer, agreed: “We need certainty. That’s what inspires investment.”

Where is Congress?

While executives cheered calls for more fossil fuel production from Trump’s cabinet at CERAWeek, they’re demanding action beyond the White House that is more durable and cannot be undone overnight by a new president.

“What you’ve seen right now is a lot of executive action when what we really need is congressional action,” said Gordon Huddleston, president of Aethon Energy, a large private gas producer.

Mike Dunleavy, governor of Alaska, where a Trump executive order rescinded Joe Biden’s bans on oil and gas leasing and prioritised the development of a $44bn liquefied natural gas terminal, agreed.

“The bigger risk is not the price of oil, but the bigger risk has always been regulatory risk . . . making sure that the whipsaw event that’s occurred recently doesn’t keep happening,” Dunleavy told ES. “To make these changes last beyond the term of President Trump, you’ve got to put . . . a lot of these changes in law.”

The Republican party has a trifecta government, in charge of the White House and holding slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Congressional action codifying Trump’s energy priorities, however, will require support from Democratic lawmakers to overcome filibuster rules in the Senate.

“If it’s not going to happen in the next four years, it probably won’t happen,” Dunleavy said. (Amanda Chu)

Job moves

• Wind industry veteran, João Metelo, has joined Apya Power as president. He founded coastal infrastructure development company Gateway Zero and previously worked as an executive vice-president at EDP Renewables.

• Rebecca Kujawa, president and chief executive of NextEra Energy Resources, is retiring from the Florida-based company. She will be succeeded by chief financial officer Brian Bolster. Mike Dunne, treasurer, will be the new CFO.

• John Sneed, interim director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, is departing the agency later this month. A new director will be announced in the “coming weeks”, according to the DoE.

• Algonquin Power & Utilities announced chief executive Rod West is joining its board. The utility also plans to add Gavin Molinelli, senior partner and portfolio manager at Starboard Value, to the board.

Power Points

Energy Source is written and edited by Jamie Smyth, Myles McCormick, Amanda Chu, Tom Wilson and Malcolm Moore, with support from the FT’s global team of reporters. Reach us at energy.source@ft.com and follow us on X at @FTEnergy. Catch up on past editions of the newsletter here.