What Natural Gas Ascendancy Says About the US

Fracking, booming power demand and enthusiastic political support have underpinned the fuel’s rise, but for how long?

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The transformation of the US and its economy over the last 250 years can be tracked through its energy use: An early dependency on burning wood gradually gave way to coal, and then to oil.

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That latest phase appears to be drawing to a close.

Natural gas has been narrowing the gap for years. It comprised 36% of US energy consumption in 2025, compared with 37% for petroleum, according to data published this week by the Energy Information Administration. Gas is likely to take the lead by the end of the decade, based on the current trajectory.

Source: EIA

The shift highlights several important trends in the US.

First, the advent of fracking and horizontal drilling in the 2000s unlocked huge volumes of previously uneconomic gas reserves. The country is now the world’s biggest producer and supply continues to soar to new heights.

That burgeoning output pushed gas past coal as the nation’s largest power-plant fuel. From 2011 to 2020, more than 100 coal-fed plants were replaced by — or converted to — gas-fired generators, according to the EIA.

Third, US power consumption is growing for the first time in decades as the economy electrifies, led by electric vehicle use, a massive data-center buildout and manufacturing. Gas, which is readily available, relatively cheap and has strong support from the Trump administration, is increasingly meeting that need.

EVs have also helped erode demand for gasoline, which is unlikely to return to highs reached prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Still, if the US is entering an age of electrification, there’s no assurance over how long gas will lead the way.

While renewables accounted for less than 9% of US energy consumption by source last year, according to the EIA, they’re growing fast. Wind and solar power tripled from 2015 to 2025, outpacing gas. A revival of interest in nuclear energy is showing momentum, too.

New gas-export capacity under construction will also allow the country to ship more of the commodity overseas. Greater exposure to global gas markets is likely to raise domestic prices over time and undermine the fuel’s competitive advantage.

America’s energy mix, in flux for a quarter of a millennium, will shift and adapt again.

—Julian Hast and Nathan Risser, Bloomberg News