Here’s a note from one of my stock advisors promoting natural gas. This is NOT a stock recommendation, but the trickery from Big Tech is worth noting. The political, corporate, and social media elite—those our Founding Fathers warned us about—seem more concerned with power, greed (like the Green New Deal), and stoking fear.
Microsoft, Meta, and Apple boast about being the cleanest companies. They claim to be net zero, meaning they don’t add more greenhouse gases than they remove. But this involves more than simple math.
In truth, Big Tech pollutes heavily. To stay “net zero” on paper, they spend billions on clean energy projects and carbon credits instead of cutting emissions. Their growing need for data centers, which use immense energy, worsens this.
Data centers power Big Tech’s operations. Demand for them keeps growing, driving the next push toward clean energy. In 2023, Big Tech spent $236 billion on data centers, which will rise to $260 billion in 2024. These centers will drive 38% of projected power demand by 2030.
With this rising energy demand, emissions have soared. Microsoft’s emissions rose 30% from 2020 to 2023. Google’s are up 50% since 2019. Despite buying carbon credits and building solar farms in India, Amazon emitted over 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year.
Big Tech is finding ways to look clean, but it needs truly clean energy like solar, wind, or nuclear. Solar and wind power face many roadblocks, and nuclear power is still being debated. Until then, it’s turning to natural gas—a much cleaner option than coal.
Demand for natural gas is expected to rise by billions of cubic feet daily by 2030, and companies that focus on natural gas will likely benefit.
Microsoft gave a “go sign” to move to nuclear energy by purchasing the Three-Mile Island Plant in Pennsylvania. I applaud this since this is the cheapest and safest alternative for reducing carbon emissions (IMHO). Nuclear power is safe enough to run our submarines and aircraft carriers (5000 sailors on board), then it should be secure enough for us with proper planning and the new tech available. Ironic that data centers will suck up the power to fuel artificial intelligence computers, which will most probably be the ‘brains’ running the nuclear power plants. Plus, the modular power plants are up and coming with plans by the military to power up installations.
Green is good, but it must be done right. Solar, lithium batteries, and coal have uses appropriate for certain needs, but they are not all-encompassing solutions, and each has its limitations. But then again, it would be interesting to see a car going down the road self-powered with a wind turbine on the roof.