This is a guest blog by Rebecca Stoner, Senior US Communications Campaigner at Oil Change International, a research, communications, and advocacy organization working to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the ongoing transition to clean energy. Globally, over 1 billion people lack reliable access to energy they can afford. Across the US and the world, families are being squeezed by rising energy costs. In the U.S. alone, around 80 million people currently struggle with the cost of utilities. Some even forgo food or medications to keep the lights on. Why gas prices are going to rise New research from Oil Change International (OCI) finds that the Trump administration’s energy and AI dominance agenda, coupled with its attacks on renewable energy, are likely to raise households’ bills even further. It turns out that for working families, Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda actually means ‘pay, baby, pay.’ OCI found that the Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies could cause the wholesale price of fossil* gas to double over the next decade. Households will feel the impact of rising wholesale gas prices in multiple ways. Their gas bill will rise. So will their electricity bills, since gas is now the dominant fuel used to generate power for the grid. Businesses are likely to raise prices on food and consumer goods as their electric and gas bills go up. A gas power plant in Trumbull County, Ohio. Photo: Credit: Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2021. Aerial support provided by LightHawk. The wholesale cost of gas is expected to balloon because the Trump administration has thrown its weight behind a massive expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG)** exports by lifting a previous pause on approving new LNG export projects and backing a massive buildout of AI data centers that largely run on fossil gas, pushing up demand for the fuel to unprecedented heights. The primary sources of gas in the US today, the Permian (spanning west Texas and southeastern New Mexico) and Appalachian Basins (centered in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, in the northeastern U.S.), won’t be able to produce enough to meet the surge in demand Trump’s policies create. To fill the gap, producers will need to turn to the Haynesville shale play in Texas and Louisiana, a large underground gas deposit in western Louisiana and eastern Texas that requires fracking: drilling deep wells and injecting a high-pressure mixture to crack open the rock and release the gas trapped inside. Production in the Haynesville shale play in western Louisiana and eastern Texas is expected to soar by over 130%. The problem is, it’s much more expensive to drill in the Haynesville, where gas is harder to extract. This higher cost of drilling will get passed down to consumers. A drilling rig next to a flare outside of Midland, Texas. Photo: Oil Change International Over the past decade, the annual average wholesale price of fossil gas was $3. When gas supply from the Haynesville grows to meet surging demand, prices will rise above $5. This will escalate the energy affordability crisis in the US and the many countries that import American LNG. Trump’s attacks on renewables will also raise prices for households and businesses. His administration has blocked solar and wind projects and slashed clean energy tax credits, taking away renewable energy options that could save families money. While we pay, Trump’s fossil fuel industry donors profit from keeping us hooked on gas. The health and climate cost of gas Reliance on fossil gas costs us in more ways than one. Extracting, processing, and transporting gas pollutes our air and water with nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and hazardous compounds, which are known to cause cancer, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, and birth defects with prolonged exposure. Greenpeace USA and the Sierra Club estimate that air pollution from currently operating US LNG export terminals causes 60 premature deaths and $957 million in total health costs per year. If all the planned LNG terminals and expansion projects are built in the US, those numbers would increase to 149 premature deaths and $2.33 billion in health costs per year. The oil and gas industry builds LNG facilities in Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities that it treats as ‘sacrifice zones’, areas where the industry and decision-makers allow concentrated pollution and health risks to accumulate, on the assumption that the harm to residents there is an ‘acceptable cost of doing business elsewhere’. Because of longstanding environmental racism, these communities are often already facing high burdens of pollution. Fossil gas is also a major threat to our climate. It’s primarily composed of methane, a superpotent greenhouse gas, and when more is in the atmosphere, extreme wildfires, floods, and hurricanes are more frequent and more ferocious. Fossil gas also displaces renewable energy options from the market. What policymakers need to do differently There’s nothing inevitable about a future of higher energy costs, polluted communities, and climate chaos. The Trump administration and its Big Tech and fossil fuel industry backers are working to bring it into being so they can get even richer at everyone else’s expense. But communities across the world are rising up to demand a better future. They’re resisting attempts to build data centers and LNG projects in their communities, which would drive up energy costs and pollute the air, water, and climate. Community leaders march through downtown Houston to oppose oil and gas expansion. Photo: Luigi Morris, Climate Defenders Decision-makers must listen and act. They can protect families from out-of-control energy costs by stopping the buildout of expensive gas projects and AI data centers, and investing in affordable renewable energy instead. Transitioning to a just renewable energy system will also create good green jobs, reduce toxic fossil fuel pollution, and safeguard communities from deadly climate disasters. Political choices are driving the energy affordability crisis, and different choices can get us out of it. Congress is currently considering a moratorium on new data centers but lawmakers won’t act unless they hear from constituents. Join us in telling your senators to support the AI Data Center Moratorium Act. SEND YOUR MESSAGE *Fossil gas, which we’ll usually refer to as simply ‘gas’ in this piece, is not the same as the gasoline that powers vehicles. Fossil gas is the gas used in stoves, for heating homes, and for generating electricity. **LNG (liquefied natural gas) is the same fossil gas described above, just in a different form. To ship gas overseas, companies cool it down until it turns into a liquid — natural gas that has been cooled to a liquid state, at about -260° Fahrenheit, for shipping and storage. The volume of natural gas in a liquid state is about 600 times smaller than its volume in a gaseous state, which is why it’s called ‘liquefied.’ That shrinking is what makes it possible to load gas onto tankers and sell it to other countries, instead of only piping it to homes and businesses nearby. The post Out of Pocket: The real cost of fossil fuels (and AI) on our household bills appeared first on 350.