2026 trends: Gas turbines, Texas’ load queue and China electrifies

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Jan 15, 2026

Nat Bullard, a seasoned energy and climate analyst and co-founder of Halcyon, shares his insights from his latest comprehensive report on decarbonization. He highlights China's electrification surge, rising from 3% to 30% since 1970, and discusses why electricity spending remains stable despite oil's volatility. Bullard also reveals the staggering backlog of gas turbine orders in Texas and the soaring capital costs for new power plants, comparing current tech investments to past monumental projects. Additionally, he tackles diverging load forecasts and global drivers behind electricity demand.

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INSIGHT

China's Rapid, Large-Scale Electrification

China has electrified hugely: share of final energy from electricity rose from ~3% in 1970 to ~30% today.
China scales industrial electrification far faster than North America or Europe, reshaping global decarbonization demand.

INSIGHT

Electricity's Surprisingly Stable GDP Share

Historically we spend a stable 3–4% of GDP on electricity while oil's share has been volatile.
Electricity spend is range‑bound despite price swings, so future demand growth could shift that pattern.

ADVICE

What It Would Take To Flip The Lines

To make electricity's GDP share exceed oil you'd need much cheaper oil and dramatically higher electricity use per unit GDP.
Consider both lower oil prices and rapid demand growth as necessary conditions, not just one alone.

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It’s a new year, which means the veteran energy analyst Nat Bullard has dropped another annual, data-rich presentation on the state of energy and decarbonization.

And per what has become tradition, Nat is back on Catalyst – for the fourth time – to discuss some of Shayle’s favorite slides, cherry-picked from the 200-page deck.

In part one of their two-part conversation, they cover topics like:

The significance of China’s rapid electrification
Why the proportion of GDP spent on electricity has remained flat while oil has proven volatile
The massive backlog and rising capital costs for gas turbines
How current tech CapEx compares to past large-scale endeavors like the Manhattan Project and broadband build-out
The extraordinary explosion of large load interconnection requests in Texas
The divergence in load forecasting between grid operators and transmission providers
Global drivers of electricity demand growth beyond data centers

Resources

Nat Bullard's 2026 presentation deck
Catalyst: 2025 trends: aerosols, oil demand, and carbon removal
Catalyst: 2024 trends: batteries, transferable tax credits, and the cost of capital

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com.
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