Natural Gas: America's Next Energy Crisis/Bottleneck

Matthew Smith, founder and CIO of Chronometer Partners, forecasts that starting in 2028, AI data centers and LNG exports will require more natural gas than the U.S. can produce and deliver, potentially exhausting working gas storage by 2030 and causing unbounded price upside. Smith's 18-month modeling of nearly every U.S. gas well, pipeline, and processing asset concludes the crisis was set in motion before AI, and he identifies the only long-term solution as expanding nuclear and solar capacity.

My guest today is Matthew Smith. Matthew is the founder and CIO of Chronometer Partners, which invests in energy, industrials, materials, power and utilities, and related infrastructure. For the last 18 months he and his team have modeled nearly every natural gas well, pipeline, and processing asset in the United States. He's reached a conclusion most of the market doesn't share. Starting in 2028, AI data centers and LNG exports will need more gas than the country can produce and deliver. By his math, the US could exhaust its working natural gas storage by 2030. In his words, the upside risk to prices becomes unbounded and convex. We talk about why this was set in motion long before AI arrived, why the US can't just turn off exports, who wins and loses among producers, nuclear, solar, and the hyperscalers, and what he sees as the only long-term solution. Please enjoy my conversation with Matthew Smith. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here . ----- In June, Matthew wrote a letter to a small group of confidants laying out the full case behind his natural gas forecast. He has allowed us to publish it. You can read the full letter here . ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at colossus.com/subscribe . ----- Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, Vanta continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Invest Like the Best listeners get a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/invest . ----- WorkOS is the infrastructure B2B and AI-native companies use to sell to enterprise. It covers everything enterprise security requires: SSO, SCIM, RBAC, Audit Logs, AI governance, and more. Trusted by 2,000+ fast-growing companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Vercel. ----- Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest . ----- Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit ridgeline.ai . ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant . Timestamps: 00:00:00 Welcome to Invest Like the Best 00:02:02 Episode Intro: Matt Smith 00:03:33 The Conclusion After 18 Months 00:04:56 The Die Was Cast Before AI 00:07:24 Sizing AI's Gas Demand 00:09:33 Why Not Just Stop Exporting? 00:11:38 Is the Gas Even There? 00:13:53 The Timing Problem, Not Supply 00:15:15 Flow Versus Stock 00:19:10 What Slows Gas to Market 00:22:21 If Nothing Changes by 2030 00:26:11 Could Prices Hit Twenty Dollars? 00:27:00 Gas Producers Poised to Win 00:28:54 Utility-Scale Solar's Windfall 00:30:08 What About Nuclear? 00:32:40 SMRs 00:34:29 The US Consumer Pays 00:36:37 Turbine Makers Building Too Late 00:37:57 Are Hyperscalers Exposed Too? 00:44:25 Kickstarting the Nuclear Build 00:46:20 Put Solar on Every Roof 00:46:52 Implications for the World 00:49:26 No One's Securing Supply 00:52:57 The Challenge for Energy CEOs Hosts & Guests Information - Show - Channel - FrequencyUpdated Weekly - PublishedJuly 21, 2026 at 8:00 AM UTC - Length57 min - Episode483 - RatingClean