2025-12-11

2025 – When Energy and Intelligence Converged

A Year in Review

Human Pace · The Audio Edition · 13 min

A high-voltage transmission tower against a low orange sunset.

A Year in Review

For me, 2025 will likely be remembered as the year when clean energy turbulence met the massive arrival of AI — odd timing (or perhaps even unfortunate timing), yet it revealed something essential about progress: it is rarely linear, but it is always directional.

Clean energy navigated a year of constriction and recalibration. Projects slowed. Capital tightened. Supply chains reminded us of their dependencies — and onshoring, nearshoring, and friendshoring take time.

The scale of compute demanded new power. The scale of risk demanded new thinking. Together, these shifts surfaced three takeaways of the year.

1. Systems don't break; they rebalance.

2025’s volatility was not a failure of the energy transition — it was the transition working, correcting, adapting, and readjusting to find equilibrium.

Rebalancing isn’t an annual event on a schedule. It simply happens — and it requires us to maintain perspective through volatility.

2. Speed without judgement creates fragility; judgement without speed creates irrelevance when action is needed most.

Acceleration is powerful, but direction is leadership. And what kind of leadership?

Energy leaders who understand AI.
AI leaders who understand climate.
Business leaders who understand all three.

3. The future belongs to those who can see across domains.

In 2025, China installed more solar and wind in a single year than the entire U.S. renewable capacity.

Yet scale is not destiny. The next chapter of the energy transition will not be determined by who installs the most gigawatts, but by who can align energy, climate, AI, and infrastructure into something coherent, resilient, and investable.

Because climate change doesn’t pause — it compounds.

So if there was a whisper running underneath 2025, it was this: Progress is built - and then stewarded.

So, celebrate what was built, learn, and then on to the next one.

Why are we here?

If the climate were mild and stable, would we obsess about which energy source we use?

We set out to solve energy in order to solve climate.

We solve climate so the humans can live and thrive on planet Earth.

AI or no AI — that mission is unchanged.

As we step into 2026

May our decisions be shaped by clarity, not just projected momentum.

By courage. not the convenience of chasing whatever is hot this quarter.

And by the quiet confidence that comes from understanding the systems that power a changing world.

The Signals Beneath the Noise: Key Numbers that Shaped 2025

State of the World - Emissions and Trends

Source: Rhodium Group (Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 1990-2022 and Preliminary 2023 Estimates, November 2024)

Line chart of global greenhouse gas emissions 2019-2023: 51.1 gigatons pre-pandemic, dipping to 48.7 in 2020, then climbing back to 51.8 by 2023. Source: Rhodium Group.

Investment Gaps in Renewable Energy - Global vs. U.S. Capital Flows

Source: International Renewable Energy Agency (Progress, Shortfalls and Emerging Opportunities in Energy Transition Investment)

World map of 2024 renewable energy investment, $807 billion total. China leads at $352bn, then Europe $137bn, North America and Oceania $122bn, Asia excluding China $93bn. Source: IRENA.

The U.S. Energy Mix

Source: International Energy Agency (Energy system of United States)

US final energy consumption 2023 by source: oil products 47.2%, natural gas 23.9%, electricity 21.4%, biofuels and waste 6.1%, coal 0.8%. Source: IEA.

AI Demanded New Power

Source: S&P Global (Data center grid-power demand to rise 22% in 2025, nearly triple by 2030, October 2025)

S&P Global chart: US data center power demand more than doubles from about 50 GW in 2024 to roughly 130 GW by 2030, with the forecast period shaded.

Map of US data center utility power demand, showing operating and planned sites as scaled circles clustered heavily in Virginia, Texas and the Midwest. Source: S&P Global.

The Mega Infrastructure Moment

Source: McKinsey (The Infrastructure Moment, September 2025)

McKinsey summary on energy, power and resources: $23 trillion estimated investment by 2040, with developing countries accounting for 85 percent of new demand.

McKinsey summary on digital infrastructure: $19 trillion estimated investment by 2040, noting that power access is constraining data center construction.

The System Thinking Machine

Source: DNV (Energy Transition Outlook, October 2025)

Systems diagram of the Energy Transition Outlook model, mapping feedback loops between transport, buildings, manufacturing, power supply, hydrogen, fossil fuels and carbon capture.

Decisions Ahead

Source: JP Morgan (Power Rewired: The New Map of Energy and Geopolitics, September 2025)

Innovation-wave chart from 1800 to 2020 showing five past technology waves and a sixth now beginning, with leadership passing from Britain to the United States and the next leader unknown.

World map of critical mineral reserves by country: China holds 90.9% of gallium, South Africa 77.8% of platinum group metals, Chile 31% of lithium, DR Congo 54.5% of cobalt. Source: USGS.

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