National Archives at College Park – Archives II (College Park, MD) 1979
By Jo Nova
The ferocious demand for gas power to feed US Datacenters has triggered a global shortage
Such is the cashed up desire for gas turbines in the US, that all around the world other people are struggling to get gas turbines. Manufacturers have ramped up production, but waiting times have blown out to more than five years. In sheer desperation, companies are converting jet engines into small gas turbines.
Wow – this graph from the latest IEA report
The demand for gas power in “US captive data centers” is so large it is bigger than the investment in gas power in any other country except for the investment in grid connected datacentres, also in the USA.
Anyone who thinks they can just add a gas turbine here and there to patch up a gap in their renewable transition could be in for a nasty surprise.
“It only takes 30 -45 days to convert a Boeing 737 Jet Engine….”
Soaring Electricity Demand Meets Gas Turbine Shortage
By Irene Slav, OilPrice
Turbine makers like Siemens, GE Vernova, and Mitsubishi are ramping up production, but expansion projects could take up to 5 years.
Yet all these plans take time to materialize, and industrial electricity consumers need it now, so they are converting jet engines to gas turbines. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the conversion of jet engine turbines to power generation turbines was a growing business enjoying a lot of investor interest. One such converting company, FTAI Aviation, had seen its shares gain 42% since it announced this new business, which takes just 30-45 days to convert a Boeing 737 jet engine into a power generation gas turbine.
However aircraft jet engines are much smaller than the full capacity of a proper gas power turbine. A 737 engine is only about 25MW, compared to a proper gas power plant which might be 400MW or 600MW. They are really just large emergency generators. Still if Australians get poor enough from the renewable transition and crazy tax laws, soon we’ll have plenty of spare jets to convert to tiny power stations, right? The riff raff won’t be flying…
If only Australia had fully functional old coal plants they could restart like France, Germany and the US did, we could have sold the cheap power to desperate data center operators instead of being a technology backwater. Instead we blow them up, and throw a party to celebrate.
REFERENCE
IEA World Energy Investment 2026 PDF https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4fda38df-523c-46f5-ae75-49481abdc8fc/WorldEnergyInvestment2026.pdf