All-In Summit: NET Power CEO Danny Rice on Nat Gas as Key Source for AI Power

We're here at the All-in Summit in Los Angeles, California, and I'm pleased to be joined by Danny Rice. He's CEO of Net Power. Danny, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Great to see you here at the summit. What brings you to the event?

We're here really to uh to get a really good understanding of what's happening in all things technology with AI.

Um coming from an energy background, I think it for us, it's really, really important to understand how real is this, how scalable is all things technology. Uh it all requires a whole lot of energy. And so I think the more we can do to really understand and appreciate the scale and scope of what technology means for the future gives us a really good understanding of what do we need to do on the energy side to be able to meet their demand for power.

So let's talk about what your company Net Power does. What can you share?

Yeah, so Net Power is really focused on development of power generation to support the AI revolution, to support this future of energy needs.

Um the company's been around for the last decade. We took it public on the New York Stock Exchange back in 2023. That's when I joined as CEO of the business. Uh and over the last couple years, we've really seen this transformation of the US being in a place of energy abundance, power abundance, to now in a place where there's significant demand growth for electricity, specifically for technology and AI. And so Net Power is at the forefront of being able to to create the right power solutions of reliable, affordable energy for the technology.

How are you able to do that?

Well, for us, it it really comes down to really having a fundamental understanding of what energy sources are the right ones to meet the reliable, scalable power needs that technology needs. Um and from us, from our perspective, it really comes down to a single source of energy that the United States has really developed better than anywhere else in the world over the last couple decades, and that's natural gas. Domestic US natural gas. And so our focus is really on developing projects that utilize natural gas as the feed stock for power generation.

So we're talking about natural gas turbines, natural gas reciprocating gas engines that provide that 24/7 365 reliable power that these data centers depend on to be able to run their programs.

How is this going to help scale the technology?

Well, the the biggest thing in terms of scaling the technology is these data centers are getting very, very large in terms of the amount of just energy consumption that they have. And so as these data center campuses get bigger, that means we need a lot more power at these data center sites to meet their reliability needs.

And so what we've really seen over the last couple of years is the shift in the market away from being able to have the data center connected into the grid. to now these data centers saying, I need speed to power faster. I need greater reliability. I need greater affordability, which means I'm actually going to co-locate my data center with the power generation.

So it's called co-location. And so that that's an area that Net power is really, really focused on now is co-location of the power generation that we're developing with the data center projects themselves.

Anything more you can share about the state of the grid when it comes to co-location?

Yeah, it's it's really it's been an interesting couple years. I think what we've seen is I think everybody has been really surprised by the the the speed and the the pace at which this new demand for power is coming. And it's coming a whole lot faster than what the grid can be able to provide.

Because over the last 15 years, we've seen flat demand for power from the from the grid system across the United States. And now for the first time in a long time, we're seeing significant demand growth for electricity. And so it either requires upgrading all of the infrastructure that we have, the the wires, the poles, the transmission lines uh to accommodate this new demand, or we can go build new generation and co-locate that with the demand with the data centers itself.

And so that's that's part of the the wave that we're really on the forefront of is the co-location of this power generation dedicated to powering these data centers, to power AI for for the world.

Why is natural gas the go-to energy source for AI power?

It it it varies from country to country, but in a place like the United States, you know, over the last 15 years, which we've we've been a a huge part of across various entities that that we've um taken public through the New York Stock Exchange. The US is is absolutely blessed with an abundance of low-cost natural gas. It's the lowest cost source of energy for power generation. It's also the largest source of energy for power generation in the United States, so the infrastructure is already in place.

And the United States is sitting on decades and decades worth of really, really low cost, reliable natural gas for power generation. Um most of the countries in the world don't have access to this source of energy to do what we can do in the United States.

And so when you look across what we're doing in this country, almost 100% of power generation for these data centers is coming from natural gas power generation. So the United States has the resources to be able to make it happen and the natural gas industry, which we're a huge part of, is ready to stand up to this opportunity and deliver the power that AI needs for for its future.

Let's talk more about your history with the New York Stock Exchange. You reference those companies that you've been building and taking many of them public. Give our viewers a better sense.

Yeah, we've we've um we've been a part of taking, I think 10 companies public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Congratulations.

Yeah, no, the New York Stock Exchange has been a huge component of our success across all of our various ventures.

The first one was in 2014 when we IPOed Rice Energy, the first company I started with my brothers. And then our midstream company, we took that public the next year. We then merged it with a New York Stock Exchange company, EQT, which my brother now is the CEO of. And it had a midstream business that was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. We had three special purpose acquisition companies that we took public on the New York Stock Exchange. The D-Spack companies have all been NYSE listed.

Uh so the the NYSE is it is near and dear to us. It's been there to support us in our public capital markets efforts and uh it's been a fantastic partnership that we've really enjoyed with the exchange.

Well, we have so enjoyed it as well. And Danny, it's great to see you here on the West Coast, in addition to the East Coast as well. I know you're based down in Dallas, Danny Rice here with us at the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks again.

Thank you.