Hate inflation? Stop paying sky-high bills to burn gas

Natural gas prices are rising, American families and businesses are footing the bill

The wonky energy issues I work on usually don’t cross into my circle of friends, so I know something is striking a nerve when it breaks beyond my desk and makes its way into my personal life. This recently happened when the WhatsApp dads chat for my suburban Philadelphia neighborhood started buzzing with complaints about high utility bills – people were appalled by bills approaching $600 in January and wanted answers.

It took willpower to refrain from launching into a tirade about skyrocketing PJM capacity auction results, why industry-backed rhetoric about the inherent reliability of fossil fuels is wrong, and how the problem wouldn’t be so dire if PJM just let clean sources connect to the grid faster.

It all may have been too technical for the other dads anyway – a channel normally reserved for sharing plumber recommendations and organizing backyard barbeques isn’t quite the right venue for these complaints.

But they did understand when I shared forecasts that natural gas prices will be much higher this year compared to 2024. The Energy Information Administration predicts a 73 percent increase in natural gas costs from 2024 to 2025, and a 91 percent increase from 2024 to 2026.

The reasons behind the rise are multifaceted, including a particularly cold winter this year. But a main driver is increased liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, which tightens gas supplies and increases prices for U.S. consumers. Those increases hit Americans hard: 2024 modeling found LNG exports could cost our families, businesses, and manufacturers $11-18 billions dollars in increased energy costs per year.

Every “dollar increase in natural gas costs consumers $34 billion plus about $20 billion in higher electricity cost,” said Paul Cicio, president of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America trade association. It's “only going to get worse from here as LNG exports increase.”

The sad truth is that along with death and taxes, periodic fossil fuel price spikes are one of the few things we can count on.

Source: EIA

Here are two things we know—Americans hate inflation, and fossil fuels cause inflation.

“Invariably, it’s the high cost of oil and fossil fuels in general that drive big fluctuations and overall inflation,” said Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist. Moody’s, which is one of the world’s most esteemed financial analysis companies, found fossil fuels caused 40 percent of inflation America experienced over the past several years.

Getting off gas would go a long way toward getting off the fossil fuel price rollercoaster. Almost all the new power waiting to connect to America’s grid is wind, solar, and storage— in fact, the amount of clean energy in stuck in the interconnection queue is twice the size of the current U.S. electric grid. Reforms that would bring that energy online faster would be a huge help.

And if I feel bold enough, the next time complaints about high bills come through my dads’ WhatsApp group, I’ll plug the benefits of electrified appliances like heat pumps (which outsold gas furnaces by record margins in 2024) and induction stoves – both of which I’ve installed in my home and have lowered my exposure to inflation. The proof is in the bill—my January statement was $50-$100 less than what my neighbors shared in the chat.