A Low-Risk Play for the AI Energy Boom By Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig We solved one of humanity's greatest problems. And now, somehow, we have to solve it again. Since the Industrial Revolution, the story of human progress has been about one thing: more. More people. More food. More stuff. And, above all else... more energy. In the 1800s, roughly 90% of the world's energy came from human and animal muscle. We chopped wood and churned butter by hand. We tilled fields by oxen and horse. And we transported goods via wheelbarrows and manually propelled boats. Today, that's no longer the case. The average person has nearly 700 times more energy at their disposal thanks to resources like coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, wind, and solar power. Compared with how things were two centuries ago, it's as if every person now has 60 adults working around the clock for them, without rest. We learned to capture and expend energy to our benefit. And as our population and the global economy grew, so did our energy consumption. Each new advance in technology and manufacturing, from lighting to automobiles to steel, bettered our lives... And each required a lot more energy. But our growing energy usage became a huge problem... for a few reasons. For one, fossil fuels – which now deliver a majority of the world's energy – are finite resources. One day, we'll run out. At the same time, an increase in fossil-fuel emissions led to a rise in environmental issues. Renewable energy helped, but it was (and still is) nowhere near where it needed to be to completely displace fossil fuels. Regardless of what you feel about these issues, mankind is grappling with them. For a time, we figured out a way to produce the same economic output with less and less power. We moved toward a knowledge-based economy that required less heavy industry. Aside from that, we simply got more efficient. Lighting shifted from incandescent bulbs to LEDs. Appliances became smarter and leaner. Industrial processes improved. And data centers became better at squeezing more computing power out of each watt. Our "energy intensity" – the amount of energy required to produce $1 of economic output – was cut in half. It fell from 3.7 kilowatt-hours in 1970 (the equivalent of running central air-conditioning for about an hour) to 1.4 kilowatt-hours by 2022. Even as Americans bought more devices and businesses digitized their operations, each unit of output required less electricity than before. The result was an unusual stretch in modern history: economic growth without a proportional increase in energy consumption. Now, the era of less energy consumption is over... According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration ("EIA"), total U.S. electricity consumption is expected to hit record highs of 4,268 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 and 4,372 billion kilowatt-hours in 2027. More importantly, the composition of demand is changing. Commercial and industrial energy use is growing faster than residential use. The EIA specifically cites large computing facilities and data centers as key drivers of the coming acceleration. This isn't just a short-term bump, either. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that data centers could account for up to 9% of total annual U.S. electricity generation by 2030... up from roughly 4% in recent years. The main culprit, of course, is artificial intelligence. AI uses massive amounts of power to process queries. And that's not likely to change. If anything, it'll only ramp up. As a result, investors are clamoring for opportunities in the energy sector. They're piling into utilities and renewable-energy companies, infrastructure plays, and independent power producers. This buying frenzy has unfortunately pushed many of these stocks to sky-high valuations. Regular readers know I'm an income investor at heart. I'd never advise you to chase hot trends and wild returns... especially when they carry the risk of evaporating if AI progress or projections fizzle out. But the AI energy boom is real. And you can still profit from it without overpaying for the hype... In last month's issue of Income Intelligence, my team and I recommended a fantastic electric-power company that's set to capture growth from rising energy demand. This isn't a speculative startup or a hot name that's making headlines... It's a leader in the electricity space with more than a century of experience and a current 3.3% dividend yield. The best part, its valuation is near a five-year low. By adding this company to your portfolio, you get the best of both worlds... You gain some exposure to the AI boom while remaining heavily insulated from the downside of an AI bust. Income Intelligence subscribers can read all about this must-own stock by clicking here. And if you're not subscribed to Income Intelligence but would like to learn about some of the highest-quality dividend payers out there today, click here. What We're Reading... Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement, Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
March 4, 2026
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