Energy
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Energy demand is entering a period of significant expansion as artificial intelligence, electrification, robotics, advanced manufacturing, and digital infrastructure require increasing amounts of power. The scale of that demand is prompting substantial investment in generation and transmission, while also raising a broader question about how the economic value created by an expanding energy system reaches the communities supplying its land, resources, labor, and infrastructure.

A 2026 analysis from Global Energy Monitor illustrates the scale of the emerging demand. Global gas-fired power capacity in development reached 1,047 gigawatts in 2025, while U.S. capacity in development reached 252 gigawatts. Additionally, more than one-third of U.S. gas capacity in development was intended to serve data centers directly or support anticipated AI-related electricity demand.

Those figures provide a useful entry point into a larger conversation about scale. Thor Bailey, founder and CEO of Green Carbon Nexus Inc. (GCN), a Chico, California-based organization focused on primary education relating to sustainable agriculture systems, biomass resources, biochar, soil amendments, and green-credit development, suggests that large commercial and industrial energy systems may remain important as demand expands, while community-scale systems can develop alongside them.

With roughly 45 years of experience spanning agriculture, biomass, renewable energy, project development, and workforce initiatives, Bailey has witnessed several generations of change in the energy economy. His perspective leads to a fundamental question: Who actually benefits from the growth of the energy economy?

For Bailey, biomass offers a particularly useful lens. Organic material comes from particular forests, farms, landscapes, and agricultural systems, making geography an important part of its economics. Feedstock has to be collected, transported, processed, and managed by people working within specific communities. That creates an opportunity for energy development to generate local employment, business activity, and income alongside energy and environmental products.

"Natural capital is the forests, the agricultural land, the water, and all the resources we have around us. But you also have human capital, which is the people and the skills they bring to managing those resources. You really need both working together to create value in a community," Bailey states. His experience suggests that community-scale biomass can become an economic activity through which both forms of capital participate in value creation.

That perspective becomes especially relevant in forest communities where wildfire risk, forest management, biomass utilization, and local economic development intersect. Bailey has explored the possibility of localized carbon markets as another mechanism for recognizing the value of community-level environmental work. GCN's interest in developing a California Grown Green Credit program reflects this broader idea: environmental attributes may have greater local economic meaning when communities can participate directly in creating and managing them.

Capital allocation becomes the next part of the conversation. Bailey says, "I've been thinking about a Biomass Mitigation Fund (BMF) as a way to put risk capital into community-scale biomass businesses. The investment needs to support the people doing the work, the training, and the local businesses that make these projects possible, along with the equipment and technology."

That emphasis connects with Applied Biomass Technicians 3.0 (ABT), which Bailey founded in the late 1990s. Its proposed ABT 3.0 direction places greater attention on mentoring, job training, new applications for biomass residues, and opportunities for younger people to enter the field. The Forgotten Farmer Foundation and its relationship with the North Valley Community Foundation further extend this interest in community and human capital.

Bailey's experience also informs a generational question. He describes growing up in an era when economic activity depended heavily on physical work, local production, and tangible resources, followed by decades in which digital technology enabled increasingly global flows of capital and commerce. That history provides context for his interest in economic models that give communities greater participation in the value generated from their own resources.

A related framework comes from Nate Hagens' The Great Simplification, which examines the relationship between economic growth, energy, resources, and ecological limits. Bailey points younger generations toward that body of thinking while acknowledging the uncertainty involved in designing the next economic model. "I don't claim to have all the answers, but the younger generation will need to navigate and solve these problems within a new global economy," he states.

The scale of today's energy buildout makes that generational challenge increasingly relevant. Global Energy Monitor's August 2026 analysis reported that U.S. gas-fired capacity in development had risen to 378 gigawatts, with data-center-related proposals approaching 189 gigawatts. The report also noted that much of the global pipeline remained in early development, illustrating the uncertainty surrounding the ultimate scale of future demand.

For Bailey, the discussion ultimately returns to balance. "The statistics show the scale contrasts within the commercial and small community scale systems," he says. Industrial-scale infrastructure may provide the capacity required by a growing digital and electrified economy, while community-scale systems can provide pathways for local people to participate in producing energy, managing biomass, developing environmental products, and creating economic activity.

"The younger generation will need to build a new economic model," Bailey suggests. That idea leaves room for multiple scales of energy development, with global infrastructure serving global demand and community systems helping keep people, resources, and economic value connected to the places where they exist.