As a parent, you always worry about your kids. That doesn’t go away just because they grow up and start paying rent, taxes, and the rest of their expenses.
You want them to have the best chance at a good-paying job so they’ll be financially secure, but you also want them to be happy and fulfilled by their career.
When my son got into engineering school, I was thrilled. When he said he wanted to concentrate on energy engineering, I was over the moon.
It’s impossible to imagine a world where the demand for energy will decline.
Projections for energy consumption are pointed straight higher.
In 2025, energy demand in the U.S. grew by more than 2%, one of the largest increases in the last 25 years. The United States is also responsible for 25% of the world’s energy demand growth.
Global electricity demand is forecast to rise even faster at around 3.5% per year. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity demand is projected to grow 2.5 times faster than energy demand through 2030.
In the U.S., demand for electricity is expected to grow 25% between 2023 and 2030 and 78% by 2050.
That’s the equivalent of adding the amount of electricity Russia consumes every year by 2030 and adding the demand from India, Russia, and Japan combined by 2050.
Source: ICF International, OpenAI
Hopefully, that’s a good sign for my son’s employment.
It’s also a good indication of where investors need exposure.
Now, the energy sector has its ups and downs. Oil price volatility can certainly move stocks. But unless you believe demand is going to wane, you have to be invested in the energy sector.
There are many ways to do it. You can own stocks in coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, renewables, and oil.
Of course, you don’t only have to own the producers. There are many companies that service those that are drilling or creating energy. There are pipeline companies, oil rig service companies, companies that manufacture voltaic film, and many more.
Within the energy space, there is a wide variety of types of stocks.
For example, you can own a blue chip oil driller like Chevron (NYSE: CVX), which sports a 3.9% dividend yield; a utility like AES (NYSE: AES), which pays a 4.8% yield; a small cap renewable energy infrastructure company like Ameresco (NYSE: AMRC); and everything in between.
Not having enough exposure to energy in 2026 is like not having exposure to tech in the early 1990s or 2023.
Even more so than tech or healthcare, I expect energy to be the most important sector in the market in the coming years.
Tech may continue to grab headlines. It’s sexy and exciting. Energy, on the other hand, is often expensive, dirty, and labor-intensive.
Yet without it, nothing else will run.
The market knows that. I hope you do too.