Matthew Smith has spent the last 18 months modeling every well, pipeline, storage facility, and power plant in the American natural gas system.
His conclusion is that the US is heading toward a natural gas shortage with no precedent, beginning in 2028.
By 2030, he believes we could exhaust our working natural gas storage entirely.
The fuel everyone in AI is counting on, and that everyone assumes is abundant, is not there.
And because gas sets the price of electricity in most of the country, he argues Americans will pay for the shortage in their power bills.
Matthew has worked in energy markets for over 20 years and is the CIO of Chronometer Partners.
This is his second time on the show, and he's one of my favorite people to talk to about energy.
We discuss:
- Why the bottleneck is moving from power to fuel
- Why we can't just shut off exports
- 2028 as the inflection point
- Large-scale nuclear v. SMRs
- Who wins, who loses, and what can still be done
Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:30 What Drives the Deficit
11:00 Why Supply Can’t Catch Up
20:35 The 2030 Gas Crisis
25:05 Winners and Losers
29:00 Nuclear and Solar
33:30 Consumers Pay the Bill
37:20 AI’s Next Shortage
45:25 Solutions and Global Stakes
51:15 The Coming Gas Knife Fight
The most profitable real estate in America isn't a house. It's a rectangle of asphalt with white lines painted on it
A guy in Nashville owns 6 parking lots. He makes $74,000 a month. He has zero tenants, zero toilets, zero maintenance calls at 2am, and zero fucks to give
The lots cost him a combined $280,000. All funded by 0% business credit and a small SBA loan. His annual profit is $888,000 on parking spots
Here's why parking lots are the most psychotic investment in real estate:
No building. No roof. No HVAC. No plumbing. No electrical. No appliances. No drywall. No paint. You own DIRT with LINES on it. The maintenance cost is repainting the lines once a year ($400 per lot) and patching potholes ($200-$800 annually). That's it
A tenant in an apartment flushes a diaper down the toilet at 3am and you're writing a $600 check to a plumber. A parking lot customer parks, pays, and leaves. The relationship lasts 47 minutes
His 6 lots:
Lot 1 (downtown Nashville, 40 spaces): bought the lease for $45,000. Revenue: $18,000/month (event parking, $30-$60 per car on concert nights)
Lot 2 (near Vanderbilt campus, 60 spaces): $52,000. Revenue: $12,000/month (monthly passes to students/staff, $200/month each)
Lot 3 (airport adjacent, 80 spaces): $68,000. Revenue: $16,000/month (long-term airport parking, $15/day)
Lot 4 (bar district, 30 spaces): $38,000. Revenue: $11,000/month (weekend event premium pricing)
Lot 5 (hospital adjacent, 50 spaces): $42,000. Revenue: $9,000/month (monthly medical staff passes)
Lot 6 (church overflow, 25 spaces): $35,000. Revenue: $8,000/month (rented to church + weekday commuter parking)
Total monthly revenue: $74,000
Total monthly expenses (insurance, property tax, lot attendant, payment processing): $11,200
Monthly net profit: $62,800
He doesn't OWN most of the land. He leases it. Many of these are ground leases from landowners who have vacant lots sitting there doing nothing. He approaches the owner, offers $1,000-$3,000/month in ground rent, paves or grades the surface, paints lines, installs a pay station or ParkMobile QR codes, and collects $8,000-$18,000/month
His actual capital investment per lot: $15,000-$30,000 in improvements (paving, signage, pay station, lighting). Funded on 0% cards
The 0% cards were paid off from lot revenue within 4-5 months. He now cash flows $62,800/month from rectangles of dirt
The event night arbitrage:
Nashville has concerts, football games, and bachelorette parties every weekend. Lot 1 and Lot 4 are within walking distance of major venues. On concert nights he charges $50-$60 per space. 40 spaces x $55 = $2,200 in a single evening. One Saturday night pays the entire monthly lease on the lot
He hires a teenager to stand at the entrance with a card reader on event nights. Pays them $150 for 5 hours. $2,200 revenue minus $150 labor = $2,050 profit from a college kid and a QR code
The tech angle:
All 6 lots run on ParkMobile or SpotHero. No cash. No attendant needed on non-event days. Customer scans a QR code on a sign, pays through the app, parks. He gets a direct deposit every week from the parking app company. His involvement: checking an app on his phone once a day
He told me "I went to 3 real estate meetups and every person there was talking about BRRRR strategy and rental arbitrage and house hacking. I asked how many of them had ever been woken up at 2am by a tenant. Every hand went up. I asked how many parking lot owners had been woken up at 2am. Nobody raised a hand because nobody in the room owned a parking lot because it's not sexy enough for Instagram"
parking lots don't go viral on real estate TikTok because there's nothing to film. no before and after. no granite countertops. just dirt and money. which is exactly why nobody's competing for them lmfaooo
link in bio and i'll show you how you can qualify for up to 250k in 0% APR funding (if you have a 700+)