The Women in Energy initiative at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA, hosted an event on February 25 titled “Energy Markets and the Future of Energy.” It featured Dr. Amrita Sen, co-founder and director of research at Energy Aspects, one of the world’s leading independent energy research firms. The conversation was moderated by Sneha Singha, a SIPA student concentrating in Climate, Energy, and Environment and International Security Policy. Sen spoke candidly about her career journey, the macroeconomic forces reshaping global energy markets, and the sector’s critical challenges in the years ahead.
Some key takeaways from Amrita Sen’s career journey include the following:
- Career paths are rarely linear. Sen’s trajectory, from economics student to commodity analyst to co-founder, was shaped by intellectual curiosity and a willingness to follow the data wherever it led. She spent roughly six years working in the commodities sector before co-founding Energy Aspects, which was built on a gap she identified in energy market research: the need for rigorous, micro-level analysis in a rapidly changing landscape.
- Identifying a gap in the market is a powerful foundation for entrepreneurship. Professional relationships forged at her university were also instrumental to building the firm, Sen noted.
- Human judgment remains essential even in a data-driven field. Energy Aspects trains models with analyst support specifically to override extrapolations when the data demands a different interpretation, because models follow trends, whereas the energy market rarely does.
Some key takeaways from the discussion on the state of global energy markets include the following:
- Investment across the entire energy spectrum, from upstream oil and gas to renewables and grid infrastructure, is the most pressing challenge. Grid investment, in particular, should be triple what it is today, but is hampered by fragmented coordination of government efforts at the local, state, and federal levels.
- Monitoring and transparency of the energy market and energy demand are essential in such a dynamic market. The rapid rise of AI has made energy demand harder than ever to anticipate, but also more critical to understand.
- Talent gaps in the energy sector loom large, particularly in engineering and among women. Sen called directly on this generation of students to consider careers in the oil and gas industry, where significant opportunities exist.
- Political volatility is the market’s biggest structural risk. Sen believes the pendulum has swung from overcorrecting toward green energy to now overcorrecting away from it; neither extreme supports the investment stability that energy security requires. Security of supply depends on security of demand, which depends on political stability.
- China’s dominance in battery technology and critical minerals, 90% of supply growth in key battery minerals like cobalt, graphite, and rare earths comes from China, presents a fundamental tension for the energy transition. Costs must come down for batteries to scale, but whether geopolitics will allow international markets to access those cost reductions remains uncertain.
- Nuclear is not optional. Sen was direct: If the world is serious about the energy transition, nuclear must be part of the answer. The challenge is cost and speed, not the technology itself.
- The US faces a serious mismatch in timing between energy demand and supply. Sen was candid that she does not know how the US meets its rising electricity demand, driven heavily by AI infrastructure, given the lag between when capacity is needed and when it can realistically come online. Natural gas, of which the US has no shortage, will become increasingly central to bridging that power gap.