chrisnelder.bsky.social
Creator and Host of the Energy Transition Show @TransitionShow.bsky.social and energy futurist/analyst/writer/speaker. Peripatetic podcaster. More often on Mastodon at @chrisnelder.mastodon.energy.ap.brid.gy
419 posts
12,375 followers
485 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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Nice try, but the fact remains that new data centers to support AI are getting built, using gas turbines to provide the power, and those turbines will produce significant amounts of CO2. It's not a relative argument. It's an absolute increase in CO2.
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I can see you are determined to reframe this issue in a misleading way, but for the benefit of other readers, I'll just point out that 1) the concern is not just the electricity demand for AI today, but for tomorrow after a massive expansion, and 2) every ton of CO2 emissions matters.
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Don’t apologize for being earnest. Irony is wildly overrated.
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Preach!
Many’s the time I have been glad that ultimately, my study comes down to hard data. Really helps keep ya grounded.
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This is true. But most of the people I’ve met who are involved in that therapy have given up on changing hearts & minds, given up on participating in the propaganda war, and have decided that we are all Doomed. Therefore therapy and community building are the rational response.
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Indeed, much more education is needed on DERs and much work is still needed on the utility integration side. Ep. 251 on South Australia discusses their strategy, terrific stuff. xenetwork.org/ets/episodes...
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Yes, we covered that in @transitionshow.bsky.social Ep. 153. xenetwork.org/ets/episodes...
These are simply engineering problems that have engineering solutions. The blackout of Sept 2016 (see Ep. 39 xenetwork.org/ets/episodes...) uncovered issues with inverter settings etc. that AEMO later fixed.
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Never is a long time
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Having misspent a decade of my career studying reserves to production ratios and writing a book on peak oil and hundreds of related articles… I no longer think resource limits are particularly interesting. The energy transition has already overtaken any scenarios where they would be.
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So… not this, then. bsky.app/profile/atru...
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And given the actual adoption rates and cost curves today for solar, wind & batteries, any significant expansion of gas at this point seems implausible, and 5x highly improbable. I’m not aware of any models (save perhaps from the gas industry) projecting that.
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Fossil fuels have lost globally ~6.25 points of generation share since 2019 and 3.37 points since 2023.
FF rate of market share loss is accelerating.
W&S skyrocketed from 9.2% in April 2019 to 19.7% in April 2025. FF would have lost more but for falling shares for hydro & nuclear. #energysky
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Cheers. That link took me to a page showing "10senergy.com" as the contact and not "10senergy.be" - got it now. Interesting. Anyway, I like that rate design, very progressive.
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I will be very pleased to be proved wrong about this, and I welcome any indication that Big Tech intends to power their new AI data centers with renewables. I just haven't seen it yet. I *have* seen a lot of new gas capacity getting bought.
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Very true, but my thesis is that that whole ethos ended on Jan 20, 2025, and that they will meet AI demand by whatever means possible ASAP, with no regard for carbon emissions. Google was quite blunt about it: www.disconnect.blog/p/silicon-va...
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Yes and @edzitron.com has been cogent on that. I expect the investment into AI will continue far beyond what rational people expect, and the collapse of the business case will also take a lot longer b/c Big Tech will be loathe to admit their error and will "extend and pretend" as long as possible.
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For starters:
www.disconnect.blog/p/silicon-va...
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
mailchi.mp/9c740d9b1310...
mailchi.mp/7a5abd1cc391...
plus Ep. 226 xenetwork.org/ets/episodes...
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I have not seen any AI data center operators spending one second worrying about optimal strategies. They are buying whatever can give them the power they want right now, which is to say, gas turbines. cc/ @solarchase.bsky.social
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This 10s entity is curious. They don't even have a website (just a Facebook page!?) I surmise that they are a retail trading entity only and that Belgium has competitive retail electricity?
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Purely gut feel, but I don’t think this will increase power plant emissions all that much for structural market reasons. But it could slow down progress on decarbonization. There are options for smelters too and other incentives. Data center loads I do worry about. Not many constraints there.
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As the creator of such a publication, pretty sure that’s already happening
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🙄
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On the plus side, they can only waste so much money in the pre-construction phase before TFG is on to his next grift.
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Or they can demand a buyer for it. Either way, unclear.
4) Tribal sovereignty. Yeah I'm not gonna touch that. But it's a whole 'nother can of worms.
At least that's my read. Complicated & unclear.
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3) Separation. If the tribe's array is truly physically separated from the utility connection, as the tribe claims, then it's nunyabizness to the utility. The utility claims it's not separate. So that needs to be clarified too. They don't have to accept exported power.
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2) Every connection has a limit on the power it's supposed to accommodate. If the tribe's solar array could export more power than the connection is designed for, the utility has the right to deny the use of it. Those details aren't clear in this coverage.
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Hooboy. That's a complicated case.
Now, I'm just a simple country lawyer, but it seems to me there are a couple of very distinct issues here.
1) Right of interconnection. Pretty sure the utility can't deny the tribe the right to remain connected as long as they observe the connection's rules.