willmathis.bsky.social
Reporter at Bloomberg covering energy and climate change. Opinions are my own.
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And they, specifically the one he’s invested in Helion, have been saying that for years only to then push back expected commercialization.
In the meantime actual power grids are relying more on coal and gas to fuel AI growth.
Helion in 2014 saying they’d be commercial by 2020: t.co/4WX1OTqlNk
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Delays to subsidies in the US and EU haven’t helped. But that’s only part of the story. Developers have now progressed through detailed engineering and design studies and found that’s it’s more expensive than they thought to build plants. BNEF increased its cost estimate 56% for EU/US since 2022:
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Use more than they produce?
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That’s fair, but to equate the situation in the UK to Germany is very off. Germany shut off nukes for political reasons while the UK is keeping its plants as long as they can.
UK has struggled to build new plants, but not because politicians are ideologically opposed. Just opposed to paying maybe
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Germany and the UK are completely different. The UK is currently building one large new nuclear plant, raising money to build another and extending the life of its existing plants. Nuclear is broadly popular in Britain with politicians and the public
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It has nuclear power and is building more. What’s your point?
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It’s a mix. But zero subsidy tenders aren’t as much of a problem in places like the Netherlands that have less wind on the system and more sources of demand.
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That articles says that the utility in Arizona is adding more gas plants because of the increase in demand from data centers
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Sure but Meta and other tech companies want power 24/7
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I don’t think so. The oil price has gone up by 2% many times since February, but BP’s stock hasn’t gone up this much on any other such occasion. Doesn’t hurt though
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True, and look at OPEC today. Members who have cut oil output are just ceding market share to non-members. And as you say, much easier to make solar panels than to discover vast, economic petroleum resources