Big Tech: Renewable Energy Champion or Climate Pariah

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Back On The Grid

Nick Sorokin

15 episodes

3 days ago

How does the grid work? What are the barriers to making it cleaner? And who has the power to decide? Tune in each week to hear about tech, markets, and policy related to the U.S. electricity sector.

Technology

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How does the grid work? What are the barriers to making it cleaner? And who has the power to decide? Tune in each week to hear about tech, markets, and policy related to the U.S. electricity sector.

Technology

https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_nologo/36969311/36969311-1679281097079-98ef9f1037ad.jpg

Big Tech: Renewable Energy Champion or Climate Pariah

Back On The Grid

12 minutes 29 seconds

1 year ago

Big Tech: Renewable Energy Champion or Climate Pariah

Data center growth, REC accounting concerns, and behind-the-meter nuclear contracts. What the heck is going on with big tech companies and carbon emissions these days?

Works Referenced – check em’ out!

Rhodium Group, Taking Stock 2024: US Energy and Emissions Outlook, July 2024, https://rhg.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Taking-Stock-2024_US-Energy-and-Emissions-Outlook.pdf

Princeton REPEAT Lab, Climate Progress 2024: REPEAT Project's Annual U.S. Emissions Pathways Update, August 2024, https://zenodo.org/records/13345138

Goldman Sachs, AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand, May 2024, https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand

Bloomberg, AI Is Already Wreaking Havoc on Global Power Systems, June 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-data-centers-power-grids/

Financial Times, Big Tech’s bid to rewrite the rules on net zero (August 2024), https://www.ft.com/content/2d6fc319-2165-42fb-8de1-0edf1d765be3

Utility Dive, Talen Energy defends interconnection agreement for Amazon data center at nuclear plant (June 2024), https://www.utilitydive.com/news/talen-amazon-data-center-interconnection-agreement-nuclear-pjm-aep-exelon/720139/

Katie Tarasov, CNBC, Generative AI requires massive amounts of power and water, and the aging U.S. grid can’t handle the load (July 2024), https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/28/how-the-massive-power-draw-of-generative-ai-is-overtaxing-our-grid.html

Timestamps:

00:00–Data Center Growth
01:55–Data Center Installs Fossil Fuel Plant
2:50–Talen AWS Nuclear Deal in Pennsylvania
3:30–Positive News! Ok No.
3:40–Greenwashing with RECs
4:58–Power Offtake Agreements
6:20–Do Companies Even Care About Emissions?
6:48–In Defense of RECs
7:50–Thought Experiment: Marginal Benefit of 1 MWh renewable energy
8:50–Solar vs Solar: Individual Project Lifecycle Emissions
9:30–RECs seem wrong! But probably still useful
10:00–Google’s Solution
10:21–Verdict
11:15–Long-term power contracts