Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 1d

Turns out that raising rates so that you can guarantee a profit on gas and coal plants is bad for consumers, Actually:
www.ksdk.com/article/news...

Ameren cut off nearly 15,000 Missourians from electricity in September as data centers threaten to raise prices more

Data centers are projected to raise electricity prices even more, as current prices are already unaffordable for thousands of families across the state.

www.ksdk.com

Reposted by Scott Fines

South Side Weekly @southsideweekly.bsky.social · 8d

Let us be clear: The President of the United States is levying war against American cities and American citizens—and we cannot rely on the other branches of government to save us.

It’s up to us.

It’s Up to Us to Protect One Another

As Trump sends troops to Chicago, we will continue to investigate and report. Readers have a role to play, too.

southsideweekly.com

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 8d

If I were doing it, I would do multiple substations and bring them online in phases over time. You’re not going to get 1GW from a single grid connection anyway(you’ll congest upstream substations); better to pull from multiple independent grid ties.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 8d

There are two main factors: transformer build time, and interconnection. Planning a (much smaller) substation in the past, we assumed 12-24 months for transformers, and 12-48 months for interconnect--it takes a long time to run new transmission, and 1GW will need a bigger wire than 200MW will.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 8d

My town is on the map! I don’t care if the rest of the map is garbage, they got that part right

William Hazen @williamhazen.bsky.social · 9d

This is the most accurate depiction of the Midwest to date. Wichita has always felt like the last Midwest city while also being the first plains city.

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 10d

It’s the maximum power required by the entire facility at any moment during a single year. It originated from power providers who use it to plan transmission and generating capacity.

It’s almost certainly being misused by techbros who don’t actually understand what they are doing or why.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 10d

I think there’s pretty good evidence that the AI bubble has peaked, and will start a sharp downturn relatively soon. But I don’t see much to indicate that the Datacenter mania has peaked yet; I’m guessing another 6 months at least.

Reposted by Scott Fines

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 14d

The world's first carbon border tax is about to go live, roiling — and possibly reshaping —global trade share.google/yTtxujzkAx8a...
🔌💡

The world's first carbon border tax will soon go live — shaking up global trade

The European Union is poised to fully implement its carbon border tax from Jan. 1.

share.google

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 18d

The datacenters will not be built.

The power demand will not materialize.

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 18d

1. Wait, “it has become harder for some data center builders to arrange the financing for large-scale projects,” that sounds pretty bad
2. How much financing for data center deals has NVIDIA agreed to backstop?

Nvidia even assumes the role of a central bank. For example, in recent weeks, it has become harder for some data center builders to arrange the financing for large-scale projects, according to two people familiar with their discussions. Nvidia’s willingness to step in and backstop financing for data center companies has become helpful in getting other funders of those projects on board, the people said.

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 20d

When the AI bubble burst, a lot of hard asset companies will feel the effects: datacenter operators, construction firms, and power utilities have all hitched their wagon to a continued, never-ending growth in AI. And when the AI fails, all these other companies are going to start eating it. Hard.

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 20d

The AI bubble is probably better thought of as two distinct bubbles: LLMs in general (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), and the associated datacenter buildout bubble.

Useful to remember that the dot-com was actually two bubbles as well: the dot-coms, and the telecoms. Telecoms was much worse.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 21d

We switched from a gas-fired furnace to an air-source heat pump with electric backup last year, and my winter-time humidity was higher, but not by a huge amount.

OTOH no gas in my home, and my local utility offers a discount rate for heat pumps, so I ended up saving quite a bit.

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 22d

Wait: openAI is going to rent a chip that depreciates in 18 months? and then what? does nvidia take the chips out of the data centers or something?

Someone make this make sense

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 23d

Altman sounds very much like a guy who doesn’t understand what a gigawatt actually is.

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 25d

This is pretty funny, because it doesn’t take a lot of mathematical sophistication to know intuitively that this had to be true: no probabilistic system will ever be deterministically correct.

Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 25d

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

www.computerworld.com

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Reposted by Scott Fines

David Pomerantz @davidpomerantz.bsky.social · 27d

Marissa Gillett, possibly the best utility regulator in the country, resigned from the Connecticut PURA this morning. She was forced out by Connecticut’s investor-owned utilities, who finally won their years-long, scorching campaign to oust her. A thread here about Gillett:

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 29d

I think the point of mentioning this is that CF isn't actually "solving" the problems with CCS or anything; they are just offloading their emissions to Exxon.

Is this *better* than not doing it at all? Sure, I buy that. But it isn't really saying anything about CCS that we didn't already know.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · 29d

I'm not particularly opposed to CCS, but worth mentioning that the actual mechanism that CF is using for CCS is enhanced oil recovery in partnership with Exxon.

I don't actually know if CCS-EOR is systemically carbon negative or not, but worth pointing out.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Sep 10

“ I believe in the municipal ownership of these monopolies because if you do not own them they in turn will own you. They will rule your politics, corrupt your institutions and finally destroy your liberties.“
-Tom L Johnson
#energysky

Halcyon @halcyonai.bsky.social · Sep 10

September 10 #chartoftheday

Walmart says if Dominion’s proposed 10.4% return on equity is approved, it would be the 2nd highest awarded ROE for vertically integrated utilities since 2024. #energysky

More: storage.googleapis.com/core_entitie...

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Sep 8

Just on a purely academic level, this is absolutely the coolest technology I’ve ever seen. 3 of these windows will run my fridge!

#energysky

Tor "SolarFred" Valenza @torsolarfred.bsky.social · Sep 8

Solar glass pioneer says next-gen tech has 66 pct higher energy output at half the cost #energysky -- via Renew Economy: reneweconomy.com.au/...

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Sep 7

This is incredible, but (to me at least) it raises a big question: why now?

#energysky

ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

The first evidence of a take-off in solar in Africa | Ember

There has been a major pick-up in solar panel imports into Africa over the last 12 months - a shift that is likely to impact almost every country on the continent.

ember-energy.org

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Sep 3

It’s on land they already own and will attach to their existing transmission infrastructure too; it will probably take longer to get the PSC to approve it than it will take to actually build.

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Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Sep 2

Ameren Missouri wants to build a 250-MW solar field by the Callaway Nuclear plant. A surprising request, tbh, considering they recently got approval for a 750MW gas plant. Still, I’m not complaining about a good thing:

#energysky

abc17news.com/news/top-sto...

Ameren seeks 250-megawatt solar facility in Callaway County

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ) Ameren Missouri applied last week with Missouri's utility regulators to build a 2.5-megawatt solar power facility in Callaway County. The utility is asking for a Certificate of Co...

abc17news.com

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Reposted by Scott Fines

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · Sep 1

A 1929 headline “Stock Market Invincible: Buy, Buy, Buy! Experts Advise”

120 1.2K 6.5K

Scott Fines @hyalinetech.bsky.social · Aug 31

Obviously cant’t know for certain, but I suspect the difference comes down to how leaky you think pipelines are and how much you attribute oil-field extraction damage to CH4 vs petroleum.

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