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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 24m

If you're Sam Altman, life gets better the farther you become untethered to reality. "Altman recently told employees that OpenAI wanted to build 250 GWs of new computing capacity by 2033 ... a plan that would cost over $10 trillion by today’s standards."

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 28m

OpenAI announces it will deploy 10GW of Broadcomm chips for data centers in the next 4 years. Paired with its NVIDIA and AMD deals, OpenAI is now telling the markets it will build 26 GW this decade, costing hundreds of billions (>$1T?). OpenAI's projected 2025 revenue: $25B.

OpenAI, Broadcom Forge Multibillion-Dollar Chip-Development Deal

The companies plan to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI chips over the next four years.

www.wsj.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

... and for the grid technologies that connect renewable energy and batteries with those sources of demand.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

That's indeed an encouraging signal about investors' enthusiasm for renewables. The challenge now is getting investors to show similar enthusiasm for decarbonizing the demand side.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

Oops, I didn't meant to imply that Mexico is not part of N America... or that it isn't facing data center challenges. www.bbc.com/news/article...

AI demand means data centres are worsening drought in Mexico

Activists in Querétaro criticise state government for prioritising the data processing needs for US tech firms over their own citizens

www.bbc.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

Key fact noted by McKinsey: in N America, data centers are the main driver of electricity demand. Not mentioned by McKinsey: the US and Canada are faced with a generation-defining decision on whether these data centers should be powered by clean or dirty energy.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

Displacing fossil gas in the power sector is not a decarbonization priority: "investment dollars for decarbonizing the energy system could potentially go further if, rather than pursuing the final few percentage in the power sector, they were instead applied to decarbonization in other sectors."

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

McKinsey's annual Global Energy Perspective is out, another PR win for the fossil gas industry. Growth in gas consumption is projected for electricity generation, as well as for final consumption, all the way thru 2050. But no worries! it is "displacing higher-emission fuels."

www.mckinsey.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 2h

"The ensuing wealth losses and consumer spending impact [from bursting of an AI bubble] could... be recessionary, though there’s a good chance the impact won’t be nearly as bad as the last bubble."

Jared Bernstein @jaredb-econ.bsky.social · 4h

It looks like a bubble to us:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/o...

Opinion | A.I. Sure Looks Like a Bubble. Watch Out When It Pops.

www.nytimes.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 2h

The data center boom is a real estate story, with developers often using their large war chests to overwhelm local opposition. This tiny Michigan town was forced to cave to Related Digital's demands because it couldn't afford a lengthy legal battle.

Towns are saying no to AI data centers. One got sued over it.

A developer sued a Michigan township after it voted against a data center proposal. Cities in Ohio and Missouri have explored data center bans.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by John Kostyack

Jigar Shah @jigarshahdc.bsky.social · 15h

The electricity system is the largest commodity supply chain in the world that doesn’t feature storage. Every technology benefits from storage (esp Solar/Nuclear).

Top 1% of peak hours are 8% of your bill. Top 10% of hours are 40% of your bill
Batteries provide more tools to flatten out peaks.

Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 1d

Grid scale batteries are changing our electricity system. Excellent new visual story on batteries in FT today shows just how far this technology has evolved.

Fasten your seatbelts, this is just the beginning.

ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 21h

"The bond market’s silence is not reassuring; it is alarming... [B]y the time the alarm bells ring, it will be too late for an orderly adjustment."

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 21h

Why do bond investors, "arguably the world’s best risk managers," keep funding the US government at historically low yields and not charge a risk premium for Trump's reckless economic policies? Because as with the lead up to the 2008 crisis, "complacency pays."

Financial Investors Can’t Profit From Complacency Forever

Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan argues that bond-market participants and others are consciously choosing to ignore obvious policy risks.

www.project-syndicate.org

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

This huge investment in a battery startup shows that investors are beginning to notice the powerful business case for scaling distributed energy resources. Hard to envision any politician standing in the way of homeowners that want to lower their bills and take greater control.

Canary Media Inc. @canarymedia.com · 1d

ICYMI: Base Power just raised $1 billion to turbocharge its unique home battery strategy, in which it leases batteries to households and then uses them as a grid resource.

Base Power hauls in $1B for mass deployment of huge home batteries

It’s a standout fundraise for the current cleantech market. The Texas startup will use the money to beef up manufacturing and install batteries even…

www.canarymedia.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

JP Morgan says "building energy systems to meet AI-driven demand" is part of its new $1.5T "Security and Resiliency Initiative." Since the bank is the world's biggest financier of fossil fuel expansion, perhaps we should hold off on the celebrations?

Banking on Climate Chaos 2025 - Banking on Climate Chaos

The world’s 65 biggest banks committed $7,900,000,000,000 over 9 years to the fossil fuel industry, driving climate chaos & deadly health impacts.

www.bankingonclimatechaos.org

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

Sutton on the central flaw of LLMs: they are about mimicking people, doing what people say you should do. They're inherently limited by what people are already saying.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

The data center boom is closely tied to Big Tech's hypothesis that continuous scaling of computer processing power ("compute") will enable LLMs to replicate human intelligence. Now Richard Sutton, who wrote the seminal 2019 paper promoting this scaling hypothesis, is having second thoughts.

👁️ LLMS have "No Definition of Actual Knowledge," says the Godfather of Scaling

Richard Sutton championed growing AI through pure compute power. Now, he's changing his mind.

davidzmorris.substack.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

"States that embrace renewable energy are far more likely to save money for electricity consumers than those relying on fossil fuels or nuclear power, a POLITICO analysis of federal and industry data shows." 13 of the 17 "green-heavy, low-cost" states backed Trump in 2024.

The government’s own data rebuts Trump’s claims about wind and solar prices

The Trump administration has targeted renewable energy for driving up electricity prices, but POLITICO’s analysis shows states that are growing their wind and solar power typically have lower power co...

www.politico.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

"Electricity is “the ultimate perishable good”, Ember’s @daanwalt3r.bsky.social says, and batteries can unlock its potential much like grain silos stabilised harvests and refrigeration preserved fresh food."

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

ETC's Pravettoni: “The combination of solar and batteries means clean power costs in sunbelt regions could be 50 per cent lower than today’s fossil-based systems.”

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1d

"In 2022, there was only a single GW-scale facility — defined as having a capacity of at least 1GWh.. — in operation worldwide.

Today there are 42 such sites.

Five times as many giga-projects are set to come online in the next couple of years."

Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 1d

How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution

- Vast battery units are shoring up grids and extending the use of clean power

HT @carbonbrief.org
ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution

Vast battery units are shoring up grids and extending the use of clean power

ig.ft.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 2d

The petrochemical industry is expanding production of PFAS in response to the data center boom, betting that the tech industry's toxic chemical releases face no serious prospect of regulation under the Trump regime. But campaigners know that the states have a powerful role.

Advocates raise alarm over Pfas pollution from datacenters amid AI boom

Tech companies’ use of Pfas gas at facilities may mean datacenters’ climate impact is worse than previously thought

www.theguardian.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 2d

@arthurdowning.bsky.social: Many cite S curves to highlight the inevitability of the clean energy transition. But ignoring their limits leads to the overly optimistic assumption that "if only ‘the state’ would get out of the way and let the ‘free market’ rip then the best tech will win."

The problem with 'S-curves'

The pseudo-scientific ‘model’ that dominates the energy industry

substack.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 2d

Wondering if this might dampen enthusiasm for AI among those non-fictional executives who are the AI industry's envisioned customer base.

Jacek Debiec, MD, PhD, DPhil 🌎 🧠 @drjacekdebiec.bsky.social · 2d

"A team of researchers found that some of the most popular of..AIs issued apparently homicidal instructions in a virtual scenario. The AIs took steps that would lead to the death of a fictional executive who had planned to replace them."

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI models that lie, cheat and plot murder: how dangerous are LLMs really?

Tests of large language models reveal that they can behave in deceptive and potentially harmful ways. What does this mean for the future?

www.nature.com

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 3d

I too enjoyed reading @beaubaumann.bsky.social about how to build gov't capacity in an era of "Deep State" conspiracies. Key idea is a shift toward building authentic ties to communities. Contrasting examples of "representation:" 19th century's Freedmen's Bureau & today's ICE in border towns.

Todd Tucker @toddntucker.com · 3d

Thought provoking essay from @beaubaumann.bsky.social on how a post DOGE state capacity push should focus on fixing Congress + decentralizing DC bureaucracy + allowing agencies to communicate more with the public.
lpeproject.org/blog/rebuild...

Rebuilding State Authority In A Post-Trump America

In the ruins of the administrative state after Trump, many on the left see an opportunity to design a New Deal-type reconstruction agenda. But building state capacity requires a government that is…

lpeproject.org

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