Energy Rant Archives - Page 2 of 43

Sep 30

Creepy Comparisons of Naval Nuclear Propulsion and Data Centers

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

I couldn't pass this up to break from data centers for a second. One day last week, I read in the morning from the American Energy Society, "California Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to get control of wild gasoline spikes." In the afternoon, I read a headline from Hart Energy, "California Sues Exxon Over GlobalPlastic Pollution." It's like beating a dog to motivate him to roll over. Aircraft Carriers and Data Centers I had the good fortune to tour a data center under construction a few weeks ago in Northern Virginia. It was a three-story, one-million-square-foot facility. The only way…

Sep 23

Love102

Schooling and Improving Pewee – Not for Birds

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

In our first data center post two weeks ago, we covered the core of data centers, including racks, servers, and the exploding computer capacity and heat generation of evermore powerful computing chips. In last week’s second post, we covered the types of data centers, from distributed edge data centers to enormous hyperscale data centers. In this week’s third data center post, we dive into the broad metrics and opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. Power Usage Effectiveness First, I’ll introduce or reintroduce the power usage effectiveness of data centers, or PUE, as follows. In general, levels of…

Sep 17

Love101

Micro to Hyperscale, Data Centers as a Service, and Everything in Between

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Last week, I was on a webinar when the following chart emerged as a forecast for decarbonization. I quickly thought of two things. First, an example from The Wall Street Journal, “Government often uses ‘catalytic tools’ such as regulation, tax incentives, grants, and loan guarantees to prompt innovation outside of government.” In other words, private equity and venture capitalists are not daft enough to shovel billions into hydrogen development. Only the government will do that. Hydrogen via electrolysis by renewable electricity supply can be done, but not cost-effectively. It will cost multiples of the price per million Btu of natural…

Sep 10

Love101

Mini, Macro, and Mega Looks At the Modern Data Center Industry

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Every day, there is a headline about the explosion of data center growth and associated electric loads that will rapidly deplete reserve capacity on the electric grid. The Energy Rant featured several posts to describe the magnitude of the issue and concern among regulators, utilities, and government officials, most recently from the Mid-America Regulatory Conference and Syncing Power Generation with Soaring Loads. Since load management and reliable and affordable electricity are near and dear to me and because Michaels has been successfully engaging with developers of monster data centers, I pounced on the opportunity to attend the inaugural Data Center…

Sep 03

Love100

Climate Policies That Work or Not

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

I had already selected my topic for this week (most climate policies don't work) when I had the good fortune to cross paths with a Wall Street Journal article, 7 Years, $700 Million Wasted: The Stunning Collapse of New York's Traffic Moonshot. The policy attempted to penalize drivers for entering congested zones of Manhattan. The $15 per incident congestion charge would sum to over a billion dollars per year that would fund biking and mass transit improvements. New York City has the most snarled traffic in the world. The Journal reports, "The average travel speed in Midtown fell to 4.5…

Aug 27

Love98

Electricity’s Decoupling From Fuel Costs

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Two years after natural gas prices spiked, resulting in a jump in coal consumption for electricity (see Figure 1), natural gas prices have plunged to inflation-adjusted record lows. The Wall Street Journal reports drillers and producers are curtailing activity as storage bulges at the seams. Figure 1 United States Electricity Production by Source (eGRID) Figure 2 Natural Gas Futures Prices Price suppression is partly due to the recent mild winter and summer, which produced only a few early heat waves to stress the Southwest and West Coast grids. Electricity Prices Decoupling from Fuel Cost Electricity prices are rising because, as…

Aug 19

Love97

The Energy Transition Grind

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Longtime Rant readers know I keep both feet on planet Earth, capturing all sides (typically two) and explaining, yes, but (fill in the blank). For the next case study, I was recently presented with a slide deck from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), The Cleantech Revolution, It's Exponential, Disruptive, and Now. There are many brilliant people at RMI. Amory Lovins, its cofounder, is one such brilliant revolutionary. Amory's famous home in the Rockies can grow bananas in winter. That's great, but is it scalable? It is 4,000 square feet and was completed in 1984 for $500,000, which would be over…

Aug 12

Love97

Fishing for Savants Who Understand Attribution

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

This week, I'm reporting on themes presented at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) summer camp, also known as the Summer Study for Buildings, from Pacific Grove, California. Here are the themes: Heat pumps (~ 80 papers) Decarbonization (~67 papers) Equity (~75 papers) The end. The ACEEE summer camp covers a stunning number of papers. There are 13 panels or tracks, two sessions per day, each with three papers presented, for five days. Per my math, that's 780 papers. In addition, there are probably 60 posters to make up the total of nearly 850 studies. The papers probably…

Aug 06

Love96

Ranking States for Clean, Reliable, and Affordable Power

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

This is the third and final post in a series of Energy Rants on rising electricity prices and unreliability. The first post, Rising Price of Less Reliable Electricity, defined and quantified the problem and discussed some reasons and challenges in the future. Last week in Electricity Rates and Reliability, I started with a state-by-state analysis of energy efficiency policy, electricity sources, and prices. My research for those two posts tipped off an avalanche of rich data to analyze. This week, I am polishing it off with a grand finale featuring state rankings for composite clean, reliable, and affordable electricity. Electricity…

Jul 29

Love94

Electricity Rates and Reliability – Access and Policy

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

For 50 years ending in 2000, electrical loads in the United States expanded at an average of 5.1% per year. For the next 20 years, the growth was essentially zero. Projections for the coming five years are roughly 1% per year (compounded annual growth rate, CAGR). Although that is far from 5% CAGR, it is more than zero, and considering construction of everything from generation to transmission lines is on the decline, something must give. For example, transmission line construction fell from 4,000 miles per year in 2013 to less than 1,000 miles from 2016-2020 to a measly 55 miles…

Creepy Comparisons of Naval Nuclear Propulsion and Data Centers

Schooling and Improving Pewee – Not for Birds

Micro to Hyperscale, Data Centers as a Service, and Everything in Between

Mini, Macro, and Mega Looks At the Modern Data Center Industry

Climate Policies That Work or Not

Electricity’s Decoupling From Fuel Costs

The Energy Transition Grind

Fishing for Savants Who Understand Attribution

Ranking States for Clean, Reliable, and Affordable Power

Electricity Rates and Reliability – Access and Policy

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