Data centres centers used to have power demand measured in the tens of megawatts. Now they are in the hundreds of megawatts, and the new ones that are being proposed have demand in the thousands of megawatts: gigawatts. At Distributech in Feburary, Harry Sideris of Duke Energy said it used to be a big deal when they had a customer wanting to add 10MW or 20MW of load. Now they have several planned data centers for AI needing 1000MW each. How is this additional demand being met? According to Duke,...
Data centres centers used to have power demand measured in the tens of megawatts. Now they are in the hundreds of megawatts, and the new ones that are being proposed have demand in the thousands of megawatts: gigawatts. At Distributech in Feburary, Harry Sideris of Duke Energy said it used to be a big deal when they had a customer wanting to add 10MW or 20MW of load. Now they have several planned data centers for AI needing 1000MW each. How is this additional demand being met? According to Duke, with a lot more renewables, more gas, and eventually more nuclear. What does that mean for net zero goals? Despite the growth in renewable energy sources, the anticipated 25% increase in gas-fired generation over the next 15 years in the US raises concerns for achieving net zero, especially when compared to the expected triple-digit growth rates for onshore wind and utility-scale solar.
On this episode of Wood Mackenzie's The Energy Gang, Ed Crooks is joined by Amy Myers-Jaffe, Director of NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab, who returns to the show to explore the feasible paths to net zero in light of increased energy demand. Also joining this week is Samantha Gross, Director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Together they debate the plans for demand management, and stocktake on global warming goals set at the Paris Agreement.
Is it time to give up on the 1.5 degree target? The world looks like crossing the threshold set in 2015 at COP21 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, to mitigate and ultimately avoid catastrophic climate breakdown. John Kerry, who just stepped down as President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, said recently that the world was on course for more like 2.5 degrees of warming. Many businesses still have alignment with a 1.5 degree scenario as part of their climate goals but we’ve just experienced a year of temperatures more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.
And finally, the EV market is – contrary to popular opinion – doing just fine. In China, things are more than fine; prices are falling and sales are skyrocketing. Sales of what China calls “new energy vehicles” – that is, battery electrics, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles – were up 37.5% in the first two months of 2024 compared with the same period of 2023. In that period – January and February of 2024 – those New Energy Vehicles took 33.5% of the car market. The prices are on the way down too. Reuters has calculated that BYD has cut the prices of its EVs by an average of 17%. What does this mean for the US market?
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