Google has made big news in the energy space over the past week, and all of it conflicts with the Harris-Biden goals of a glorious future powered entirely by windmills, solar arrays and presumably some combination of Unicorn fur and fairy dust.
Last week, the Washington Post ran a major story detailing the fact that Nebraska’s Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) will be forced to keep two coal-fired power generation units running for years longer than previously planned to accommodate the electricity needs of new data centers being built in the area by Google and Meta. Originally scheduled to be shuttered at the end of 2023, the units will now remain active through 2026, and local residents and activists expressed skepticism they will be shut down even then.
“A promise was made, and then they broke it,” the Post quotes local resident Cheryl Weston as saying. “The tech companies bear responsibility for this. The coal plant is still open because they need all this energy to grow.”
Well, yes, they do. Given the way supposed deadlines and promises related to this government-forced energy transition have been consistently extended and broken, Weston’s skepticism seems well-grounded.
By now, most everyone is aware of the enormous new demand the proliferation of data centers is placing on the U.S. regional power grids. The new demand from Big Tech is being added to an electric system already strained by huge demands from crypto mining, EV charging and general population growth and economic expansion.
This demand growth threatens to overwhelm the ability of power companies to build new electric generating capacity rapidly enough to keep up. This is especially true for companies operating in areas that restrict such new generating capacity to be “green,” i.e. intermittent wind and solar.
In the Washington Post’s story, the OPPD attributes the need to keep the coal units running on the slow development of anticipated new wind and solar capacity. But that avoids the reality that these data centers and other big power demand hogs require reliable generation, 24 hours a day, 7 days every week. The limitations of intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar, even when combined with current backup battery tech, leaves companies like Google and Meta demanding more reliable, consistent generation.
This reality is not limited to the Omaha area. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google and parent company Alphabet are also backing a new company engaged in the development of a new generation of modular nuclear reactors as a means of securing its future electricity supplies. In a deal with nuclear startup Kairos Power, Google commits to buying power from seven Kairos reactors when they go live in the coming years.
“The end goal here is 24/7, carbon-free energy,” Google/Alphabet senior director for energy and climate Michael Terrell said. “We feel like in order to meet goals around round-the-clock clean energy, you’re going to need to have technologies that complement wind and solar and lithium-ion storage.”
These developments involving Google and Meta come on the heels of other recent stories detailing efforts by tech giants to secure their future power needs. In early October, Constellation Energy announced it will reactivate its Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to feed the power needs of nearby data centers under development by Microsoft. Constellation announced a similar deal in July to power data centers owned by Amazon from other nuclear facilities it operates.
The securing of their own power supplies could well become a requirement for big tech companies in some regions, as regulators and grid managers become increasingly concerned about their potential to drain regional grids of needed capacity to keep the lights on for everyone else. Bloomberg recently reported on comments by Thomas Gleeson, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, warning data center developers they should plan to provide at least part of their own power needs if they wish to connect to the grid in a timely fashion.
What it all means is that demand for reliable, 24/7 power supplied by nuclear, natural gas and even coal is going to continue rising for the foreseeable future. The glorious energy transition will just have to wait for reality.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague calls on Mark Carney and all other leadership candidates to kill Trudeau’s electric car mandate.
President of Canadians for Affordable Energy (CAE) and former Liberal MP Dan McTeague says, “It’s good that the Trudeau government are ending their taxpayer funded electric vehicle subsidy, but it’s time to take the most important step of all and kill the government’s mandate that all vehicles bought in Canada be battery powered by 2035.”
As of January 10th, Transport Canada announced that it “paused” its financial incentive to purchase electric vehicles which had provided up to $5,000 of taxpayers money to anyone who purchases an electric vehicle. Quebec ended its $7,000 subsidy last February. However, the government policy requiring that every car sold in Canada after 2035 be electric remains in force.
“Even with these giveaways in place, it was a stretch for hard working Canadians to afford an EV,” said McTeague. “We at CAE are happy for Canadian taxpayers that the program is coming to an end. But this move must be followed up by abolishing the mandates on unaffordable electric vehicles once and for all.”
“My hope is that each and every Liberal Leadership candidate stands up and acknowledges that mandating that all new cars in Canada be electric by 2035 is wrong and that that policy needs to be scrapped,” added McTeague.
Dan McTeague served in Parliament as a Liberal MP for 18 years, and is now Executive Director of Canadians for Affordable Energy. CAE counts on it’s 60,000 supporters nationwide, you can find more information here: https://www.affordableenergy.ca/
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew responded to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday allowing a ban of the social media app to go into effect, saying he hopes to work with President-elect Donald Trump on a solution.
Trump posted on Truth Social that the Supreme Court’s Friday decision was expected. He noted that his own decision over the platform would be made soon and said, “Stay tuned!”
The CEO posted to the app on Friday following the ruling, thanking Trump for supporting the platform’s efforts to be accessible in the United States.
“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” he said. “This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
Chew continued: “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”
Before the ruling, Trump had said he had a productive conversation with Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The two discussed topics such as trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and other issues. Trump expressed optimism about resolving issues between China and the U.S. and emphasized working together to promote global peace and safety.
The outgoing Biden administration stated they would be leaving the ban up to the incoming administration.
“Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
