Here’s a great conversation featuring two of my favorite renewable-energy mavens, Jigar Shah and David Roberts, on the collision between the data-center surge and community concerns and needs (and David’s idea — perhaps a touch wishful — for a solution).
As Jigar explains in his Energy Empire post:
For a rounding error on the cost of a single large data center, a hyperscaler could put batteries in basements, solar on roofs, and money back on the bills of everyone living nearby. Almost none of them do it, and the moratoriums keep spreading. The industry calls this a messaging problem.
This week’s episode is a crossover with Volts. Dave Roberts joined me and Deploy Action’s Arnab Pal to explain why that diagnosis is too simple. The backlash is mainly a trust problem. People feel that wealthy, unaccountable companies are betting our future, and blocking a data center is the one lever within reach. Dave is the most reliable pessimist I know, and I have told him our conversations drive me to drink, but on this one his gloom is earned.
What makes this harder to fix is the fact that the utilities who could broker a better deal earn their money by spending money. The more they build, the more they make, so the cheap fix that lowers your bill is the one thing the system is designed not to deliver.
David’s post at Volts includes the transcript for those who prefer to read words to hearing them:
You might also want to click back to my discussion of data centers and nimby and grid challenges with Michael Liebreich:
David Roberts and I are growing old together on this climate and energy journey. Here he was in 2021 after becoming an editor at large for Canary Media not long after he launched his Volts project:
Here we were in 2014 after he returned from a self-imposed yearlong Twitter hiatus:
Here we were at Grist headquarters in 2013:
Here’s our discussion of Japan’s March 2011 mega earthquake, tsunami and unfolding nuclear power plant disaster on Bloggingheads.TV (when you had to speak into a telelphone):
And here we were in 2010 talking about the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe on Bloggingheads.TV:
All I can say is, YIKES…. This brings to mind my 2012 comments on the need for urgency and patience in pursuing climate and clean-energy progress.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.