4 ms·

Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal

8 points by rntn 1y ago

billy99k 1y ago
The activists of the 70s made it so we were never able to really innovate Nuclear energy. If they instead supported it, we might not even have any climate issues today.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Untrue, no idea where you got this idea from. The nuclear energy research pipeline is entirely decoupled from the challenges and protests of deploying it.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
While unfortunate due to bad policy and poor governance outcomes, these coal plants are uneconomical, and will continue to drag themselves to retirement or closure. New gas turbine pipeline is ~5-10 years long (only three companies in the world build them, and they are output constrained due to labor and supply chain limitations), so they are not an option luckily. Renewables and battery manufacturing and deployment flywheels continue to spin up. "Sucks to suck" but this problem is temporary, and the AI bubble will deflate eventually (destroying some component of this data center power demand). China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... Gas-Turbine Crunch Threatens Demand Bonanza in Asia - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-turbine-crunch-threatens-asian-lng-demand-bonanza https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-tu... | https://archive.today/z4Ixw https://archive.today/z4Ixw - October 7th, 2025 China electrotech exports are surging. Here's what's at stake for U.S. - https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/china-clean-energy-export-surge https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/china-clean-energy-export-s... - October 6th, 2025 Planned retirements of U.S. coal-fired electric-generating capacity to increase in 2025 - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 - February 25th, 2025 Nowhere to go but down for U.S. coal capacity, generation - https://ieefa.org/resources/nowhere-go-down-us-coal-capacity-generation https://ieefa.org/resources/nowhere-go-down-us-coal-capacity... - October 24th, 2024 US Coal Plant Map Retirement Tracker - https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map
deleted 1y ago
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8 points by rntn 1y ago

The activists of the 70s made it so we were never able to really innovate Nuclear energy. If they instead supported it, we might not even have any climate issues today.

bigyabai 1y ago
Untrue, no idea where you got this idea from. The nuclear energy research pipeline is entirely decoupled from the challenges and protests of deploying it.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

While unfortunate due to bad policy and poor governance outcomes, these coal plants are uneconomical, and will continue to drag themselves to retirement or closure. New gas turbine pipeline is ~5-10 years long (only three companies in the world build them, and they are output constrained due to labor and supply chain limitations), so they are not an option luckily. Renewables and battery manufacturing and deployment flywheels continue to spin up. "Sucks to suck" but this problem is temporary, and the AI bubble will deflate eventually (destroying some component of this data center power demand). China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... Gas-Turbine Crunch Threatens Demand Bonanza in Asia - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-turbine-crunch-threatens-asian-lng-demand-bonanza https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-tu... | https://archive.today/z4Ixw https://archive.today/z4Ixw - October 7th, 2025 China electrotech exports are surging. Here's what's at stake for U.S. - https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/china-clean-energy-export-surge https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/china-clean-energy-export-s... - October 6th, 2025 Planned retirements of U.S. coal-fired electric-generating capacity to increase in 2025 - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 - February 25th, 2025 Nowhere to go but down for U.S. coal capacity, generation - https://ieefa.org/resources/nowhere-go-down-us-coal-capacity-generation https://ieefa.org/resources/nowhere-go-down-us-coal-capacity... - October 24th, 2024 US Coal Plant Map Retirement Tracker - https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map

deleted 1y ago

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