The intrigue: The comments come as everyone’s grappling with how much data center capacity will grow, how much power they’ll need, and how much energy access hurdles might slow development.
Estimates vary a lot.
Morgan Stanley analysts, in a new note, project 23% annual growth in worldwide data center capacity through 2030 and lots of continued growth through 2035.
Contra the UN boss’s goal, they see a mix of fuels powering it, including gas, renewables, and nuclear.
Why it matters: It signals how AI’s massive energy thirst is high on the climate world’s radar as hyperscalers expand infrastructure for training and use of powerful AI tools.
Driving the news: “By 2030, data centers could consume as much electricity as all of Japan does today. This is not sustainable — unless we make it so,” he said yesterday.
“Today I call on every major tech firm to power all data centers with 100% renewables by 2030,” Guterres said.
Emissions (MtCO2 equivalent) and Percent of global emissions
China 15944.0 and 30.1%
United States 5960.8 and 11.3%
India 4133.6 and 7.8%
EU27 3221.8 and 6.1%
Russia 2672.0 and 5.0%
Brazil 1300.2 and 2.5%
Indonesia 1200.2 and 2.3%
Japan 1041.0 and 2.0%
MO AG Bailey, Sen. Hawley celebrate termination of Grain Belt Express loan guarantee
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) Wednesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Loan Programs Office (LPO) has terminated the conditional commitment for the Grain Belt Express Phase 1 project.
The project is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that was intended to connect wind and solar capacity across Missouri and Kansas.
According to a news release from the DOE, the commitment would have provided a taxpayer-funded loan guarantee of up to $4.9 billion and was issued by the Biden administration in November 2024.
Following a review of the project’s financials, DOE found the conditions needed to issue the guarantee are unlikely to be met. The news release goes on to say that the review found that the project is not critical for the federal government to have a role in supporting it.
As a result, DOE has terminated the conditional commitment.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrating the cancellation of the Grain Belt Express conditional loan guarantee, calling it a multi-billion dollar green energy scam that threatened farmers, landowners, and rural communities in Missouri.
These people are nuts for making the grid more robust in the Midwest where there is a shortage of good clean electricity for states like Missouri where coal is king. I do not feel sorry for the people in Missouri for electing these people who are in the pockets of the coal industry.
I posted about the withdrawal of that loan guarantee on another thread, and wondered, if the power generation was coal or gas fired, instead of “wokie” solar and wind, would the guarantee have stayed in place?
That loan guarantee was geared to send excess wind and solar energy from Kansas to the Indiana in two phases. Phase 1: Kansas to NE Missouri. Phase 2: Missouri to Illinois and Indiana.
The electricity available to the local utility or co-op serving your home or business is managed through regional electric grids that cover large areas. Those grid regions are shown in the map. Grain Belt Express will be the first U.S. transmission line to connect 4 of these grid regions, improving affordability and reliability, while building a national energy security backbone for the country. By delivering more affordable power into each grid region, all consumers connected to that grid and neighboring grids benefit, regardless of whether your local utility purchases power from Grain Belt Express.