DAILY TRIFECTA: It Isn't Denial. It's Indifference.

The political climate is cloudy AF

THE SET-UP: The United States is committed to a super-heated world.

That’s the destiny currently being manifested by Trump and the Hydrocarbonites he’s put in charge of energy policy. If the Hydrocarbonites have a high priest, it’d be Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The founder, Chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy, Wright is a key cog in the Climate Change Removal Machine that’s methodically excising climate science from every part of the federal government.

It’s been damn effective, too.

Not only is the phenomenon being “disappeared” from the EPA, the NOAA, the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, and every dot-gov website, it’s also been notably missing from reporters’ questions to the President in the aftermath of extreme weather catastrophes. He’s effectively decoupled climate from extreme weather at the very moment extreme weather is making climate-related news on an almost daily basis … here and around the world.

At the same time, Trump’s Administration is pulling the plug on every renewable project within their reach. So, it’s a double whammy—they’re terminating every effort to curtail the output of climate-altering emissions and expanding every avenue for burning of every climate-altering fuel they can get their hands on. Here’s Secretary of Energy Chris Wright doubling-down in the July 14^th edition of The Economist:

We are accelerating the production of all baseload resources—coal, nuclear, geothermal and, of course, natural gas. Natural gas alone supplies over 40% of American electricity and 25% of global primary energy. It heats more American homes than any other fuel, anchors the booming petrochemical industry and remains the dominant source of industrial heat for manufacturing.

Sadly, that effort is being sold as a solution to problems that don’t exist…

By targeting our most reliable fuels, the previous administration restricted energy production and blocked critical-infrastructure projects like natural-gas pipelines. This resulted in higher energy prices and inflation, driving up costs for everything from gasoline to groceries. It weakened the resilience of the electric grid. It also made American manufacturing more expensive and uncertain, risking an exodus of businesses—meaning lost jobs and a shrinking tax base.

Apparently, Secretary Wright is unaware that Texas is the “the country’s renewable energy leader in 2024, with growth in solar and wind power.” He’s also conveniently ignorant that, according to Power Technology, Texas’s experiment in wind and solar has produced results:

The Texas renewable energy grid has demonstrated resilience and cost-effectiveness, challenging Trump’s claims that the rapid adoption of solar and wind power leads to instability and high electricity costs.

According to regulatory filings and price data, the US state, which has the most renewable energy in its grid, has seen improved reliability and below-average electricity prices.

ERCOT forecasts a mere 0.30% chance of rolling blackouts during peak energy demand in August, a stark contrast to the 12% chance predicted for August 2024.

This improvement indicates a significant enhancement in grid stability. Residential and business electricity prices in Texas are approximately ten cents per kilowatt-hour, which is 24% below the national average.

As for jobs, renewable jobs grew at twice the overall rate during the Biden Administration and the two fastest growing jobs nationally are currently ‘wind turbine service technicians’ and ‘solar photovoltaic installers.’

But none of that matters to the Hydrocarbonites.

Or, maybe it matters quite a bit.

It might be that Trump and the Hydrocarbonites are not responding to the failure of renewables … but, instead, they are reacting to renewables’ success. The convergence of ever-cheaper renewable energy and rising global concern about the rapidly warming climate poses an existential threat to the big business of burning oil and gas. And let’s be clear, the Hydrocarbonites know climate change is real and that it is really happening. As Wright writes, they are simply willing to accept it:

We will treat climate change as what it is: not an existential crisis but a real, physical phenomenon that is a by-product of progress. Yes, atmospheric CO₂ has increased over time—but so has life expectancy. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Modern medicine, telecommunications and global transportation became possible. I am willing to take the modest negative trade-off for this legacy of human advancement.

Wright can be cavalier about the “modest negative trade-off” given his fossil-fueled wealth … which, according to GuruFocus, stands at a cool $29 million. That’s fairly modest compared to fellow Hydrocarbonite and current Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s $310 million. Burgum made much of his fortune by selling his tech business to Microsoft. As Governor, Burgum managed North Dakota’s reconfiguration into petrostate. Not coincidentally, it’s the intersection of hydrocarbons and tech that has Trump opining about marrying new coal plants with data centers. It’s also an impetus for the recent romance between Trump and the Overlords of Big Tech.

They want access to unlimited energy for A.I. and they don’t want A.I. to be limited by regulation … and the Trump Administration is delivering. Trump’s Stargate Project is just one example. Trump is literally invested in it … through crypto. And Wright makes it clear what the Administration’s top priority is … and it isn’t the price the world’s non-millionaires will pay in climate-generated sacrifice zones:

AI transforms electricity into the most valuable output imaginable: intelligence. The country that wins the global race for AI leadership will shape the future of innovation, economic productivity and national defence. Dominating AI will require not only world-class scientific expertise, but enormous, continuous amounts of power. The Department of Energy is partnering with the private sector to ensure America leads this transformation. Under President Trump, we are refocused on building the 24/7 baseload capacity to meet the demands of the AI era.

Wright is right about one thing, Big Tech is going to need “enormous, continuous amounts of power” if they are going to migrate million of jobs from costly, unruly humans to pliant, hyper-efficient A.I. agents, robots and drones. Whether or not one thinks A.I.’s integration into the human future is a good thing, getting there doesn’t have to depend on burning hydrocarbons. But it sure is a helluva insurance policy for the US Oil Industry and the Gulf Arab Petrostates that Donald Trump has cozied-up to over the last decade. - jp

TITLE: AI data centers require massive amounts of power—making electricity more expensive for everyone around them
https://www.fastcompany.com/91368903/ai-data-centers-require-massive-amounts-of-power-making-electricity-more-expensive-for-everyone-around-them

EXCERPTS: It’s a staggering statistic: Around 70% of the world’s internet traffic flows through Virginia. The state’s data centers, some of which feature hallways nearly a mile long with thousands of thrumming servers on either side, make possible the billions of retail transactions, videos streams, and artificial intelligence queries that happen around the world each day.

But as more data centers are built to accommodate AI and other data-intensive processes, energy demand is expected to skyrocket. A single hyperscale data center can use the same amount of energy as a large city, and the stress this is placing on local power grids is expected to drive up energy costs for residents in Virginia—and around the country.

When utility companies build transmission lines and other infrastructure, the cost is spread across all ratepayers in the region. The assumption is that these lines provide benefits, like reliability of electricity, to everyone, so everyone should pay for them. But the large data centers powering AI programs upend this logic, says Cathy Kunkel, author of the recent report and energy consultant at IEEFA. “It’s just so enormous and we’re really talking about building infrastructure that would not be needed if not for the data centers,” Kunkel adds.

While data centers and other internet infrastructure have been powered by sources across state boundaries for decades, concerns about residential ratepayers’ burdens are more intense than ever due to the mismatch between the modern demands of the energy sector and the legal framework governing it—much of which was developed decades ago, when our energy needs were quite different.

“Everybody gets electricity delivered from some company that has a monopoly on delivering electricity within that geographic area,” says Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. “Even though their prices are heavily regulated and their profit margins are regulated as well, they still want to grow their business.”

The way that these businesses grow in this regulatory environment is by building out their physical infrastructure, which guarantees them a certain rate of return. The larger the company and the more infrastructure they manage, the more money is allowed to flow into the business.

With this traditional model of regulated growth, data centers are a windfall. Their large size and energy needs means substantial infrastructure must be added to the grid, and energy companies do their best to attract data centers to the regions they serve.

Climate Change Exacerbating Environmental Threats To Data Centers
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/data-center/climate-change-exacerbating-environmental-threats-to-data-centers-130179

EXCERPTS: Two studies, published separately this month by climate risk analysis firm XDI and consultancy Maplecroft, suggest that while many data centers already face elevated physical risks from flooding, forest fires, extreme heat and other climate-exacerbated disasters, these hazards will threaten far more facilities in the coming years.

According to XDI, 6.25% of data centers worldwide are at high risk from climate hazards, meaning that there is a high probability of total or partial physical damage to the data center within the planned life of the building.

Additionally, 15.7% of today’s data centers are considered to be at moderate risk. By 2050, the share of high-risk data centers is expected to rise to more than 7.1%, while facilities at moderate risk are projected to leap to 19.6%.

The New Jersey market faces the greatest threat from climate-related hazards, with 1 in 5 data centers expected to be at high risk by 2050 due primarily to coastal inundation and surface water flooding.

Data centers in Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon are expected to contend with a similar level of risk, with the large Oregon market experiencing elevated threats from forest fires.

According to Maplecroft, around three-quarters of the world’s data center markets will have to meet significantly higher cooling demands for longer periods each year. The top 100 industry hubs will see, on average, an 83% increase in days that require additional cooling from 2030 to 2080.

These growing cooling requirements will increase water and electricity demand and have vast repercussions, potentially creating conflicts with local communities where water and power have become scarce resources, according to the report.

Another cost that is set to climb alongside increased climate hazards is insurance.

Climate change-related extreme weather is already impacting the insurance market for data centers, with insurers reassessing risk models and commanding higher premiums and stricter coverage terms, according to XDI. Those premiums could be four times higher by 2050 if data center firms don’t invest in making their facilities more resilient.

“Climate-exposed data centre operators face rising insurance costs, challenges securing coverage, and the threat of stranded assets as insurers and investors increasingly price in climate risk,” the report’s authors wrote.

Both reports emphasized the ability of data center developers and operators to limit their risk from these climate hazards by changing how their data centers are designed and built.

TITLE: The next frontier in real estate: Data centers on the moon and space-support infrastructure
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/15/real-estate-firms-race-to-put-data-centers-on-the-moon-build-space-support.html

EXCERPTS: As private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin develop reusable rockets and push aspirations for lunar and Martian colonization, real estate investors are dialing in. Some liken it to the early days of the railroads, when entire towns grew up around new lines. One of the biggest plays is lunar and deep space data centers.

Hines, a global real estate investment, development and management firm, recently announced the acquisition of the Titusville Logistics Center, a nearly 250,000-square-foot, Class A industrial property located in Florida’s Space Coast submarket. The property is fully leased to aerospace tenants. This is just one example of investors looking to capitalize on the boom in the space exploration sector’s real estate needs.

Real estate companies like Hines and Ethos are already building out space-support infrastructure in the outer space real estate race.

“A real revolution has happened in the industry, and as things start to get unlocked, companies are looking for how they can monetize space more broadly, and there’s a lot of pieces to that,” said David Steinbach, global chief investment officer at Hines.

“We are in the early days of something that will be some major investments, and we’re creating these new rails of the future. In this case, it’s more into orbit instead of on the ground, but when you think about it that way, think about all the nodes that are going to get developed and created. It’s exciting, and I think investors need to be thinking that way,” he said.

One of those rails is data centers. They are going up at a quick pace all over the world, and at the same time sucking up more energy than most local grids can handle. Putting them in space offers a fully decarbonized energy solution.

“There is unlimited power in space because of the sun, there is unlimited cooling with the vacuum of space, and there’s unlimited real estate in terms of where you can put these things,” said Steinbach.

The data centers could be built on the moon and either kept there or launched into space. The data would simply be beamed back to Earth.

Several companies are already working on construction methods for the moon, including 3D printing. ICON, a Texas-based construction technology company, is collaborating with NASA on developing 3D printing technology for construction on the moon and Mars. NASA is providing support through its Small Business Innovation Research program.

And a California startup called Ethos says it has the technology for a moon-based cement ready to go, making it out of the moon’s primary material, anorthosite.

“Ethos takes the geological resources on the moon, and it turns them into buildable props,” said Ross Centers, the company’s CEO. “It’s a whole new world waiting to be developed, and we develop it. We turn it into landing pads, roads, foundations for data centers and other great things.”

Centers said Ethos can also use anorthosite to make raw materials for solar panels, conductors and other materials needed to build data centers and other industrial facilities. And he pointed to the massive proliferation of rocket launches that will only multiply. He calls that his ride.

“People are really excited about this vision. This is something that people have been looking for. It’s not every generation that you get a whole new continent to unlock,” said Centers.