Free Republic

A shuttered plant is reimagined as Manresa Wilds, an example of an old facility repurposed to solve a new century’s problems. The hike up to the roof involved Escher-like flights of metal stairs and grated catwalks like high wires, dangling above a spectacular abyss of rusted machinery. The ’60s-era control room, straight out of “Apollo 13,” opened onto a turbine hall the size of the concourse at Grand Central.I was blown away. The plant has been shuttered since 2013 and parts of it look like workers walked out one day and left everything as it was. Suburban Connecticut is not...

In 2020, California imported about 25% of its demand for electricity from Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Arizona due to the capacity limitations of the three utilities that serve the State (Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric). These capacity limitations resulted from the closure of fossil fuel plants and environmental restrictions imposed by regulatory authorities in California to meet climate change standards. New England, New Jersey, and New York combined imported about 30% of their demand from either neighboring states or Canada. Many utilities in PJM and MISO import electricity from TVA and the...

Researchers have found that the carbon footprint of generative AI-based tools that can turn text prompts into images and videos is far worse than we previously thought. As detailed in a new paper, researchers from the open-source AI platform Hugging Face found that the energy demands of text-to-video generators quadruple when the length of a generated video doubles — indicating that the power required for increasingly sophisticated generations doesn’t scale linearly. For instance, a six-second AI video clip consumes four times as much energy as a three-second clip.

The US power grid is under significant stress due to rapidly increasing electricity demand from AI data centers and electric vehicles, coupled with the retirement of traditional power plants.The grid faces mounting vulnerabilities from extreme weather events, cybersecurity threats, and physical sabotage, while policy gridlock and infrastructure delays hinder necessary upgrades.Despite challenges, the situation presents investment opportunities in grid modernization, diversified generation, and solutions for energy storage and load management.America’s power grid is straining under the weight of a fast-changing energy landscape. Beyond the usual summer hum of air conditioners, power demand is surging from electric vehicle chargers and sprawling...

What if we told you that DARPA, the U.S. government agency, has developed a way to send electricity through great distances… with no batteries or cables involved in the process? That’s right, like out of a cartoon (it actually looks like a Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s idea), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been able to transmit energy using focused light beams. Of course, they have decided to call their project POWER —great copywriting, even better science. But, how does the DARPA’s POWER project work? This scientific experiment turns electricity into a tightly focused beam of light, sends that beam...

Summary Radioactive, fissile plutonium from Cold War a headache for US US wants to halt disposal of it, use 20 metric tons for fuel Trump administration sees it as potential fuel for new reactors Critic points out similar program failed due to costs WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to make available about 20 metric tons of Cold War-era plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to U.S. power companies as a potential fuel for reactors, according to a source familiar with the matter and a draft memo outlining the plan. Plutonium has previously only been converted to fuel...

Florida Power and Light will face considerable opposition next week when it goes before a typically utility-friendly Florida Public Service Commission with a request that board members approve what would be the biggest rate hike in Florida and U.S., history. ... FPL's rate hike, requested in February, will pull in $1.545 billion in 2026 and tack on an additional $927 million every year thereafter through 2029. That total additional revenue of $8.9 billion would likely rise if the company gets, as also requested, authority to further increase customer costs when it brings new solar and battery projects online in 2028-29....

By Chris TalgoPresident Donald Trump wants the United States to become the world leader in artificial intelligence. “Winning the AI race will usher in a new golden age of human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people,” Trump said as he unveiled his AI Action Plan.The ambitious plan includes more than “90 Federal policy actions across three pillars – Accelerating Innovation, Building American AI Infrastructure, and Leading in International Diplomacy and Security.”One of the “key policies” of Trump’s AI Action Plan is the “rapid buildout of data centers.”Massive data centers are vital to AI. Massive data centers...

Every time you ask ChatGPT a question, to generate an image or let artificial intelligence summarize your email, something big is happening behind the scenes. Not on your device, but in sprawling data centers filled with servers, GPUs and cooling systems that require massive amounts of electricity. The modern AI boom is pushing our power grid to its limits. ChatGPT alone processes roughly 1 billion queries per day, each requiring data center resources far beyond what’s on your device. In fact, the energy needed to support artificial intelligence, cloud computing and even crypto mining is rising so quickly that it...

When you are accused, criticized, or attacked, what is your first instinct? To defend yourself. To explain your intentions. To set the record straight. But Niccolò Machiavelli, the master strategist of power, would tell you this is a fatal error. Every word you spend on defense is a word that solidifies your position as the weak one, the one on trial. You are playing their game, on their terms, and you have already lost. In this brutally effective video, “NEVER Defend Yourself - Machiavelli’s Trick to Flip the Power Instantly,” we break down one of the most potent psychological tactics...

The 30-employee operation in Foxborough is pursuing a Moneyball approach to one of society’s oldest problems FOXBOROUGH, Mass.—A day after an attacker in Boulder, Colo., aimed Molotov cocktails into a crowd of people advocating for Israel, Adam Katz watched the nation’s real-time reaction roll across a giant monitor in his office. Floor-to-ceiling screens distilled patterns from social-media posts worldwide that flooded into computers at the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, where Katz is president. One graph caught his eye. It showed a rise in messages calling the attack a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Jews to manipulate public opinion. “The concern...

2024, prices jumped 800% at PJM Interconnection, a “traffic controller” part of the grid that provides service in 13 states as well as D.C. .. PJM operates the largest power grid in the U.S., with around 67 million customers—that’s more than 20% of the American population. ... amid a dwindling supply and an increase in demand, “Prices for power plants landed at $269.92 per megawatt-day, compared to $28.92 per megawatt-day” in 2023. ... prices are set to spike again, and the projection for this year is around 20%. If you live in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey,...

Joe Rogan used his latest podcast episode to weigh in on the Epstein files controversy amid public uproar over the Department of Justice’s probe into the late pedophile and his associates. The podcast giant lambasted the Trump administration’s announcement that there was never a list or footage revealing clients of the high-flying sex pest. “They’ve got videotape and all a sudden they don’t,” Rogan, 57, said on the latest episode of his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” released Tuesday. “You had the director of the FBI on this show saying, ‘If there was [a videotape], nothing you’re looking for is...

Thousands of businesses and households are waiting to connect to the Dutch grid, forcing network operators to ration power in an early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer as the speed of electrification increases. . . . The Netherlands is among the countries in Europe to have moved fastest to electrify critical parts of the economy after it in 2023 ended production at its giant onshore gasfield, Groningen.

I keep reading how big batteries are all it takes to make wind and solar reliable as the sole grid electricity source. The reality is that making wind and solar work at all requires a fantastic amount of battery backup, far more than is possible. Below is an example using the PJM grid. PJM is America’s biggest grid operator, with a territory covering the Mid-Atlantic and points west. Their territory includes the Washington, DC metro area, where all the federal bigwigs live, making it a good place to start. I also live there. We are quantifying a fantasy, so let’s...

The dam, which will be located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, could generate three times more energy than the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world's largest hydropower plant. ... The Three Gorges hydropower dam required the resettlement of 1.4 million people. Reports indicate that the colossal development would require at least four 20km-long tunnels to be drilled through the Namcha Barwa mountain, diverting the flow of the Yarlung Tsangpo, Tibet's longest river. ... Shortly after China announced its plans for the Yarlung Tsangpo dam project in 2020, a senior Indian government official told Reuters that India's...

A software group that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help automate processes said it was joining with a nuclear power deployment company on an AI-driven system to accelerate construction of nuclear reactors. Palantir Technologies on June 26 said it will work with The Nuclear Company, a nuclear power startup, to jointly create a nuclear operating system (NOS) to simplify reactor builds. The companies on Thursday said the software system would allow for faster construction of new reactors, and provide lower costs. The deal comes as the U.S. government has said it will support nuclear power and other baseload power generation...

Data analytics giants Palantir Technologies Inc. announced a partnership with The Nuclear Company on Thursday to develop NOS, an AI-driven software system designed specifically for nuclear construction projects. The investment comes at a time where the nuclear sector has seen rapid growth in interest from investors and corporations. The software platform’s main aim is to simplify he construction process by enabling faster and cost-efficient deployment of nuclear plants. Palantir will receive approximately $100 million over a five-year period to build the software platform, according to the sources. Alignment with government policiesThe agreement is well aligned with the four executive orders...

President Donald Trump celebrated after the Supreme Court moved to block lower courts from issuing universal injunctions, something that had impacted his executive orders. The president held a news conference just over an hour after the ruling was issued and said the Supreme Court had stopped a "colossal abuse of power." "I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we've seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers," Trump said on Friday....

Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed repeal of the Biden-era’s Clean Power Plan 2.0, which ruled that coal-fired and many new natural gas power plants must capture and store over 90% of their carbon emissions by the 2030s—or shut down by 2040. It’s a costly mandate, resting on shaky legal and technical foundations. Americans would be fortunate to have it repealed. President Biden issued his Clean Power Plan 2.0 after the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that President Obama’s Clean Power Plan 1.0 exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) statutory authority. The Court’s...