Michael Thomas Profile picture
Nov 3, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
I guess #COP26 is a good occasion to announce that my team and I at Campfire Labs just gave a $60,000 grant to @theclimatevote.

Here's why I'm excited about what they are building:
The single most effective #climate action anyone can take is advocating for policy change.

@theclimatevote makes that easy (and surprisingly fun).

Every week they host an hour of action. A bunch of us get together and learn from experts like the good folks at @ProjectDrawdown.
After learning about a policy or issue we get to work.

We send personalized emails to legislators. We make calls. And we set up meetings with our reps.

In my second hour of action I set up a meeting with a US Senate staffer to talk about climate!
There are a few things that make Changemakers different than traditional advocacy organizations:

1. They put volunteers to work.

Most organizations cultivate donors and use the money to hire paid lobbyists.

Changemakers turns their volunteers into the lobbyists.
2. They go beyond "Clicktivism."

None of these ALL CAPS emails asking you to "chip in $5" or send a canned email.

Changemakers shows you how to send emails that legislators actually read.

And they never ask volunteers for money.
In my experience there's only two real antidotes to climate anxiety: action and community.

@theclimatevote offers both.

If you're looking to feel a little less anxious and get to work, come join us for an hour of action - climatechangemakers.org

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More from @curious_founder

Oct 30
Over the last few months, my team and I built a dataset of 500+ planned data centers in the US with a combined capacity of ~125 GW.

Here's how we found them:

🧵 Image
1/ State environmental permits

Virtually all data centers have backup diesel generators. To run those, they often need a permit from the state.

- Virginia publishes their Issued Air Permits for Data Centers

- California counties publish their CEQA archives
- Texas publishes their Texas Title V Permits

We went through hundreds of these files to identify planned projects.

E.g. in the TX Title V database we found 312 pages of details on OpenAI's Stargate. Image
Read 12 tweets
Oct 16
For the last few months I've been going through public documents, permits, and satellite images to track the largest data centers in the US.

Today I published the first story about what I've learned.

🧵 Image
Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, tech companies have spent huge sums of money building data centers.

In just three years, spending on data centers in the US has gone from $13.8 billion to $41.2 billion per year—an increase of 200%. Image
I’ve been skeptical of the AI power demand story at times.

But in the years since I first started writing about it, many AI infrastructure projects have gone from the realm of press releases to actual operating projects.

And they’ve done it at breakneck speed.
Read 12 tweets
Sep 8
The growth of grid-scale batteries in the US continues to explode.

Over the last 12 months, the country added 13.2 GW of battery capacity—50% more than a year ago.

🧵 Image
The main reason for the growth of grid batteries in the US is the falling cost of the technology in recent years.

In the last decade batteries have become really cheap. In 2010 the average lithium-ion battery cost $1200 per kilowatt-hour. Today they cost $115 on average.
As prices have fallen, batteries have also been able to compete with natural gas peaker plants.

These traditional fossil fuel power plants are expensive to build and uneconomic in many cases given they are designed to only run 10-20% of the year when demand is highest.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 30
This chart has been making the rounds on social media. It suggests that renewables increase electricity prices.

But it's misleading and pretty typical of the author, whose nonprofit has received ~$1m from ExxonMobil.

Here's what's wrong with it 🧵 Image
As @AndrewDessler writes in an excellent article (linked in the comments), this chart shows *retail* electricity costs.

But in Europe that can be distorted significantly by taxes and fees, which are especially high in countries like Denmark and Germany.

theclimatebrink.com/p/have-renewab…
"A better analysis would use the cost of generating power in order to isolate the impact of renewables. We can get a better estimate of that by using the wholesale price of electricity"

And there's no correlation between wholesale electricity prices and renewables in Europe. Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 3
In the final hour of the House's bill negotiations, far-right conservatives secured a deal with the President that every clean energy company and advocate should know about.

🧵
The final bill allows solar and wind project developers to qualify for the full tax credits if they start construction within the next year.

Developers can "safe-harbor" by spending 5% of a project's cost.

Those of you who have been following along closely know all that.
But here's the problem. The executive branch still has so much control over clean energy projects around the country and the implementation of the tax credits.

And in the final hour, Trump promised to effectively harass solar and wind developers and put them through hell...
Read 12 tweets
Jun 28
The US will need ~450 GW of new electricity generation capacity by 2030 to meet rising demand from data centers, reshoring, etc.

And the Senate is about to vote on a bill that could wipe out ~500 GW of potential energy generation capacity. Image
The latest Senate bill would phase out the investment and production tax credits (ITC and PTC) for any project that is placed in service after December 31, 2027.

So I analyzed how many projects would be at risk.
2,332 solar and wind projects with a combined capacity of 547 GW are expected to come online in 2027 or later, according to our project tracker at Cleanview.

The vast majority of these projects would be at risk of cancellation if the current Senate bill passes.
Read 5 tweets

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