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:

🧵 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

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.

🧵 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%.

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.

🧵 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.

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 🧵 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…

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.

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. 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.

Electricity prices are soaring around the country due to the current heat wave—everywhere but Texas.

And this map explains why.

🧵 In the last year, Texas has added 87 new power generation facilities to its electric grid with a combined capacity of 13.5 GW, according to our project tracker at Cleanview.

A staggering 95% of that capacity has come from new solar, wind, and battery storage projects.

China built more solar capacity last year than the US built over the last 25 years.

There's been a lot of talk of "energy dominance" in the US recently.

But energy dominance requires supportive policy. And this is where the US is heading in the wrong direction.

🧵 Last month, the US House passed a bill that is projected to reduce solar, wind and battery capacity growth significantly.

Before the bill, the US was expected to grow renewable capacity by about 3x over the next decade, according to @JesseJenkins et al's modeling.

Over the last few months, I've been analyzing data on clean energy trends in America.

Today I published a report with ~50 trends that I found in my research.

One major takeaway: The U.S. added 47% more clean energy in 2024 than the year before.

🧵

cleanview.co/annual-report-… While the scale of clean energy’s growth in 2024 was remarkable, the fact that clean capacity grew isn't all that surprising.

What was shocking to me, however, was just how much of the new power capacity that came online in 2024 was clean.

95% of new capacity was carbon-free.

One of the tragedies of Hurricane Helene is how few people had flood insurance.

I pulled data from FEMA for every county in North Carolina.

In most inland communities, less than 1% of homes were insured before the storm.

distilled.earth/p/hurricane-he…
Take Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, for example.

The county has 137,123 housing units.

But just 941 of those units—less than 0.7%—have flood insurance through the NFIP, the federal insurance program that issues 97% of the country’s flood insurance plans.

The world's largest climate and weather data archive is located in Asheville, NC.

Due to an historic climate disaster, its currently offline. I was going to NCEI's website for a story I'm working on about Hurricane Helene and America's increasingly fragile insurance system.

Public resources like this are essential to journalism and our understanding of the world.

distilled.earth

I think about this cartoon a lot. Now is probably a good time to plug my work.

I write a newsletter about climate change. You can subscribe to it here:

distilled.earth

The Economist just published this incredible and tragic chart.

Given how many people are killed each year by big cars, it's worth understanding how we got here.

Story time 🧵 In the last few decades, the SUV market in the U.S. has exploded.

According to automakers, changing consumer preferences explain this growth.

But these preferences didn't just change naturally. Automakers, and their successsful lobbying efforts, played a critical role.

This example from @TheEconomist's latest article on crypto mining in Texas is crazy. @TheEconomist I get the argument that bitcoin miners make for why they should be able to participate in demand response programs.

They are a big electricity load and can help cut peak demand.

But these programs were designed to incentivize energy savings. Attracting bitcoin miners with..

Climate change is often framed as a complex problem that requires a PHD to understand.

The solutions are also framed as complex.

But it's actually pretty simple. The issue is that the politics of it—mostly incumbent power—are hard.

That difference is subtle but important. Here's the problem of climate change in a nutshell:

Humans are burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and factory farming.

Those activities are pumping gasses into the atmosphere.

If we don't stop, the stable climate modern life depends on will become unstable.

New data on clean energy's growth just came in and it delivered the good news I needed this week.

Through May, the U.S. added more than twice as much solar power capacity as it did through the same period last year.

There were a few other positive trends in the data:

🧵 Battery storage capacity is growing even faster than solar.

The U.S. has added 384% more storage capacity this year compared to the first 5 months of 2023.

Solar and batteries are expected to make up 80% of new power capacity this year in the U.S.

Both technologies are going to shatter the records they each set in 2023.

🧵 Last year, the U.S. added a record 19.3 GW of utility-scale solar capacity.

That was a big year and represented 72% more than 2022. But it's nothing compared to what's in store this year.

By year's end, the U.S. is expected to add 37.5 GW of capacity (94% y/y growth).

In the last decade, the price of lithium-ion batteries has plummeted.

As a result, we're now building much bigger batteries capable of storing more clean energy.



🧵 distilled.earth/p/the-rise-of-…
As I wrote in a story last year, LIB batteries have quickly gone from providing niche grid services like frequency regulation to storing large amounts of power and supplying energy at times of peak demand.

distilled.earth/p/the-growth-o…

Last month, the U.S. built 3,980 MW of carbon-free electricity generating capacity.

So how much fossil fuel capacity did the country build that same month?

1 MW.

🧵 In April 2024, Texas built the most clean energy capacity of any state, adding 435 MW of solar, 528 MW of wind, and 243 MW of battery storage capacity.

Georgia brought the second most online because, well, Vogtle.

To decarbonize homes, we need to install millions of heat pumps.

In 2023, heat pumps outsold gas furnaces for the second year in a row.

I spent the last month trying to understand why. Here's what I learned:

🧵 distilled.earth/p/heat-pumps-o…
Reason #1 -- State and local policies

Over the last decade, more than 130 cities and 10 states have passed laws encouraging homeowners and builders to electrify their homes.

Many of those laws are working.

Paris just voted to triple parking fees for SUVs.

This is one of the many policies that has helped Paris go from one of the most polluted, traffic-clogged cities in the world to a sustainability leader.

Here's the story of how Paris took back its streets from cars. One of the first efforts to reduce car dependency in Paris was the launch of a bike-share service called Velib.

These bike-share services are in cities around the world today.

But when Paris launched the program in 2007 it was revolutionary.