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Another emerging technology is [url="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/this-texas-geothermal-startup-is-storing-energy-in-the-ground"]enhanced geothermal[/URL. Geothermal potential overall is highest in the mountain West, but it turns out that east Texas is where the action is:
- many of the technologies are derived from oil/gas exploration
- geology is good (not great) and exhausted oil drill sites can be reused
- regulatory environment is favorable to drilling
- intermittent wind creates a ready market for alternatives
Data centers are pretty mobile. If it proves too costly to power data centers in the Southeast (and remember that TVA has one of the largest hydro portfolios in the country), they can shift to Canada. They're certainly useful taxpayers, but really don't generate very many jobs.
They need power and connectivity - the further they are from the end users, the higher the latency and things slow down and stop working. Otherwise there'd just be Quebec already. Instead they all cluster around IAD airport like it's Detroit 1947, advantages of the fiber network hub.
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Originally Posted by paytonc
Another emerging technology is [url="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/this-texas-geothermal-startup-is-storing-energy-in-the-ground"]enhanced geothermal[/URL. Geothermal potential overall is highest in the mountain West, but it turns out that east Texas is where the action is:
- many of the technologies are derived from oil/gas exploration
- geology is good (not great) and exhausted oil drill sites can be reused
- regulatory environment is favorable to drilling
- intermittent wind creates a ready market for alternatives
Now this I would not have expected! How is Texas like the king of everything energy?
We've had tons of conversations about viability of the SW with water, but modern life is just as dependent on energy as it is for water to keep sustaining.
The EIA publishes energy profiles of each state, very useful for giving a picture what's there for electricity production and fossil fuel potential: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TN. You can change the state up top to see what your state looks like.
For this thread, the discussion is not what the energy profile of the US should be - that's another topic. The discussion here is given the trends of increased electrification and the current 5-10 year outlook of increases in production of electricity mainly coming from renewables, what areas shine and which look troubling?
Changing the lens from water to energy, it's interesting the trends that emerge.
1. The half of the US west of the dry line has much better renewable electric potential and fossil fuel reserves than the half on the east side.
2. From my take, it looks like the southeast and mid atlantic is in the worst shape for expanding local energy outside of just ramping up natural gas, which they don't produce locally. There's a lot of nuclear here, but does anyone think that will actually increase in capacity?
There's states like Florida that are literally as dependent on energy being piped in as Arizona is dependent on water being piped in. The thing with energy though is the use is going to change much more drastically than water use. Case in point is data centers - this whole AI boom on top of the already increased digitization is literally scheduled to eat up gigawatts of power. That's not even looking at electric stoves and vehicles. This means that the increased demand for electricity is going to hit harder and much sooner than any increased demand for water across the US. There's certain states that really shine for energy potential like Washington, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming...
Most Southeastern states are net exporters of electricity. You realize this correct? There's abundant hydro in addition to natural gas. And nuclear.
Seems like you took the most narrow possible criterion and tried to blow it up into a trend that just doesn't have legs. And you ignore the biggest fallacy of all. It's way easier to create additional generating capacity than it is to create more water.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 09-15-2023 at 04:44 PM..
The nation’s 2,700 data centers sapped more than 4 percent of the country’s total electricity in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. Its projections show that by 2026, they will consume 6 percent
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In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently.
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Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction.
Meanwhile we still don't have ANY actual delivered nuclear capacity coming online to supply any of this and transmission projects increasingly get delayed and set back.
A good portion of data centers in the US are being built in the energy desert part of the US: OH / VA / GA. This is also where a good portion of the new manufacturing is being built as well.
This all is on a collision course - rates are destined to go up in this part of the country, AI will have a reckoning of not being able to build every data center they want, and electrification will slow because of supply issues.
Geographically, the West is much larger than the East, and the entire West is not proximate to energy sources equally. For example, California's top source of electricity is from natural gas (around 46%), and 90-95% of gas is shipped via pipeline from other states. Wind energy is primarily produced in wide open land areas far from population centers, requiring significant construction and upgrade of electrical transmission systems.
Without importation of energy and water from outside of California it is NOT a sustainable state.
Just from an ecological point of view, we need to move people out of California and back to the mid-west and eastern states.
Without importation of energy and water from outside of California it is NOT a sustainable state.
Just from an ecological point of view, we need to move people out of California and back to the mid-west and eastern states.
The thing is, Georgia is in worse than California in this regard. It's easier to have some self sufficient farmstead in Georgia so that masks the issue that Atlanta with it's massive size is completely unsustainable without water being pumped in from Alabama and oil and gas being piped in from the Permian or wherever else.
Without nuclear power, the southeast is a huge 'artificial' dependency. And increased nuclear power isn't going to show up any time soon. New Mexico is more underpopulated relative to it's water and energy needs / potential than SE & Mid Atlantic US states.
The thing is, Georgia is in worse than California in this regard. It's easier to have some self sufficient farmstead in Georgia so that masks the issue that Atlanta with it's massive size is completely unsustainable without water being pumped in from Alabama
Coastal California can get by with water reuse and limited desalination.
Atlanta sits on a ridge, so water flows away from it. Worse yet, the rocks below Atlanta are "crystalline" and don't hold much water -- so recycled water can't be pumped into a local aquifer for later, local reuse. (This technology is most extensively used in Orange County and Hampton Roads.) Some of Atlanta's suburbs do have surface reservoirs for recycled water, but it's a tall order at a metro scale.
Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have large amounts of offshore oil and gas, plenty of natural resources, the only problem is when liberals and Democrats want to restrict our right to develop these resources.
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