Feb 6, 2025 · 48m · catalyst
More 2025 trends: DeepSeek, plug-in hybrids, and curtailment
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Shayle Kann and energy analyst Nat Bullard evaluate key data trends shaping the global energy landscape, analyzing renewable curtailment, transmission stagnation, and power load growth. They explore how breakthrough AI models like DeepSeek and the global surge in Chinese extended-range electric vehicles are redefining infrastructure and technology markets.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Shayle holds 31.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Shayle as informed peer 6.4 Guest teaching 5.8 Guest disagreement 1.3 Shayle pushing back 1.7
speaking balance: gold is Shayle, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 20:46 Expectation versus reality correction
Nat sharply corrects the framing around historical load growth forecasts, emphasizing that past forecasts anticipated modest growth but realized actual absolute zero growth.
Hardest push from Shayle ▶ 19:41 Historical load growth contextualizationShayle resists the prevailing panic over AI load growth, offering counter-analysis that 1.5% annual growth is still below early 2000s 2% benchmarks.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 45:51 Deconstructing AI training cost breakdownNat educates listeners and Shayle on Epoch AI empirical data demonstrating that electricity makes up less than 7% of AI training costs, far behind talent and equity.
Shayle holds their own ▶ 23:29 Jevons paradox synthesis for AI computeShayle synthesizes market reactions to DeepSeek by laying out the dual economic scenarios of pure power reduction versus Jevons paradox-driven demand surge.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Shayle as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Shayle pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host Welcome and Overview of Part Two | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Shayle opens with a nuanced take comparing US solar and wind trajectories against global records, noting policy headwinds under new administrations. Nat elaborates with Rhodium Group and ERCOT deployment data showing storage eclipsing wind investment. The dynamic is highly collaborative and analytical. | |
| Renewable Curtailment and Negative Pricing in Grids | 7 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Shayle cites California's negative spring net load and massive curtailment despite perceived grid supply shortages. Nat explains the four-hour storage regulatory cap and contrasts it with Europe's 9,000+ negative pricing hours. Both demonstrate deep fluency in electricity market distortions. | |
| Grid-Scale Battery Performance in Extreme Temperatures | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Shayle frames the reliability question comparing thermal capacity value against battery availability during weather extremes. Nat presents Modo data showing ERCOT grid-scale batteries maintaining mid-to-high 90% availability even in sub-freezing or 105F+ temperatures. | |
| Mid-Roll Sponsor Messages: Bloom Energy, Engie, and EnergyHub | 7 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Following mid-roll ads, Nat recounts hand-collecting NERC reliability forecasts to show the unwinding of historical load stagnation. Shayle pushes back on the panic by placing current 1.5% load growth projections into context of early 2000s 2% growth rates. Nat reframes that earlier forecasts predicted growth where actual realization was flat. | |
| DeepSeek's AI Breakthrough and Computing Scale | 8 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Nat details DeepSeek V3's dramatic efficiency (2.8M training hours vs Llama's 31M) and open-source economics. Shayle counters with a clear articulation of Jevons paradox versus reduced capacity requirements, and explores the electrical siting implications of 20MW distributed clusters versus gigawatt campuses. | |
| The Severe Stagnation in US Transmission Construction | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Shayle highlights the severe stagnation in US high-voltage transmission, prompting Nat to contrast 2013's 3,200 miles with 2024's 125 miles built. Both agree that the failure is rooted in permitting and jurisdictional gridlock rather than capital constraints. | |
| The Global Rise of Chinese Extended-Range Electric Vehicles | 5 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Nat educates Shayle on modern Chinese extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) with 200km battery range and small generators, challenging Western perceptions of legacy plug-in hybrids. He shares firsthand observations from Southeast Asia and Australia of Chinese EV utility vehicles capturing market share. | |
| China's Dominance in Global Automotive Manufacturing and Exports | 6 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Nat presents macro statistics showing China exporting 6.4 million vehicles annually and controlling nearly 40% of global vehicle production, while foreign joint ventures like GM collapse domestically. He illustrates this with BYD surging from 0.2% to 14.4% market share in Singapore within three years. | |
| Data Center Capital Expenditure Surpasses Hospital Construction | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Shayle flags that data center building capex ($31B) has overtaken hospital construction ($27B). Nat explains the structural shift from on-premise server rooms to hyperscale facilities and raises whether lightweight open-source models could reverse the centralization trend. | |
| Regional Concentration, Duty to Serve, and Stranded Asset Risks | 7 | 7 | 1 | 2 | Shayle highlights Northern Virginia data center power consuming 26% of state load and notes absurd interconnection requests in small electric cooperatives. Nat explains the regulatory crisis around the utility 'duty to serve' and warns of stranded asset risks for ratepayers if speculative gigawatt requests vanish. | |
| The Bit-Watt Spread and AI Training Energy Cost Dynamics | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Shayle introduces the 'bit-watt spread' concept to examine willingness-to-pay dynamics. Nat walks through Epoch AI data showing energy comprises only 1.7% to 6.3% of model training costs compared to massive human capital and equity costs, illustrating why tech buyers are price-insensitive compared to aluminum or steel manufacturers. |
Statements from this episode (25)
Bullard: 599 GW of solar was installed globally in 2024
“A modest, 599 gigawatts of solar installed last year globally.”
Bullard: Over 130 GW of wind capacity installed globally in 2024
“And the wind sector, which I think does get painted with this brush that it's somehow like a huge laggard, did have a significant record year, and more than a 130 gigawatts that were installed.”
Bullard: US energy storage investment now surpasses wind investment
“Solar is just on its way up. You know, it's more than forty billion dollars in the trail in 12 months. And storage now invests more than wind does in the States.”
Bullard: ERCOT cumulative solar will probably overtake wind in 2025
“You know this year, we're probably gonna have more solar installed in toto, cumulative, than wind.”
Bullard: California curtailed over 750 GWh of solar in 2024
“What you end up with is more than 750 gigawatt hours of solar curtailment in the state of California this year.”
Bullard: California has deployed 10 gigawatts of energy storage capacity
“We don't know what this would be without the 10 gigawatts of storage capacity that's already been built in California.”
Bullard: California's 4-hour storage market is purely driven by written regulation
“The four-hour storage artifact in California is purely a function of written regulation.”
Bullard: Negative hourly electricity prices in Europe exceeded 9,000 hours in 2024
“And it was 500 to 550 hours in 2022, and it was more than 9000 hours last year.”
Bullard: Grid batteries maintain over 90% availability during extreme Texas weather
“Grid connected batteries have like in, if you look at the cluster of the dot plot of all of this, you know, in the mid to high nineties availability as a resource, whether the temperature is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit or above a 105, there is a little bit of …”
Bullard: US 10-year electricity load growth projections rebounded above 1%
“So by twenty-twenty, the expectation for U.S. Load growth was it was going to be about a half a percent per year. And that has rapidly unwound back to the point where we're now above one percent CAGR tenure CAGR in the power sector in the US.”
Bullard: Actual US electricity demand saw zero total growth despite projections
“The expectation was for half a percent of load growth or one percent load growth, but there was zero. The actual reality was that there was no growth in total, in, in total.”
Bullard: DeepSeek was funded with $5.5M from a Chinese hedge fund
“DeepSeek is an open source, small model. It was funded with 5.5 million dollars from a Chinese hedge fund.”
Bullard: DeepSeek V3 matched Meta Llama 3.1 using under 2.8M GPU hours
“And the sort of benchmark to compare it to would be the Lama 3.1 model from meta, which had four and five billion parameters and just under thirty one million training hours. And deep seek is getting similar results of V three with six hundred and seventy one …”
Kann: Readily available gigawatt-scale grid capacity no longer exists
“At that scale, gigawatt scale, oh wait, we just found a gigawatt of capacity, does not exist anymore.”
Bullard: US high-voltage transmission construction dropped from 3,200 miles to 125
“In 2013, the U S built 3200 miles of three 45 KV and up transmission. So high voltage, long distance transmission. 3000 miles, whatever, not a lot, but infinitely, not infinitely, but like, shall we say, statistically, significantly better than the 125 miles o…”
Bullard: Modern EREVs provide over 200km battery range, unlike older PHEVs
“I think we need to do a big reset in terms of what we consider to be a plug-in hybrid. I think people's, people's versions in the United States is a Prius with a plug, as opposed to a vehicle with 200 plus kilometers of battery range. On its own, plus a small,…”
Bullard: China exported 6.4 million vehicles in 2024, outpacing global rivals
“China exported 6.4 million vehicles last year five and a half million passenger cars. Two million of those were electric vehicles. This is far above any other country's export capability. You know, it's more than Japan exports. It's more than Germany exports. …”
Bullard: China accounted for nearly 40% of global automotive production in 2023
“China in 2023 was just a little bit under 40% of the globe's automaking production, not capacity, but actual production.”
Bullard: GM vehicle sales in China dropped from 4M to under 1M
“GM in in China used to sell, you know, Close to four million vehicles a year. Almost all of them were made locally for the record... And that was 2017. And now it's, you know, like less than a million in 20, 24 through, you know, almost through the end of the …”
Bullard: BYD reached 14.4% Singapore auto market share in December 2024
“In December of 2021, BYD had 0.2% market share, and of December 2024, it had 14.4% market share, making it the second biggest auto seller in Singapore, second only to Toyota.”
Kann: US spent $31B on data center structures in 2024, surpassing hospitals
“We spent more on data centers in terms of CapEx last year than hospitals. I didn't actually realize how much we spent on hospitals, to be honest with you. We spent thirty-one billion on data centers, twenty-seven billion on hospitals.”
Bullard: Data centers consumed nearly 26% of Virginia's power in 2023
“Virginia is, you know, 30, just under 34 terawatt hours of power consumed by data centers in 2020 three, and almost 26% of state power already going to that.”
Bullard: Rappahannock received single interconnection requests 4x its peak load
“Rappahannock had this filing in, in Virginia, where they basically are saying, look, like, we are now getting requests for interconnection. That in a single location are bigger than our entire peak load right now. We have a peak load of 1.2 gigawatts. We have …”