Former Microsoft energy executive Brian Janus discusses whether utility interconnection queue numbers reflect real power demand from data center developers.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Behind-the-meter nuclear data centers have no credible case for decades
“I don't think there's a credible argument for behind the meter nuclear at a data center in the near future. And by near future, I mean, The next couple of decades.”
Assertion Partly supported
Solar and batteries have killed Texas's $9,000 per megawatt-hour price spikes
“The only argument, you know, you ever had for building something like a baseload generator in Texas is that sometimes the price would go to 5000 or 9000 dollars a megawatt hour, but with the massive amounts of solar and storage coming out of the grid, which yo…”
Opinion
Janous: Traditional colocation data centers lack the energy talent for AI.
“And those companies that, that filled the gap in the last era are really not particularly well equipped, equipped to fill it in this era because the depth of energy talent at those companies is actually quite thin.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Janous: Compute demand will exceed available power supply through 2030.
“It's possible, though I suspect that given the, my fundamental belief is that the demand for compute, let's just say through twenty-thirty, will exceed the available power in the market. And therefore, the marginal value of the next watt or gigawatt, frankly, …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Janus: AI Training Loads Will Not Run as Intermittent Renewable-Following Workloads
“So I think it's a little bit overblown to say, and I think this is also true of Something like the conversation around crypto, but that these are highly curtailable loads that you could just, you know, attach a training model to a wind farm and only run it, yo…”
Opinion
Janus: Powering Gigawatt-Scale Data Centers with Solar and Storage Is Not Feasible
“You're not going to put solar in storage to supply a 500 to gigawatt, 500 megawatt to gigawatt scale data center. I mean, it's just not feasible.”