Varun Sivaram outlines feedstock supply limits and land-use conflicts associated with current-generation bio-based sustainable aviation fuels.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
AI token costs will asymptotically approach the fundamental cost of power
“I think the answer will increasingly become yes in the future as the cost of inference, the cost of token generation asymptotically approaches the cost of power, which is the only real operational expense input into the Into the cost of intelligence generation…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sivaram: 50-100 GW of AI Data Centers Cannot Be Built Without Flexibility
“We've got 50 to a hundred gigawatts of latent AI demand in the pipeline. It's just not gonna get built unless you have this capability of flexibility.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sivaram: AI data centers could consume 25% of US electricity by 2035
“Data centers, which today are about four percent of American energy consumption, AI data centers are about five gigawatts of load, grow to 12% by the end of the decade. AI data centers could be anywhere up to 50 or even more gigawatts, to 25% of American load …”
Insight
Mandating more than ten percent clean material procurement by 2030 will fail
“If we, if you try and make it a larger percentage of a supply chain from these enormous buyers early on in 2030, you'll fail. Because the technology simply cannot scale that quickly to meet extraordinary demand.”
Assertion Contradicted
Inflation Reduction Act erases green premiums across most heavy industrial sectors
“In all of our different sectors now, cement, steel maybe not aviation fuels entirely, in almost all of our sectors, it is now as inexpensive to build the clean alternative as it is the dirty one, thanks to the IRA.”
Assertion Supported
Data centers drive 94% of PJM load growth, 17% of US power
“The latest numbers show that in January of this year, NERC forecasts a summer peak increase of 224 gigawatts, almost all of which will come from data centers. Data centers now account for 94% of PJM's projected peak load growth, and by 20:30 EPRI forecast that…”