Energy Central

Energy: The Big Picture and the Details Our Brazilian culture prioritizes details. When it comes to energy, companies and institutions often prefer to listen to potential solution providers focus on an endless list of details. Of course, many of those details are important. But what has always caught my attention—and still does—is the prevailing "rejection" attitude toward the big picture.

Tue, Sep 8 As buildings transition toward cleaner, more resilient energy systems, it's time to rethink how lighting is powered. Because LED lighting inherently operates on direct current (DC), pairing it with solar photovoltaic (PV) generation and battery energy storage creates a highly efficient electrical architecture that minimizes energy losses and maximizes the value of on-site renewable energy.

Community opposition to data centers has hit both turf and surf. In Eastport, Maine, residents are pushing back against a proposed underwater project—they’re floating a permanent ban on large-scale data centers. This would halt the facility before it could even get its sea legs. 🌊

Tue, Sep 8 The problem: MISO has roughly 220 GW of generation sitting in its queue, and has yet to finish evaluating projects stretching back to 2020. And the grid operator keeps accepting new proposals, despite stakeholder criticism. The solution?

Tue, Sep 8 The details: Employment at utilities is predicted to rise 9.8% (or nearly 59K new jobs) from 2025-2035, according to a news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Tue, Sep 8 NEWS: Massachusetts is investing over $4M in its offshore wind buildout. The funding: That state money is headed to workforce training and marine research that will bolster MA’s offshore wind industry. The persistence: The state is intent on keeping up momentum despite federal headwinds—in July, MA Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined a multi-state coalition to sue the Trump Administration over cancelled offshore wind leases.

Tue, Sep 8 The background: Iowa’s Duane Arnold Energy Center closed in 2020 after operating for nearly five decades (due to pricey storm damage). Now, it’s the third nuclear plant to get federal funding to come back to life. If all goes as planned, Duane Arnold could bring 615 MW to the grid—enough to power around 500K homes. Not so fast: The process likely won’t be speedy. Holtec has worked for over two years to reopen Palisades (which could become the country’s first revived nuclear plant).

Tue, Sep 8 The market signal: Nuclear is getting big funding…and Holtec seems confident there's more where that came from. As the company ramps up its operations in spent fuel storage, SMRs, and nuclear decommissioning, it sees major opportunities ahead. Holtec “is well-positioned to help catalyze the growth of the nuclear power industry in the US and around the world,” the company wrote in a statement.

What can a remote Alaskan town teach the rest of the power industry about building the grid of the future? In this episode, book editor Peter Asmus takes us inside Cordova, Alaska—a community with no road connecting it to the outside world that has turned its isolation into a testing ground for grid innovation.

This is getting to be my new morning routine: 1. Get up, make coffee, sit down with online newspapers 2. Read an article in the New York Times about the latest serious threat to our way of life caused by super-powerful AI tools that even their makers can’t control. Two days ago, the article was about the Hugging Face attacks by what I call an AI bot swarm.