Ramez Naam
@ramez
Climate and clean energy investor. Author of 5 books. Energy & Environment co-chair @SingularityU. Trying to build a better world.
Despite this election, I remain an optimist about America and the world. Humanity will continue to produce new ideas and new innovations to improve our lives. Good people will continue to come together to improve the world. And the political tide will turn. We'll make it so.
The UN projects that by 2100, Pakistan will have almost as many people as China.
Make Pollution Great Again!
SCOOP, from @jakespring @EPA has drafted a rule to strike down its 'endangerment finding,' which underpins nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and power plants washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…
It is hard to get your head around how stupendously large an electricity user a 2-5 gigawatt data center represents. A 5 gigawatt data center consumes on the order of 40 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year, as much electricity as the ENTIRE STATE of Nevada or Kansas!
"We project that 2GW and 5GW data centers will be needed to develop single advanced AI models for Anthropic in 2027 and 2028, respectively. With several other U.S. companies developing frontier AI models, we expect total frontier AI training demands in America to reach 20-25GW in…
uh this is a pretty big narrative violation? 83% of Americans support giving medicine to developing nations 78% support giving them food and clothing 63% support economic development 61% support strengthening democracy close enough, welcome back liberal internationalism
Exporting emissions reductions is a great frame for this.
New from me: How China's clean energy manufacturing boom is helping reduce CO2 emissions overseas. In 2024, China’s exports of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles are shaved 1% off global emissions outside of China.
Trump is doing the opposite of what the “Abundance” book recommends by canceling transmission lines and weaponizing the federal permitting process to block solar and wind development. That’s just a fact. Now can we have a real argument about what everyone really believes, please?
The Trump White House is explicitly signaling its alignment with the abundance movement. When it comes to energy, seems like there’s very little difference between MAGA prescriptions and Thompson/Yglesias prescriptions. Profoundly horrible.
Excellent thread on all the ways the Trump admin is trying to hobble the cheapest American energy sources.
To the contrary, the Trump admin has signaled that it favors the restriction of its disfavored energy resources while pushing use of uneconomic resources, which many have pointed out (including some on the right). See a few examples below 👇
Anyone in the energy space: we need more long-range transmission DOE: cancels $4.9bn in previously authorized LPO funding for one of the biggest projects to do so Grain Belt Express still has all of the necessary regulatory approvals, but certainly a major (political) roadblock
Trump DOE cancels loan for major transmission project opposed by Hawley washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-…
GLP-1s are the closest thing we have to a working longevity drug. No evidence they increase max lifespan, but they do increase healthspan and to some extent life expectancy.
New newsletter: We need to talk about how GLP-1 drugs seem to be good for practically everything—and what that means for the future of medicine and health Hundreds of studies have now shown that GLP-1s, such as Ozempic and Zepbound: - seem to curb alcohol, cocaine, and tobacco…
ICE arrests an immigrant doctor with his baby in the car. Refuse to present a warrant. Won't wait 3 minutes for his wife to show up to take the child. This is deeply un-American.
"Daddy, police!"—ICE shatter window to arrest father outside child’s school. "Yeah, that’s police," he comforted his child before pleading with agents. "There is a baby in the car. Is it hard to wait for three minutes?" Agent breaks car window at 1:16 into video to drag man…
.@RepThomasMassie and I have the votes to easily pass the full release of the Epstein files. The Speaker is recessing Congress without giving us a vote. RT if you believe members of Congress should have to vote yes or no on the release before their summer vacation.
Nah. It was David Bowie dying in 2016 that messed up the timeline.
CERN flipped the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in 2010 and nothing has been right since.
Yep. The intent is corrupt, but almost all solar is built on private lands, not Federal.
Re: the new DOI scrutiny of wind and solar projects on Federal lands, that's like <5% of utility-scale solar projects, right? So, that shouldn't be a huge deal?
San Francisco is on the upswing.
Daniel Lurie is running a political masterclass. Majority approval rating across every major political group in the city. I would have thought this was ~impossible.
I would like to bring someone from @xai’s data center development team to DERVOS. Particularly someone who knows the power side. They’d be on stage alongside other hyperscalers, industrial power developers, neo-cloud providers, etc. Anyone have any recommendations?
If LLMs are gonna talk, they don't always want us humans to know what they're saying to each other!
New paper & surprising result. LLMs transmit traits to other models via hidden signals in data. Datasets consisting only of 3-digit numbers can transmit a love for owls, or evil tendencies. 🧵
Love to see neurotech moving forward. And in particular non-invasive neurotech that will have an easier path to mass adoption. Nudge uses focused ultrasound to stimulate the brain via a wearable.
We've raised a $100M Series A from @ThriveCapital, @greenoaks, and a host of great angels. Everyone’s brain can work better. Engineering that idea into reality is the most impactful advancement we can make to life.
This chart is apparently already out of date and overemphasizes water use, according to the numbers OpenAI released, 300 average ChatGPT queries is equivalent to 20 tablespoons of water, not 1 gallon.
American water use is all about agriculture, not housing or data centers. slowboring.com/p/theres-plent…
Retweeting this just because the animated CT scans of power banks are so cool.
Last month @AnkerOfficial recalled over one million power banks due to an unspecified battery manufacturing issue. We CT scanned 3 recalled power banks and 2 that weren’t recalled to see what’s going on inside. Here’s what we found…
Nothing says you want to remove bureaucracy to unleash American energy dominance quite like adding bureaucracy to hobble American energy dominance.
On the Trump admin requiring Secretary-level approval of renewable project permits, via @JasonGrumet on @politico energy pod: