Recent Posts

New AI data centers will use the same electricity as 2 million homes

By Jo Nova

The winds of change are howling through electricity grids

Since 2022, AI -related firms have stormed the S&P 500 market — growing by $12 trillion dollars.

The IEA just posted a whole report dedicated to AI. The demand from data-centers is so large in some places it is already rivaling the kind of monster consumption we are used to seeing from aluminum smelters. There are six states in the United States where data centers already consume over 10% of the electricity supply. In Ireland, data centers swallow about 20% of the electricity.

Currently, a normal data center consumes the same amount of electricity as 100,000 houses. But the new gargantuan data centers under construction will consume 20 times as much — equivalent to adding 2 million homes to the grid.

Data center of the world are not spread evenly. In Virginia, the largest conglomeration of industrial data, their demand for power pulls in a quarter of the state’s electricity.

Australia is being left behind, because we won’t build coal plants in case we offend the UN, and we banned nuclear power as a fashion statement in 1998. The AI global race is on, but digital machines […]

May 21st, 2025 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | | Comments (22)

More coal burned on Earth in 2023 than ever before in human history

By Jo Nova

The best kept secret in the world is that humans are using more coal than ever

So much for the “stranded dead asset”. In 2022 the world set a new all-time record for coal use — reaching 8.4 billion tons. In 2023, despite all the Net Zero billions in spending, despite the boom in windmills and solar panels, global demand for coal will top 8.54 billion tons.

The IEA is the “International Energy Agency” — supposedly, the impartial servant of 31 nations worth of taxpayers. Yet they decided to ignore the world record and instead tell us how coal is set to decline. It’s what they think the taxpayers need to hear. Their press release:

It’s almost as if the IEA works for the renewables industry and their banker investors? Mr Vestas himself could hardly have written a more successful headline to hide the truth and gaslight the taxpayers.

The IEA has been predicting the end of coal for years. Back in 2017 the IEA was telling us China would move away from coal, because by 2025-2030 “solar would be cheaper than coal”. Instead, China’s burning more coal than ever before and the quarterly reporting season […]

December 18th, 2023 | Tags: , | Category: Energy, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Might be more coal burned in 2022 than any other time in human existence

Coal use likely to set new 8 billion ton record this year (and next year too)

How’s that transition going then?

The IEA reports that the stranded dead asset is probably about to hit an all time record high:

For 2022 as a whole, we expect global coal demand to increase by 0.7% from 2021 to about 8 billion tonnes. This would match its all-time peak reached in 2013…

Worldwide coal consumption in 2021 rebounded by 5.8% to 7 947 million tonnes (Mt), according to our data, as the global economy recovered from the initial shock of the Covid pandemic and higher natural gas prices drove a shift towards coal-fired power generation.

Current coal price tonight: $407.90. Also almost a record. So we have highest volume at the highest price, and people want you to believe that no one wants coal.

China burns 53% of the world’s coal:

Coal demand in China, the world’s largest consumer by far, increased by 4.6%, or 185 Mt, in 2021, reaching an all-time high of 4 230 Mt.

India becomes the second country in the world to join the billion-ton-coal-club:

India consumed 1 053 Mt of […]

August 2nd, 2022 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

IEA wants Energy Lockdowns: drive slower, ban cars on Sunday, ride share, and blame Putin

The new (old) recipe for goodliness, and to save Ukraine now, is just like the climate change rules.

Thanks to The Putin Excuse, the IEA suggests we cut oil use, so we need to drive 10km per hour slower, go “car free” on Sundays, catch the bus, work from home, avoid business travel and share our car with strangers.

We’ll start right after you — Dr Fatih Birol — Executive Director of the IEA. We’re keen to hear how the 7th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency in Denmark will become a Zoom call instead. Do send pics of your bus trips and ride-shares!

The IEA have already whipped out a handy Report called A 10 Point Plan to Cut Oil Use also known as, Let Them Eat Cake.

The report goes so far as to suggest that car driving be rationed so only odd or even number plates could drive each day.

As Marc Morano says: “Let’s simplify this: The proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change, COVID, and now the Russian war are all exactly the same — hammer the poor and middle class with more restrictions on travel, less freedom, and even more surrendering of power to unelected government […]

March 19th, 2022 | Tags: , , | Category: Big-Government, Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Everyone cutting coal use except for most of the world and most of the banks

The situation with our most hated energy asset

Australia’s big four banks are fighting over themselves to turn down the chance to profit from coal loans and tell the world. Months ago, Westpac went on a low-coal diet, declaring like a kind of vegan-keto-banker that they won’t consider a loan unless the coal mined has at least 6,300 kilocalories per kilogram. Presumably they will lose weight, or at least lighten up by a few shareholders. Last week our National Australia Bank announced they are waiting for the carbon capture fairy to conquer some laws of chemistry and economics before they finance coal mines again. (Though they limit themselves to spurning only new customers and “thermal coal” in a kind of have-cake-eat-half-the-cake policy.)

But while the small-fish Australian banks advertise their doogooder star status, financial institutions in Canada are putting $2.9 billion towards building new coal plants overseas. And in the last three years, Chinese banks have casually smashed $630 billion dollars into coal. (Notably, even the Chinese don’t want to put money into Adani coal in Australia, the political environment here is that bad.)

The rest of the world is definitely not watching the Australian Banks. Global coal consumption has […]

December 19th, 2017 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |