Reading and Podcast Picks is a collection of what I’ve been reading and listening to over the last week or so about energy topics.

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Chart: Solar and wind are meeting — and exceeding — new power demand

A few months I posted a link to Michael Liebreich’s excellenttwo-part essay on the great climate reset. Underpinning Liebreich’s thesis was math: if clean energy exceeds demand by 3% per year for the next 40 years, pretty much everything will be clean shortly after 2060, despite a tripling of demand. I know that’s not fast enough for a lot of folks but for any student of energy history, that would be extremely fast.

And so far this year, solar and wind growth has outpaced demand by over 5%.

Throw in nuclear and new clean supply has outpaced demand by over 10%.

It’s only nine months but it’s extremely encouraging nonetheless.

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Texas Grid Operators and Regulators Iron Out New Rules for Data Centers – Inside Climate News

This article provides a good overview of the various rulemakings underway to implement Senate Bill 6 — and the need for them.

The large load interconnection queue faced by ERCOT, Texas’ power grid, is now dominated by data centers, according to data from ERCOT’s latest system planning and weatherization update. Compared with September 2024, ERCOT now is tracking more than three times as many large load interconnections, with nearly 69% of the large load requests coming from data centers. By contrast, in May 2024, non-cryptocurrency data centers made up less than half of the large power demand requests.

While writer Arcelia Martin highlights the many concerns swirling around data center development, she also highlights an important perspective I often talk and write about here: Texas is a unique place for this kind of development which could inure to Texas’ benefit:

For Woody Rickerson, chief operating officer of ERCOT, the new rules outlined in SB6 are exemplary of why Texas is an opportune place for the growth of data centers, particularly those servicing artificial intelligence.

Grid operators and regulators want to move quickly, he said at a Sept. 30 data center industry conference in San Antonio.

Rickerson said in recent years, the state has proven it can transform the grid through the widespread adoption of renewable energy in ERCOT. The state’s independent grid now hosts more solar, wind and batteries than any other state in the country, with operators saying it can grant customers access to large amounts of power without the bureaucracy other grids face.

“We can change. We can adapt,” Rickerson said. “We can put new processes in place more quickly.”

Much more on how data centers could strengthen the grid here:

Doug Lewin and Nathan Peavey

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Nov 19

“Everyone hates data centers.”

Republican split widens as Texas regulator bashes CCS | E&E News by POLITICO

Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian is at odds with the Trump Administration EPA and the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) over carbon capture and storage: