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Startup Endurance Energy sailed roughly 300 miles off the Oregon coast last month to conduct a field test of its approach to harvesting geothermal energy from an underwater volcano. The company aims to eventually build a network of undersea power plants that tap heat from such volcanic sites.
Google is seeking to build a 780-megawatt AI data center in Pine Island, Minnesota, under a deal with utility Xcel Energy in which Google would finance 1,400 megawatts of wind, 200 megawatts of solar and 300 megawatts of battery storage — more capacity than the data center itself is expected to use. Xcel says the added power will serve all local customers, not just Google, and the agreement includes minimum demand charges and exit fees requiring Google to keep paying even if it doesn't use all the power.
Amazon has agreed to fund a nuclear energy facility in Fairbanks, Indiana, developed with X-energy and American Electric Power, on the site of the retired Breed coal plant. The project would deploy 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors capable of generating up to 960 megawatts for the regional grid and Amazon's data centers, though no construction timeline or cost details have been released.
Several US nuclear power plants that had been shut down are being evaluated or prepared for restart, with utilities citing rising electricity demand. Data centers, particularly those supporting AI computing, are cited as a key driver of this increased power need.
Trade group 7x24 Exchange International is promoting a children's story, 'What is a Data Center?,' featuring a honey badger character touring a facility to learn why data centers matter. The effort is part of a broader push by data center companies and industry groups—including job programs, tax-break lobbying, and local chapter outreach like the Potomac chapter of the Association for Computer Operations Management—to build goodwill with communities and young people as opposition to large data center construction grows.
Roughly 50 million electric motors powering fans, pumps and compressors across U.S. factories and buildings consume nearly a third of the country's electricity, often far more than necessary. Variable frequency drives (VFDs) can cut that waste, but a 2021 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report found only 16 percent of industrial motor systems and 4 percent of commercial ones use them, largely due to installation hassle and lack of mandates.
Neuralwatt CEO Chad Gibson analyzed a month of cloud traffic and found that different agent harnesses produce wildly different prompt-cache hit rates, from 1.6% to 11.1% uncached input tokens. The study found that a cache miss roughly doubles a request's energy use, and that deep sessions past 128k tokens with major prompt re-reads can cost as much compute as roughly 600 normal turns at that depth.
Firma Power is offering data center operators a way to source power from new wind, solar and battery storage projects rather than defaulting to gas plants. The startup's pitch comes as the U.S. is set to add a record 86 gigawatts of clean energy capacity this year, with many more low-cost projects awaiting connection to the grid.
The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices, measured by the producer price index, rose 6.3% in September compared with a year earlier, accelerating from August's 5.6% annual increase. The report attributed the surge largely to a sharp rise in fuel costs, exceeding economists' expectations.
Ambrosia Energy CEO Ben Longmier announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company has begun construction on a 10 gigawatt-hour battery factory near Austin, Texas, spanning 150,000 square feet. The plant is meant to support roughly 300 megawatts of power-plant capacity annually and is expected to reach full production within two to three years. Ambrosia is also starting its first commercial power plant in West Texas this year, pairing 300 MW of solar with 660 MWh of batteries to deliver 30 MW of continuous power.
Ukrainian drone units reported Starlink terminal signal failures at speeds above 160 km/h starting Wednesday, disrupting frontline logistics and strike missions without prior notice, according to military personnel and senior officials. Kyiv also said it received no advance warning from allies of a Russian missile strike on energy facilities for a second consecutive day.
DARPA has launched a $73 million initiative to create long-lasting, dried versions of plasma, platelets, and red blood cells for battlefield use. The program aims to have these dried blood products ready for field deployment by 2029, though researchers still face open questions about the safety and effectiveness of synthetic blood alternatives.