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I recently flew by Ivanpah solar electric generating grid. Below is what Grok had to say about it. 😳😳 Ivanpah is widely regarded as a bust — a high-profile, expensive failure of concentrated solar power (CSP) tower technology, though it provided some engineering lessons and did generate power (just...

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Combat Learjet

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18,012 views • 2 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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California's $2.2 billion solar plant is shutting down. Once hailed as a breakthrough, the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert is now a case study in failed technology and environmental risk. Built with $1.6 billion in federal loans in 2014, the plant was hailed as a symbol of America's clean energy future. It used 173,000 mirrors to focus sunlight onto three massive towers heating fluid to drive steam turbines. Complicated. Expensive. And it never delivered on its promise. After just 11 years, the technology is now obsolete. On top of that, the facility became notorious for its environmental toll, with estimates of at least 6,000 birds incinerated each year by the concentrated beams. The promise was affordable, reliable, green power. The reality was high costs, technical failures and ecological damage.
0:49

California's $2.2 billion solar plant is shutting down. Once hailed as a breakthrough, the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert is now a case study in failed technology and environmental risk. Built with $1.6 billion in federal loans in 2014, the plant was hailed as a symbol of America's clean energy future. It used 173,000 mirrors to focus sunlight onto three massive towers heating fluid to drive steam turbines. Complicated. Expensive. And it never delivered on its promise. After just 11 years, the technology is now obsolete. On top of that, the facility became notorious for its environmental toll, with estimates of at least 6,000 birds incinerated each year by the concentrated beams. The promise was affordable, reliable, green power. The reality was high costs, technical failures and ecological damage.

Electroverse

441,066 views • 3 months ago

Wind and solar don't work at night or when the wind isn't blowing. Australia is told the solution is batteries! Real world experience shows that batteries are too expensive, too slow to build and don't last long enough to support a grid. During this session with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), I revisited the status of the eight large-scale battery storage projects funded in 2022, noting that $176 million had been allocated but none had completed construction by February. I was told that while all projects are progressing, some face challenges like grid connection issues. I highlighted the significant cost increase from $2.7 billion to $3.1 billion and questioned the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of these batteries compared to coal-fired power stations. I also raised concerns about the stability and reliability of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, and the additional costs associated with making them grid-compatible. Additionally, I asked ARENA about their responsibilities and the financial transparency of their operations. I emphasised the high cost of electricity in Australia compared to countries like China and criticised the impact of net-zero policies on manufacturing. We need to ditch net-zero. Use the cheap resources we have in Australia's ground for Australians first!
11:40

Wind and solar don't work at night or when the wind isn't blowing. Australia is told the solution is batteries! Real world experience shows that batteries are too expensive, too slow to build and don't last long enough to support a grid. During this session with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), I revisited the status of the eight large-scale battery storage projects funded in 2022, noting that $176 million had been allocated but none had completed construction by February. I was told that while all projects are progressing, some face challenges like grid connection issues. I highlighted the significant cost increase from $2.7 billion to $3.1 billion and questioned the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of these batteries compared to coal-fired power stations. I also raised concerns about the stability and reliability of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, and the additional costs associated with making them grid-compatible. Additionally, I asked ARENA about their responsibilities and the financial transparency of their operations. I emphasised the high cost of electricity in Australia compared to countries like China and criticised the impact of net-zero policies on manufacturing. We need to ditch net-zero. Use the cheap resources we have in Australia's ground for Australians first!

Malcolm Roberts 🇦🇺

21,336 views • 1 year ago

Tesla just declared war on the biggest hidden cost in the entire AI boom (Save this). Here's what actually happened on Tesla's Q2 2026 call. Musk and CFO Vaibhav Taneja said Tesla is preparing to increase US solar production by an entire order of magnitude, pushing capacity past 100 gigawatts a year, and doing it through full vertical integration, from silicon refinement all the way to finished solar cells and panels. The reason this connects directly to AI is that Tesla explicitly framed its energy division, batteries and solar together, as critical infrastructure for AI data centers, not just a side business for homes and utilities. AI training runs create violent power swings, with draw dropping as much as 70% in just 100 milliseconds and Megapacks are being positioned as the buffer that smooths that volatility so data centers don't destabilize the grid. SpaceX bought $430 million worth of Megapack batteries from Tesla in 2025 specifically for its own data center operations and Tesla's energy segment overall pulled in $12.8 billion in revenue for the year, up 27%. In Q2 2026 alone, energy storage deployments jumped 53% sequentially to 13.5 gigawatt hours, the second largest quarter the segment has ever had. Musk's argument for why this matters at scale is straightforward. If Tesla can mass produce solar cheaply enough and pair it with enough battery storage, it can generate roughly two and a half times more usable energy than current grid infrastructure typically delivers from the same generation base, which is what he means by making energy completely abundant. Vertically integrating the entire supply chain, meaning Tesla controls silicon, cells, panels, and batteries instead of buying components from outside suppliers, is exactly how they intend to crush production costs enough to make that scale of buildout viable. Tesla remains one of our core positions at Milk Road, if you want our full trades we are making daily, come join us using the link below for just a dollar!
0:38

Tesla just declared war on the biggest hidden cost in the entire AI boom (Save this). Here's what actually happened on Tesla's Q2 2026 call. Musk and CFO Vaibhav Taneja said Tesla is preparing to increase US solar production by an entire order of magnitude, pushing capacity past 100 gigawatts a year, and doing it through full vertical integration, from silicon refinement all the way to finished solar cells and panels. The reason this connects directly to AI is that Tesla explicitly framed its energy division, batteries and solar together, as critical infrastructure for AI data centers, not just a side business for homes and utilities. AI training runs create violent power swings, with draw dropping as much as 70% in just 100 milliseconds and Megapacks are being positioned as the buffer that smooths that volatility so data centers don't destabilize the grid. SpaceX bought $430 million worth of Megapack batteries from Tesla in 2025 specifically for its own data center operations and Tesla's energy segment overall pulled in $12.8 billion in revenue for the year, up 27%. In Q2 2026 alone, energy storage deployments jumped 53% sequentially to 13.5 gigawatt hours, the second largest quarter the segment has ever had. Musk's argument for why this matters at scale is straightforward. If Tesla can mass produce solar cheaply enough and pair it with enough battery storage, it can generate roughly two and a half times more usable energy than current grid infrastructure typically delivers from the same generation base, which is what he means by making energy completely abundant. Vertically integrating the entire supply chain, meaning Tesla controls silicon, cells, panels, and batteries instead of buying components from outside suppliers, is exactly how they intend to crush production costs enough to make that scale of buildout viable. Tesla remains one of our core positions at Milk Road, if you want our full trades we are making daily, come join us using the link below for just a dollar!

Milk Road AI

27,142 views • 4 days ago

Elon Musk just explained why the SpaceX IPO is an energy story and the energy constraint is why he believes space becomes the only viable path for AI to scale (Save this). The argument he is making is one of the most important and least understood things happening in technology right now. The United States currently consumes roughly 500 gigawatts of electricity on average. To double that capacity which is what continued AI expansion on the current terrestrial trajectory would eventually require would mean building as many power plants as currently exist in the entire country. He is not arguing that this is technically impossible, just that communities are not willing to accept it, that permitting timelines make it unrealistic, and that the hard ceiling on Earth based power generation means the expansion of AI compute will eventually hit a wall that no amount of capital can overcome on the ground. His observation is that in space, that wall does not exist. A solar panel in orbit produces roughly five times more power than the same panel on Earth, operates in continuous sunlight uninterrupted by weather or nighttime, and benefits from the vacuum of space as a completely passive cooling system meaning the two largest operating costs of any terrestrial data center, energy and cooling, are effectively eliminated. He then said that you could theoretically increase harnessed energy by a factor of one million and still be using less than a millionth of the sun's total energy output. This is the underlying physics of why SpaceX filed with the FCC to launch up to one million solar powered AI satellites, and why they described that constellation in their own filing as a first step toward becoming a Kardashev Type II civilization capable of harnessing the full power of the sun. To understand what makes this credible rather than visionary, you need to understand what SpaceX already controls that no other company on earth possesses. Starship, once operating at full cadence, can deliver 100 to 150 tons of payload to orbit per launch, at a target cost per kilogram that is an order of magnitude lower than any existing vehicle. Musk's stated ambition is to scale Starship to 10,000 to 30,000 launches per year, a frequency that would allow the deployment of orbital compute infrastructure at a pace that is currently unimaginable with any existing rocket. He told xAI staff earlier this year that achieving space-based AI at scale will eventually require manufacturing facilities on the moon, building solar panels and heat dissipation structures from lunar silicon and aluminum, and launching them into orbit from there rather than from Earth's surface because the moon's lower gravity makes the economics of launch dramatically more favorable. SpaceX's S-1 filing explicitly states that its launch capabilities could enable massive AI compute satellite constellations with the potential for millions of satellites for orbital data centers, with the first launch potentially occurring as soon as 2028. Google and Alphabet are already in advanced talks with SpaceX about deploying space-based data centers. Starcloud, a startup running Nvidia H100 GPUs in orbit, has already validated that high-performance AI inference workloads can operate in space, with plans to scale to five gigawatts of orbital compute power by 2035. This is why Musk believes the cost crossover happens in two to three years because SpaceX's launch cost trajectory intersects with the accelerating energy constraint on the ground in a way that makes space genuinely cheaper, faster, and less regulated at exactly the moment AI demand is hitting its hardest physical limits.
1:01

Elon Musk just explained why the SpaceX IPO is an energy story and the energy constraint is why he believes space becomes the only viable path for AI to scale (Save this). The argument he is making is one of the most important and least understood things happening in technology right now. The United States currently consumes roughly 500 gigawatts of electricity on average. To double that capacity which is what continued AI expansion on the current terrestrial trajectory would eventually require would mean building as many power plants as currently exist in the entire country. He is not arguing that this is technically impossible, just that communities are not willing to accept it, that permitting timelines make it unrealistic, and that the hard ceiling on Earth based power generation means the expansion of AI compute will eventually hit a wall that no amount of capital can overcome on the ground. His observation is that in space, that wall does not exist. A solar panel in orbit produces roughly five times more power than the same panel on Earth, operates in continuous sunlight uninterrupted by weather or nighttime, and benefits from the vacuum of space as a completely passive cooling system meaning the two largest operating costs of any terrestrial data center, energy and cooling, are effectively eliminated. He then said that you could theoretically increase harnessed energy by a factor of one million and still be using less than a millionth of the sun's total energy output. This is the underlying physics of why SpaceX filed with the FCC to launch up to one million solar powered AI satellites, and why they described that constellation in their own filing as a first step toward becoming a Kardashev Type II civilization capable of harnessing the full power of the sun. To understand what makes this credible rather than visionary, you need to understand what SpaceX already controls that no other company on earth possesses. Starship, once operating at full cadence, can deliver 100 to 150 tons of payload to orbit per launch, at a target cost per kilogram that is an order of magnitude lower than any existing vehicle. Musk's stated ambition is to scale Starship to 10,000 to 30,000 launches per year, a frequency that would allow the deployment of orbital compute infrastructure at a pace that is currently unimaginable with any existing rocket. He told xAI staff earlier this year that achieving space-based AI at scale will eventually require manufacturing facilities on the moon, building solar panels and heat dissipation structures from lunar silicon and aluminum, and launching them into orbit from there rather than from Earth's surface because the moon's lower gravity makes the economics of launch dramatically more favorable. SpaceX's S-1 filing explicitly states that its launch capabilities could enable massive AI compute satellite constellations with the potential for millions of satellites for orbital data centers, with the first launch potentially occurring as soon as 2028. Google and Alphabet are already in advanced talks with SpaceX about deploying space-based data centers. Starcloud, a startup running Nvidia H100 GPUs in orbit, has already validated that high-performance AI inference workloads can operate in space, with plans to scale to five gigawatts of orbital compute power by 2035. This is why Musk believes the cost crossover happens in two to three years because SpaceX's launch cost trajectory intersects with the accelerating energy constraint on the ground in a way that makes space genuinely cheaper, faster, and less regulated at exactly the moment AI demand is hitting its hardest physical limits.

Milk Road AI

12,140 views • 1 month ago

Let’s talk about Massachusetts — or as I like to call it, the People's Republic of Taxachusetts — where facts go to die and logic gets replaced with virtue signaling. So let’s break this down. The state is run by people who, apparently, think energy policy should be based on emotion and fairy tales rather than, you know, physics. Maura Healey yes, the same Maura Healey who stopped not one, but two major pipelines also shut down the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. Why? Because nuclear, despite being one of the safest, cleanest, and most efficient energy sources on Earth, doesn’t fit the progressive narrative. That plant, by the way, was subsidizing electricity across the grid at 17 cents per kilowatt hour. Translation: it was keeping prices stable. But no —they shut it down so they could force everything into solar. Solar. A technology that is entirely dependent on whether or not the sun is out and your panels aren’t covered in snow —which, spoiler alert, happens in Massachusetts. And why? Because these people worship at the altar of green energy, regardless of what that means for cost, efficiency, or reliability. It’s like trading in your car for a bicycle in a snowstorm and calling it "progress." What you’re seeing is old-world Bolshevik-style central planning with a smile. It’s all about consolidating power, expanding government control, and destroying any semblance of economic freedom all while gaslighting the public into thinking it’s “for the environment.” And the kicker? The only people this works for are the ones already in power. The elected elites, the bureaucrats — they’ll be fine. You, the average working resident? You get higher bills, unreliable power, and a government that thinks you’re too dumb to notice. But hey —as long as we’re saving the planet, right? Welcome to progressive paradise. #donniepalmer4massachusetts #MA7 #palmerplanninggroup
23:28

Let’s talk about Massachusetts — or as I like to call it, the People's Republic of Taxachusetts — where facts go to die and logic gets replaced with virtue signaling. So let’s break this down. The state is run by people who, apparently, think energy policy should be based on emotion and fairy tales rather than, you know, physics. Maura Healey yes, the same Maura Healey who stopped not one, but two major pipelines also shut down the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. Why? Because nuclear, despite being one of the safest, cleanest, and most efficient energy sources on Earth, doesn’t fit the progressive narrative. That plant, by the way, was subsidizing electricity across the grid at 17 cents per kilowatt hour. Translation: it was keeping prices stable. But no —they shut it down so they could force everything into solar. Solar. A technology that is entirely dependent on whether or not the sun is out and your panels aren’t covered in snow —which, spoiler alert, happens in Massachusetts. And why? Because these people worship at the altar of green energy, regardless of what that means for cost, efficiency, or reliability. It’s like trading in your car for a bicycle in a snowstorm and calling it "progress." What you’re seeing is old-world Bolshevik-style central planning with a smile. It’s all about consolidating power, expanding government control, and destroying any semblance of economic freedom all while gaslighting the public into thinking it’s “for the environment.” And the kicker? The only people this works for are the ones already in power. The elected elites, the bureaucrats — they’ll be fine. You, the average working resident? You get higher bills, unreliable power, and a government that thinks you’re too dumb to notice. But hey —as long as we’re saving the planet, right? Welcome to progressive paradise. #donniepalmer4massachusetts #MA7 #palmerplanninggroup

Donnie Palmer 4 Congress

17,240 views • 1 year ago

You will remember that a month or two ago, I posted about the solar system at my home in Johannesburg, which has allowed me to hardly use Eskom or City Power because it generates enough energy for my entire usage, including powering geysers. After that post, one of you on this page, a solar expert, reached out privately and advised me to remove the electric geysers from the main solar system. He said the solar batteries were doing too many cycles because they were powering the geysers, and that this would shorten their lifespan. His advice was simple, remove the geysers from the battery load if I wanted the batteries to last the full period that they are built for. I took that advice seriously. I then asked my plumber, Shanil, who owns Metro Plumbers, to guide me on where to get high-quality solar geysers in Johannesburg so that I could replace the electric ones. Shanil told me about a new technology called the Elon Smart Solar PV System. He explained that it is much cheaper than buying completely new solar geysers. Instead of replacing the electric geyser, you simply buy the Elon unit, which comes with its own solar panels, and it is fitted onto your existing electric geyser. That is what I did. I have now removed all four electric geysers from the home solar system that powers my home. Each of them has been converted using the Elon Smart Solar PV technology. They are now powered by their own dedicated solar panels. The four geysers are running on a total of thirteen panels. So what this means is that I will never use Eskom or City Power again because in the past, when it was cloudy for three or four days, I would return to the grid to assist the batteries. This was happening because the batteries were carrying a heavy load that included four geysers. Now that the geysers have been removed from the main solar system and converted to their own dedicated solar supply, I will never return to Eskom or City Power. Even on cloudy days unless the solar system breaks down. The system is able to generate enough power for everything that I need. I also use a gas cooker, which helps reduce the electrical load. I hope this information helps you. If I had gone for the top-quality geysers that are exclusively solar, I would have paid between R25,000 and R30,000 per geyser. That would have come to around R120,000 for four geysers. Of course, there are cheaper solar geysers that you can get, but they are cheaper for a reason. So, in essence, I saved half the amount I would have paid for the geysers if I had chosen top-quality solar geysers. If you are in Johannesburg and you are interested, Shanil’s number is +27 (76) 890-5582. He can do the work for you. The gadgets and their panels cost R60,000 from Plumbing Supplies Sanitaryware Centre in Woodmead. So I have had the system in place for a week now and it is working very well. I have deliberately allowed all the geysers to continue heating so that I could test whether everything is functioning correctly, and the water is as hot as it should be. So that is the story. I thought I should share it with you for those who might want to reduce their bills. P/s The other interesting key feature of this system is that I can control it from my phone. If it is very cloudy and the water is not as hot as I want it to be, I can simply go onto the app and instruct that particular geyser to use the grid. Unlike my previous setup, where I had to switch the whole home solar system onto the grid, now each individual geyser can independently switch to the grid and heat the water to a temperature that I have set. Once the water reaches that set temperature, it automatically disconnects. I can also decide to switch off a geyser from using electricity, in my case from my solar system, or for those who do not have solar systems, from Eskom. In the same way, I can switch it off from using the solar panels. For instance, if there are four geysers and one of them is in a bedroom that is not being used, I can switch off that geyser completely so that it is not heating water unnecessarily. This gives you control, flexibility, and saves you a lot of money in the long run. You can read more about this technology here;
0:23

You will remember that a month or two ago, I posted about the solar system at my home in Johannesburg, which has allowed me to hardly use Eskom or City Power because it generates enough energy for my entire usage, including powering geysers. After that post, one of you on this page, a solar expert, reached out privately and advised me to remove the electric geysers from the main solar system. He said the solar batteries were doing too many cycles because they were powering the geysers, and that this would shorten their lifespan. His advice was simple, remove the geysers from the battery load if I wanted the batteries to last the full period that they are built for. I took that advice seriously. I then asked my plumber, Shanil, who owns Metro Plumbers, to guide me on where to get high-quality solar geysers in Johannesburg so that I could replace the electric ones. Shanil told me about a new technology called the Elon Smart Solar PV System. He explained that it is much cheaper than buying completely new solar geysers. Instead of replacing the electric geyser, you simply buy the Elon unit, which comes with its own solar panels, and it is fitted onto your existing electric geyser. That is what I did. I have now removed all four electric geysers from the home solar system that powers my home. Each of them has been converted using the Elon Smart Solar PV technology. They are now powered by their own dedicated solar panels. The four geysers are running on a total of thirteen panels. So what this means is that I will never use Eskom or City Power again because in the past, when it was cloudy for three or four days, I would return to the grid to assist the batteries. This was happening because the batteries were carrying a heavy load that included four geysers. Now that the geysers have been removed from the main solar system and converted to their own dedicated solar supply, I will never return to Eskom or City Power. Even on cloudy days unless the solar system breaks down. The system is able to generate enough power for everything that I need. I also use a gas cooker, which helps reduce the electrical load. I hope this information helps you. If I had gone for the top-quality geysers that are exclusively solar, I would have paid between R25,000 and R30,000 per geyser. That would have come to around R120,000 for four geysers. Of course, there are cheaper solar geysers that you can get, but they are cheaper for a reason. So, in essence, I saved half the amount I would have paid for the geysers if I had chosen top-quality solar geysers. If you are in Johannesburg and you are interested, Shanil’s number is +27 (76) 890-5582. He can do the work for you. The gadgets and their panels cost R60,000 from Plumbing Supplies Sanitaryware Centre in Woodmead. So I have had the system in place for a week now and it is working very well. I have deliberately allowed all the geysers to continue heating so that I could test whether everything is functioning correctly, and the water is as hot as it should be. So that is the story. I thought I should share it with you for those who might want to reduce their bills. P/s The other interesting key feature of this system is that I can control it from my phone. If it is very cloudy and the water is not as hot as I want it to be, I can simply go onto the app and instruct that particular geyser to use the grid. Unlike my previous setup, where I had to switch the whole home solar system onto the grid, now each individual geyser can independently switch to the grid and heat the water to a temperature that I have set. Once the water reaches that set temperature, it automatically disconnects. I can also decide to switch off a geyser from using electricity, in my case from my solar system, or for those who do not have solar systems, from Eskom. In the same way, I can switch it off from using the solar panels. For instance, if there are four geysers and one of them is in a bedroom that is not being used, I can switch off that geyser completely so that it is not heating water unnecessarily. This gives you control, flexibility, and saves you a lot of money in the long run. You can read more about this technology here;

Hopewell Chin’ono

67,897 views • 8 months ago

Chamath Palihapitiya just dropped the number that explains the entire AI infrastructure trade (Save this). A gigawatt of compute now costs $100 billion and when he started his Arizona data center project it was $4 to $5 billion, it has gone up 20x in a single investment cycle. The implication is not just that AI infrastructure is expensive but rather that the capital barrier to owning meaningful compute has become so high that only a handful of entities in the world can actually build it and the companies who got there early are sitting on what may be the most durable pricing power in the history of the technology industry. This is the neocloud trade. The neocloud market, purpose-built GPU cloud providers like CoreWeave, Nebius, and Lambda Labs was worth $35 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $236 billion by 2031, compounding at 46% annually. For context, that is faster growth than cloud computing itself posted in its first decade. The reason is very simple, hyperscalers like AWS, Azure, and Google are building for everything, storage, databases, enterprise software, networking and their GPU pricing reflects the overhead of that full-stack infrastructure. Neoclouds build for one thing only, AI compute. The result is a 60% to 85% cost advantage on the same Nvidia silicon, bare metal H100s at $0.78 to $2.79 per GPU-hour on a neocloud versus $3.43 to $5.07 per GPU-hour on a hyperscaler. That spread does not close as AI demand scales but rather it widens, because hyperscalers have to amortize legacy infrastructure and margin expectations that neoclouds do not carry. Gartner projects that by 2030, neoclouds will capture 20% of the $267 billion AI cloud market, and Vultr's own analysis says at least 80% of GPU market share by end of 2026 will be held by a small group of scaled neocloud providers. Now zoom into Nebius specifically, because it is the most interesting publicly traded proxy for this trade. Nebius is the infrastructure arm of the former Yandex Russia's equivalent of Google rebuilt from the ground up after Russia's invasion of Ukraine by Arkady Volozh and relisted on Nasdaq in October 2024. The team that built it already knew how to run internet-scale infrastructure at the lowest possible cost, which is exactly the operational DNA a neocloud requires. In Q1 2026, Nebius reported revenue of $399 million and already generating serious cash on a young business with revenue growing nearly eightfold year-over-year. Then in March 2026, Meta signed a five-year infrastructure agreement with Nebius worth up to $27 billion, $12 billion in committed dedicated GPU capacity deployments beginning early 2027, plus up to $15 billion more tied to Meta purchasing Nebius's unsold third-party capacity. The deal will be executed on one of the first large-scale deployments of Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform, the next-generation architecture after Blackwell making Nebius one of a tiny number of operators in the world with confirmed priority access to the most advanced AI hardware available. Following the contract, Nebius guided to $7 to $9 billion in annualized recurring revenue for 2026 representing 540% year-over-year growth. Chamath Palihapitiya point about the $100 billion capital moat is the bear case for new entrants and the bull case for incumbents. No one can afford to build the next CoreWeave or Nebius from scratch at current hardware and power costs. The companies that are already built, already contracted, and already deploying Nvidia's latest silicon have a moat that compounds with every GPU generation cycle because they get allocations first, they deploy fastest, and their customers re-sign rather than wait for a new operator that does not yet exist. Come join Milk Road Pro for our full breakdown, the complete neocloud competitive landscape, how to think about Nebius's valuation versus CoreWeave and AI entire thesis. Link below.
0:20

Chamath Palihapitiya just dropped the number that explains the entire AI infrastructure trade (Save this). A gigawatt of compute now costs $100 billion and when he started his Arizona data center project it was $4 to $5 billion, it has gone up 20x in a single investment cycle. The implication is not just that AI infrastructure is expensive but rather that the capital barrier to owning meaningful compute has become so high that only a handful of entities in the world can actually build it and the companies who got there early are sitting on what may be the most durable pricing power in the history of the technology industry. This is the neocloud trade. The neocloud market, purpose-built GPU cloud providers like CoreWeave, Nebius, and Lambda Labs was worth $35 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $236 billion by 2031, compounding at 46% annually. For context, that is faster growth than cloud computing itself posted in its first decade. The reason is very simple, hyperscalers like AWS, Azure, and Google are building for everything, storage, databases, enterprise software, networking and their GPU pricing reflects the overhead of that full-stack infrastructure. Neoclouds build for one thing only, AI compute. The result is a 60% to 85% cost advantage on the same Nvidia silicon, bare metal H100s at $0.78 to $2.79 per GPU-hour on a neocloud versus $3.43 to $5.07 per GPU-hour on a hyperscaler. That spread does not close as AI demand scales but rather it widens, because hyperscalers have to amortize legacy infrastructure and margin expectations that neoclouds do not carry. Gartner projects that by 2030, neoclouds will capture 20% of the $267 billion AI cloud market, and Vultr's own analysis says at least 80% of GPU market share by end of 2026 will be held by a small group of scaled neocloud providers. Now zoom into Nebius specifically, because it is the most interesting publicly traded proxy for this trade. Nebius is the infrastructure arm of the former Yandex Russia's equivalent of Google rebuilt from the ground up after Russia's invasion of Ukraine by Arkady Volozh and relisted on Nasdaq in October 2024. The team that built it already knew how to run internet-scale infrastructure at the lowest possible cost, which is exactly the operational DNA a neocloud requires. In Q1 2026, Nebius reported revenue of $399 million and already generating serious cash on a young business with revenue growing nearly eightfold year-over-year. Then in March 2026, Meta signed a five-year infrastructure agreement with Nebius worth up to $27 billion, $12 billion in committed dedicated GPU capacity deployments beginning early 2027, plus up to $15 billion more tied to Meta purchasing Nebius's unsold third-party capacity. The deal will be executed on one of the first large-scale deployments of Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform, the next-generation architecture after Blackwell making Nebius one of a tiny number of operators in the world with confirmed priority access to the most advanced AI hardware available. Following the contract, Nebius guided to $7 to $9 billion in annualized recurring revenue for 2026 representing 540% year-over-year growth. Chamath Palihapitiya point about the $100 billion capital moat is the bear case for new entrants and the bull case for incumbents. No one can afford to build the next CoreWeave or Nebius from scratch at current hardware and power costs. The companies that are already built, already contracted, and already deploying Nvidia's latest silicon have a moat that compounds with every GPU generation cycle because they get allocations first, they deploy fastest, and their customers re-sign rather than wait for a new operator that does not yet exist. Come join Milk Road Pro for our full breakdown, the complete neocloud competitive landscape, how to think about Nebius's valuation versus CoreWeave and AI entire thesis. Link below.

Milk Road AI

138,663 views • 1 month ago

🔌⚡Let's start with the obvious: OUR NJ ELECTRIC BILLS ARE OBSCENE. In Governor Mikie Sherrill's mammoth $60.7B budget address, she briefly referenced natural gas and nuclear energy. The rest of the speech followed the "green energy" fairy tale trajectory of her predecessor, with an emphasis on investing in solar energy and battery storage. Here’s the problem: solar and battery storage are SUPPLEMENTS, not primary power sources. Solar works when the sun's out, but the grid needs power 24/7. This may shock and surprise some, but NJ is not Texas so any comparison is completely invalid. And batteries don’t generate electricity; they store excess solar for a few hours and cost billions to build. Most store 2–4 hours of power, next generation shoots for 6–10 hours. A 24-hour battery grid is still theoretical. Here is a comparison of power reliability rates: Solar — about 8% Offshore wind — 40–50% Natural gas — 80%+ Nuclear — up to 95% Meanwhile, PJM (the regional grid operator) warned us that by 2030, the region could lose about 40 gigawatts of reliable power generation (while replacing less than half of it).Since March, there has at least been some movement on the nuclear front in NJ, but on natural gas? Mostly lip service so far. We keep hearing about storage, batteries and demand management. Great story. Where's the generation? NJ ALREADY lost $175M on the Ørsted offshore wind gamble & despite the collapse of several major projects, Trenton continues pushing to revive offshore wind, fighting federal action in court to shut it down. The kicker is that even at full capacity, that project too would have delivered well under 20 gigawatts upon completion — less than half the power NJ actually needs. So how'd we end up here in the first place? NJ used to be an energy EXPORTER. Well, Trenton Democrats shuttered reliable power before replacements existed, so now NJ IMPORTS 35–40% of our electricity from states in our regional grid. The Dems pat themselves on the back for being “green,” while importing electricity from PA generated with much-needed fossil fuels, including coal. It gets more surreal. The same Dems assign blame to (and threaten to leave) PJM. We're importing power and acting like we hold the cards. WE DON'T (just ask Pennsylvania). And "green"? Grid batteries use lithium, cobalt, nickel and other mined minerals, produced through massive industrial extraction & chemical processing. They're ridiculously expensive to build and a disposal nightmare. Is this what they call environmentally-friendly “green energy”? Now look at the budget shell game. The budget highlights spending tied to the Clean Energy Fund ($700M a year) and RGGI (roughly $80–100M annually). Those funds don’t come from Trenton. They come from YOU — surcharges you already pay for, built into your electric bill (don't forget! Over the years, billions of dollars have been diverted out of the Clean Energy Fund to plug other holes in the state budget.) THE GAME IN THE NUTSHELL: Raise your rates. Collect the money through RGGI and Clean Energy Fund charges. Hand a sliver back as a “utility credit.” Smile big at the press conference with your climate activist crew. As the Governor & Majority party celebrate "clean energy" budget spending, understand that most of it is just recycling money you've paid in your electric bill. This budget STILL gambles on “green energy.” With your wallet. SIDEBAR: During the campaign, Mikie Sherrill promised to "freeze electric rates." Fun fact: as Governor, her Executive Order didn’t freeze anything. It "urged" the Board of Public Utilities to "consider" taking action. A far cry from freezing rates, which is not a function of any NJ Governor.
0:47

🔌⚡Let's start with the obvious: OUR NJ ELECTRIC BILLS ARE OBSCENE. In Governor Mikie Sherrill's mammoth $60.7B budget address, she briefly referenced natural gas and nuclear energy. The rest of the speech followed the "green energy" fairy tale trajectory of her predecessor, with an emphasis on investing in solar energy and battery storage. Here’s the problem: solar and battery storage are SUPPLEMENTS, not primary power sources. Solar works when the sun's out, but the grid needs power 24/7. This may shock and surprise some, but NJ is not Texas so any comparison is completely invalid. And batteries don’t generate electricity; they store excess solar for a few hours and cost billions to build. Most store 2–4 hours of power, next generation shoots for 6–10 hours. A 24-hour battery grid is still theoretical. Here is a comparison of power reliability rates: Solar — about 8% Offshore wind — 40–50% Natural gas — 80%+ Nuclear — up to 95% Meanwhile, PJM (the regional grid operator) warned us that by 2030, the region could lose about 40 gigawatts of reliable power generation (while replacing less than half of it).Since March, there has at least been some movement on the nuclear front in NJ, but on natural gas? Mostly lip service so far. We keep hearing about storage, batteries and demand management. Great story. Where's the generation? NJ ALREADY lost $175M on the Ørsted offshore wind gamble & despite the collapse of several major projects, Trenton continues pushing to revive offshore wind, fighting federal action in court to shut it down. The kicker is that even at full capacity, that project too would have delivered well under 20 gigawatts upon completion — less than half the power NJ actually needs. So how'd we end up here in the first place? NJ used to be an energy EXPORTER. Well, Trenton Democrats shuttered reliable power before replacements existed, so now NJ IMPORTS 35–40% of our electricity from states in our regional grid. The Dems pat themselves on the back for being “green,” while importing electricity from PA generated with much-needed fossil fuels, including coal. It gets more surreal. The same Dems assign blame to (and threaten to leave) PJM. We're importing power and acting like we hold the cards. WE DON'T (just ask Pennsylvania). And "green"? Grid batteries use lithium, cobalt, nickel and other mined minerals, produced through massive industrial extraction & chemical processing. They're ridiculously expensive to build and a disposal nightmare. Is this what they call environmentally-friendly “green energy”? Now look at the budget shell game. The budget highlights spending tied to the Clean Energy Fund ($700M a year) and RGGI (roughly $80–100M annually). Those funds don’t come from Trenton. They come from YOU — surcharges you already pay for, built into your electric bill (don't forget! Over the years, billions of dollars have been diverted out of the Clean Energy Fund to plug other holes in the state budget.) THE GAME IN THE NUTSHELL: Raise your rates. Collect the money through RGGI and Clean Energy Fund charges. Hand a sliver back as a “utility credit.” Smile big at the press conference with your climate activist crew. As the Governor & Majority party celebrate "clean energy" budget spending, understand that most of it is just recycling money you've paid in your electric bill. This budget STILL gambles on “green energy.” With your wallet. SIDEBAR: During the campaign, Mikie Sherrill promised to "freeze electric rates." Fun fact: as Governor, her Executive Order didn’t freeze anything. It "urged" the Board of Public Utilities to "consider" taking action. A far cry from freezing rates, which is not a function of any NJ Governor.

Dawn Fantasia

12,282 views • 1 month ago

🚨ALERT: 50% of Data Centers will NEVER connect to the grid. Half of the data centers announced in the last 24 months will NEVER connect to the grid. Kevin O’Leary said it. The data proves it. While everyone’s chasing “paper capacity,” $CIFR and $IREN are sitting on EXECUTED grid connections that can’t be replicated. Here’s why they’re untouchable: 266 GW of power projects canceled in 2025 alone. That’s 2.4x the cancellations from 2024. Why? Because the U.S. grid is facing a structural deficit that nobody wants to talk about. • Data centers need 18-36 months to build • Grid connections take 5-7 YEARS (sometimes 12) • Interconnection queues in PJM and ERCOT now average 7 years • Average interconnection cost in MISO: $753,116 per MW Translation: You can announce a data center tomorrow. But you CAN’T connect it to power until 2032. The math doesn’t work. The timeline doesn’t work. The physics don’t work. $CIFR - The Fixed-Price Power Moat: Cipher control one of the lowest-cost power portfolios in North America. > Power cost: $0.027/kWh (fixed, long-term PPAs) > Debt: $0 > Portfolio: 2.2 GW across Texas But here’s what everyone’s missing: Their 1-gigawatt Colchis site has a FULLY EXECUTED Direct Connect Agreement with American Electric Power. Not “in the queue.” Not “under study.” EXECUTED. Energization: 2028. While competitors are stuck waiting 7+ years for interconnection approvals, $CIFR already has a Tier 1 grid connection locked in. And they just signed: • $5.5 billion, 15-year lease with AWS for 300 MW • 10-year hosting deal with Google/Fluidstack for 168 MW That’s $8.5 billion in contracted lease payments for AI infrastructure. $IREN - The Microsoft Validation: $IREN didn’t just secure power. They secured the ONLY thing that matters: a hyperscaler willing to pre-pay billions. November 2025: $9.7 billion AI Cloud contract with Microsoft. Let me repeat that. Microsoft PRE-PAID for capacity that doesn’t exist yet. Deal structure: • 200 MW of liquid-cooled AI capacity • $1.94 billion annual recurring revenue (once online) • 20% prepayment to fund $5.8 billion GPU purchase from Dell • Four “Horizon” data centers at their 750 MW Childress campus But the real alpha? Their 2.91 GW portfolio of GRID-CONNECTED power. Not speculative. Not “in the queue.” Connected. Energized. Operating. > Sweetwater 1: 1.4 GW (energization accelerated to April 26) > Childress: 750 MW (operating) > Prince George: 160 MW hydro (23k GPUs for AI) $IREN is scaling to $3.4 billion in AI Cloud ARR by end of 2026 using only 16% of their total power capacity. The Peer Comparison Nobody’s Talking About: Everyone’s excited about $RIOT, $MARA, $CORZ, and $WULF. Here’s the problem: $RIOT: 1.7 GW portfolio, mostly Bitcoin-focused. 25 MW HPC lease with AMD ($311M over 10 years). That’s 1/30th the size of IREN’s Microsoft deal. $MARA: Building “behind-the-meter” natural gas generation to BYPASS the grid entirely. Smart strategy, but they’re starting from scratch. 1.8 GW capacity, mostly mining. $CORZ: $10B+ contract with CoreWeave sounds massive. But they’re CONVERTING old mining infrastructure. Not purpose-built for AI. Currently unprofitable. $WULF: 750 MW at Lake Mariner. Zero-carbon hydro/nuclear. Clean energy story is strong. But only 72.5 MW of HPC capacity by Q2 2025. Meanwhile: • $CIFR has 2.2 GW with executed grid agreements and $8.5B in hyperscaler contracts • $IREN has 2.91 GW of energized capacity and a $9.7B Microsoft deal The Cooling Bottleneck: Secured power means NOTHING without secured cooling. November 2025: CyrusOne data center in Illinois went down for 10 hours because ONE chiller failed. This facility handles TRILLIONS in CME trading volume. Energy, agriculture, crypto derivatives markets frozen globally. Why? Because AI racks now consume 600 kW of power (enough to power 500 homes). A single rack failure creates catastrophic heat buildup. $IREN’s solution: Liquid-cooled infrastructure at all Horizon facilities. $CIFR’s solution: Turnkey air-and-liquid cooling delivery for AWS. Hyperscalers aren’t paying billions for “power connections.” They’re paying for THERMAL RELIABILITY. The Numbers That Matter: > PJM capacity prices: 10x increase from 2024 to 2025 (extreme scarcity signal) > Interconnection costs in Louisiana/Missouri: $900,000+ per MW > $64 billion in U.S. data center projects blocked or delayed in 2024-2025 > 25+ major data center projects canceled in 2025 alone The grid is saturated. The timeline is broken. The infrastructure doesn’t exist. But $CIFR and $IREN? They already own the infrastructure. They already have the grid connections. They already have the hyperscaler contracts. The Bottom Line: > AI demand is doubling every 90 days. > Grid capacity takes 5-7 years to build. > You can’t close that gap with announcements. You close it with EXECUTED agreements and ENERGIZED megawatts. $CIFR: $0.027/kWh power, $8.5B in contracts, 1 GW Tier 1 grid connection $IREN: $9.7B Microsoft deal, 2.91 GW energized portfolio, $3.4B ARR target by 2026. While half the industry fights over interconnection queues, these two are already plugged in. The power crunch isn’t coming. It’s here. And the only winners will be the ones who secured their megawatts BEFORE the grid broke. Bullish $CIFR and $IREN. Note: This is NOT financial advice.
1:28

🚨ALERT: 50% of Data Centers will NEVER connect to the grid. Half of the data centers announced in the last 24 months will NEVER connect to the grid. Kevin O’Leary said it. The data proves it. While everyone’s chasing “paper capacity,” $CIFR and $IREN are sitting on EXECUTED grid connections that can’t be replicated. Here’s why they’re untouchable: 266 GW of power projects canceled in 2025 alone. That’s 2.4x the cancellations from 2024. Why? Because the U.S. grid is facing a structural deficit that nobody wants to talk about. • Data centers need 18-36 months to build • Grid connections take 5-7 YEARS (sometimes 12) • Interconnection queues in PJM and ERCOT now average 7 years • Average interconnection cost in MISO: $753,116 per MW Translation: You can announce a data center tomorrow. But you CAN’T connect it to power until 2032. The math doesn’t work. The timeline doesn’t work. The physics don’t work. $CIFR - The Fixed-Price Power Moat: Cipher control one of the lowest-cost power portfolios in North America. > Power cost: $0.027/kWh (fixed, long-term PPAs) > Debt: $0 > Portfolio: 2.2 GW across Texas But here’s what everyone’s missing: Their 1-gigawatt Colchis site has a FULLY EXECUTED Direct Connect Agreement with American Electric Power. Not “in the queue.” Not “under study.” EXECUTED. Energization: 2028. While competitors are stuck waiting 7+ years for interconnection approvals, $CIFR already has a Tier 1 grid connection locked in. And they just signed: • $5.5 billion, 15-year lease with AWS for 300 MW • 10-year hosting deal with Google/Fluidstack for 168 MW That’s $8.5 billion in contracted lease payments for AI infrastructure. $IREN - The Microsoft Validation: $IREN didn’t just secure power. They secured the ONLY thing that matters: a hyperscaler willing to pre-pay billions. November 2025: $9.7 billion AI Cloud contract with Microsoft. Let me repeat that. Microsoft PRE-PAID for capacity that doesn’t exist yet. Deal structure: • 200 MW of liquid-cooled AI capacity • $1.94 billion annual recurring revenue (once online) • 20% prepayment to fund $5.8 billion GPU purchase from Dell • Four “Horizon” data centers at their 750 MW Childress campus But the real alpha? Their 2.91 GW portfolio of GRID-CONNECTED power. Not speculative. Not “in the queue.” Connected. Energized. Operating. > Sweetwater 1: 1.4 GW (energization accelerated to April 26) > Childress: 750 MW (operating) > Prince George: 160 MW hydro (23k GPUs for AI) $IREN is scaling to $3.4 billion in AI Cloud ARR by end of 2026 using only 16% of their total power capacity. The Peer Comparison Nobody’s Talking About: Everyone’s excited about $RIOT, $MARA, $CORZ, and $WULF. Here’s the problem: $RIOT: 1.7 GW portfolio, mostly Bitcoin-focused. 25 MW HPC lease with AMD ($311M over 10 years). That’s 1/30th the size of IREN’s Microsoft deal. $MARA: Building “behind-the-meter” natural gas generation to BYPASS the grid entirely. Smart strategy, but they’re starting from scratch. 1.8 GW capacity, mostly mining. $CORZ: $10B+ contract with CoreWeave sounds massive. But they’re CONVERTING old mining infrastructure. Not purpose-built for AI. Currently unprofitable. $WULF: 750 MW at Lake Mariner. Zero-carbon hydro/nuclear. Clean energy story is strong. But only 72.5 MW of HPC capacity by Q2 2025. Meanwhile: • $CIFR has 2.2 GW with executed grid agreements and $8.5B in hyperscaler contracts • $IREN has 2.91 GW of energized capacity and a $9.7B Microsoft deal The Cooling Bottleneck: Secured power means NOTHING without secured cooling. November 2025: CyrusOne data center in Illinois went down for 10 hours because ONE chiller failed. This facility handles TRILLIONS in CME trading volume. Energy, agriculture, crypto derivatives markets frozen globally. Why? Because AI racks now consume 600 kW of power (enough to power 500 homes). A single rack failure creates catastrophic heat buildup. $IREN’s solution: Liquid-cooled infrastructure at all Horizon facilities. $CIFR’s solution: Turnkey air-and-liquid cooling delivery for AWS. Hyperscalers aren’t paying billions for “power connections.” They’re paying for THERMAL RELIABILITY. The Numbers That Matter: > PJM capacity prices: 10x increase from 2024 to 2025 (extreme scarcity signal) > Interconnection costs in Louisiana/Missouri: $900,000+ per MW > $64 billion in U.S. data center projects blocked or delayed in 2024-2025 > 25+ major data center projects canceled in 2025 alone The grid is saturated. The timeline is broken. The infrastructure doesn’t exist. But $CIFR and $IREN? They already own the infrastructure. They already have the grid connections. They already have the hyperscaler contracts. The Bottom Line: > AI demand is doubling every 90 days. > Grid capacity takes 5-7 years to build. > You can’t close that gap with announcements. You close it with EXECUTED agreements and ENERGIZED megawatts. $CIFR: $0.027/kWh power, $8.5B in contracts, 1 GW Tier 1 grid connection $IREN: $9.7B Microsoft deal, 2.91 GW energized portfolio, $3.4B ARR target by 2026. While half the industry fights over interconnection queues, these two are already plugged in. The power crunch isn’t coming. It’s here. And the only winners will be the ones who secured their megawatts BEFORE the grid broke. Bullish $CIFR and $IREN. Note: This is NOT financial advice.

Black Panther Capital

347,528 views • 6 months ago

Investigation exposes the hidden cost of data centers, “It’s in your electric bill” “Companies like Amazon and META striking secret deals with utilities. It's all proprietary. It's all behind non-disclosure agreements and blacked out documents, and lobbying for a system that leaves all of us footing their bill” “The big problem is that we're all subsidizing the wealthiest corporations in the world in their pursuit of artificial intelligence.Americans' utility bills are rising while Big Tech's profits are going through the roof” “Everyday people covering the power costs of the data center build out.” “In 2025, the tech industry is expected to spend about $475 billion on data centers up 42% since last year. Today, data centers make up about 4% of US electricity demand. In just the next three years, that's expected to triple. The United States has never generated more electricity in our history than we are today.” “He explained to me that when utilities have to pay a higher capacity price, they pass it on to consumers in the form of supply charges. According to the PJM's independent monitor, data centers were responsible for 63% of last year's price increase. We saw customers with bills $900 over $1,000. It's unfathomable that they are having to pay higher rates to support wealthy corporations building data centers.” “The basic idea is that utility builds something and you socialize the costs to all of the ratepayers that have no choice but to take that utilities service. The cost of new infrastructure mostly shows up on another part of your electric bill, sometimes called delivery charges. Utility companies are allowed to set those charges high enough to recoup every dollar they spent building, plus a regulated rate of profit, usually around 10%. So this is a huge profit opportunity.” “Last year, a utility company in Louisiana proposed to spend $3 billion on a new power plant to meet electricity demand from a Meta data center. The full terms of its deal with Meta are secret, but redacted regulatory filings have revealed that the public is on the hook for Meta's power plant. Meta has signed a 15-year deal and it only obligates them to pay for about half of that $3 to $4 billion of infrastructure, which means that there's a big risk that everyone else in Louisiana will get stuck with the rest of that bill”
13:33

Investigation exposes the hidden cost of data centers, “It’s in your electric bill” “Companies like Amazon and META striking secret deals with utilities. It's all proprietary. It's all behind non-disclosure agreements and blacked out documents, and lobbying for a system that leaves all of us footing their bill” “The big problem is that we're all subsidizing the wealthiest corporations in the world in their pursuit of artificial intelligence.Americans' utility bills are rising while Big Tech's profits are going through the roof” “Everyday people covering the power costs of the data center build out.” “In 2025, the tech industry is expected to spend about $475 billion on data centers up 42% since last year. Today, data centers make up about 4% of US electricity demand. In just the next three years, that's expected to triple. The United States has never generated more electricity in our history than we are today.” “He explained to me that when utilities have to pay a higher capacity price, they pass it on to consumers in the form of supply charges. According to the PJM's independent monitor, data centers were responsible for 63% of last year's price increase. We saw customers with bills $900 over $1,000. It's unfathomable that they are having to pay higher rates to support wealthy corporations building data centers.” “The basic idea is that utility builds something and you socialize the costs to all of the ratepayers that have no choice but to take that utilities service. The cost of new infrastructure mostly shows up on another part of your electric bill, sometimes called delivery charges. Utility companies are allowed to set those charges high enough to recoup every dollar they spent building, plus a regulated rate of profit, usually around 10%. So this is a huge profit opportunity.” “Last year, a utility company in Louisiana proposed to spend $3 billion on a new power plant to meet electricity demand from a Meta data center. The full terms of its deal with Meta are secret, but redacted regulatory filings have revealed that the public is on the hook for Meta's power plant. Meta has signed a 15-year deal and it only obligates them to pay for about half of that $3 to $4 billion of infrastructure, which means that there's a big risk that everyone else in Louisiana will get stuck with the rest of that bill”

Wall Street Apes

138,820 views • 11 months ago

SpaceX is about to shatter the largest IPO record in history. Not by a little. By more than double. The previous record was $29 billion. SpaceX is targeting $75 billion. Two months ago the number was $50 billion. Last week it was $70 billion. Now $75 billion. The filing has not even happened yet. Every time the market recalculates what SpaceX actually is, the answer gets bigger. Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan. Bank of America. Morgan Stanley. All lined up as underwriters. Target date: mid-June 2026. Target valuation: $1.75 trillion. That would make SpaceX larger than Meta. Larger than Tesla. Larger than every company on Earth except five. This is not some startup bleeding cash and calling it strategy. SpaceX made $8 billion in profit last year on $16 billion in revenue. They do not need the money. They are raising it because what comes next costs more than profit can fund at the speed they intend to move. Musk: “There just is no way to do a terawatt per year on Earth.” He ran the math on stage with Jensen Huang. Three hundred gigawatts of AI compute per year would consume two-thirds of all US electricity production. Not total energy. Just electricity. And three hundred gigawatts is not even the target. A terawatt is. More than three times that. Building enough power plants is not difficult. It is not expensive. It is physically impossible. Musk: “You have to do that in space.” Not should. Not could. Have to. Earth does not have the power. Cannot build it fast enough. Cannot cool the hardware. Not within a decade. Not at all. The bottleneck is not silicon. Not software. Not data. It is the planet itself. Musk: “You don’t actually need batteries because it’s always sunny in space. And the solar panels become cheaper because you don’t need glass or framing. And the cooling is just radiative.” No batteries. No night cycle. No weather. Just uninterrupted solar hitting bare panels in a vacuum. Heat dissipates on its own. Huang: “Each one of these GB300 racks is two tons. 1.95 of it is probably for cooling.” Ninety-seven percent of the weight of a supercomputer rack exists to keep it from overheating. Move it to space and that weight vanishes. The machine shrinks to something small enough to launch by the thousands. Running on free energy. Cooled by nothing. Musk: “I think even perhaps in the four or five year time frame, the lowest cost way to do AI compute will be with solar-powered AI satellites.” Not fifty years. Not twenty. Five. The cheapest AI compute on Earth will not be on Earth. It will be in orbit. And only one company can put it there at the cost and cadence required. That is what the market is pricing. Not a rocket company. The only organization on Earth capable of moving intelligence infrastructure off of it. Huang heard the pitch. The math. The timeline. Huang: “That’s the dream.” Musk: “Yes.” A trillion watts of compute. Powered by the Sun. Cooled by space. Launched by SpaceX. Every company building AI on the ground is building under the same ceiling. The atmosphere.
2:27

SpaceX is about to shatter the largest IPO record in history. Not by a little. By more than double. The previous record was $29 billion. SpaceX is targeting $75 billion. Two months ago the number was $50 billion. Last week it was $70 billion. Now $75 billion. The filing has not even happened yet. Every time the market recalculates what SpaceX actually is, the answer gets bigger. Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan. Bank of America. Morgan Stanley. All lined up as underwriters. Target date: mid-June 2026. Target valuation: $1.75 trillion. That would make SpaceX larger than Meta. Larger than Tesla. Larger than every company on Earth except five. This is not some startup bleeding cash and calling it strategy. SpaceX made $8 billion in profit last year on $16 billion in revenue. They do not need the money. They are raising it because what comes next costs more than profit can fund at the speed they intend to move. Musk: “There just is no way to do a terawatt per year on Earth.” He ran the math on stage with Jensen Huang. Three hundred gigawatts of AI compute per year would consume two-thirds of all US electricity production. Not total energy. Just electricity. And three hundred gigawatts is not even the target. A terawatt is. More than three times that. Building enough power plants is not difficult. It is not expensive. It is physically impossible. Musk: “You have to do that in space.” Not should. Not could. Have to. Earth does not have the power. Cannot build it fast enough. Cannot cool the hardware. Not within a decade. Not at all. The bottleneck is not silicon. Not software. Not data. It is the planet itself. Musk: “You don’t actually need batteries because it’s always sunny in space. And the solar panels become cheaper because you don’t need glass or framing. And the cooling is just radiative.” No batteries. No night cycle. No weather. Just uninterrupted solar hitting bare panels in a vacuum. Heat dissipates on its own. Huang: “Each one of these GB300 racks is two tons. 1.95 of it is probably for cooling.” Ninety-seven percent of the weight of a supercomputer rack exists to keep it from overheating. Move it to space and that weight vanishes. The machine shrinks to something small enough to launch by the thousands. Running on free energy. Cooled by nothing. Musk: “I think even perhaps in the four or five year time frame, the lowest cost way to do AI compute will be with solar-powered AI satellites.” Not fifty years. Not twenty. Five. The cheapest AI compute on Earth will not be on Earth. It will be in orbit. And only one company can put it there at the cost and cadence required. That is what the market is pricing. Not a rocket company. The only organization on Earth capable of moving intelligence infrastructure off of it. Huang heard the pitch. The math. The timeline. Huang: “That’s the dream.” Musk: “Yes.” A trillion watts of compute. Powered by the Sun. Cooled by space. Launched by SpaceX. Every company building AI on the ground is building under the same ceiling. The atmosphere.

Dustin

44,710 views • 4 months ago

Matthew forecasts an unprecedented natural gas shortage starting in 2028. He names four winners if he's right: gas producers, midstream, nuclear, and solar. (1) Natural gas producers in the U.S. and Canada should be clear winners, especially those with future inventory of wells to drill without infrastructure constraints. "Expand Energy is probably at the top of that list. They control 70% of remaining core Haynesville wells. The stock has dropped. The assets have not changed. It has some of the highest quality rock in the country." "Choosing the specific companies with real, rather than perceived or merely disclosed, high-return well inventory will matter. Ask to see engineered future wells on a map. Ask for the timelines." He also names $CRK, and $RRC ranks first in Appalachia. "Range has significant room to grow production and materially grow returns to investors." (2) Vital midstream assets should be well-positioned to benefit. "Natural gas infrastructure development has lagged the entire 'powering AI' thesis, the imminent 20 Bcf per day growth in supply, 20 Bcf per day of approved LNG project growth, and more than 5 Bcf per day of natural gas-fueled generation growth. The systems strategically positioned to grow throughput and deliverability will win." He names $KMI, TC Energy ($TRP), and Pembina ($PBA). (3) Large-scale nuclear is the only scalable path to avoiding acute baseload electricity shortages. "There's no bridge fuel other than solar and wind, because currently natural gas is the only flex fuel to get us to when we can bring on nuclear. Large scale nukes are the only solution that makes sense, which points us primarily to the AP1000 Westinghouse units. Westinghouse is deeply undervalued within Cameco today." "SMRs are a band-aid on a bullet wound. A nuclear renaissance is coming." Ha names Cameco ($CCJ) and $BWXT. (4) Solar and batteries are critical to the reliability of the U.S. grid. "Solar assets stand to benefit from a windfall. The marginal plant's fuel price is rising while sun costs the same. Residential solar is really one of the only ways to protect yourself from what you pay for electricity at your house once gas gets really tight. We think residential solar grows exponentially from here, even without tax incentives." "That margin expands. The market has not priced it." He names $XIFR and $CWEN at utility scale and $RUN in residential.
2:53

Matthew forecasts an unprecedented natural gas shortage starting in 2028. He names four winners if he's right: gas producers, midstream, nuclear, and solar. (1) Natural gas producers in the U.S. and Canada should be clear winners, especially those with future inventory of wells to drill without infrastructure constraints. "Expand Energy is probably at the top of that list. They control 70% of remaining core Haynesville wells. The stock has dropped. The assets have not changed. It has some of the highest quality rock in the country." "Choosing the specific companies with real, rather than perceived or merely disclosed, high-return well inventory will matter. Ask to see engineered future wells on a map. Ask for the timelines." He also names $CRK, and $RRC ranks first in Appalachia. "Range has significant room to grow production and materially grow returns to investors." (2) Vital midstream assets should be well-positioned to benefit. "Natural gas infrastructure development has lagged the entire 'powering AI' thesis, the imminent 20 Bcf per day growth in supply, 20 Bcf per day of approved LNG project growth, and more than 5 Bcf per day of natural gas-fueled generation growth. The systems strategically positioned to grow throughput and deliverability will win." He names $KMI, TC Energy ($TRP), and Pembina ($PBA). (3) Large-scale nuclear is the only scalable path to avoiding acute baseload electricity shortages. "There's no bridge fuel other than solar and wind, because currently natural gas is the only flex fuel to get us to when we can bring on nuclear. Large scale nukes are the only solution that makes sense, which points us primarily to the AP1000 Westinghouse units. Westinghouse is deeply undervalued within Cameco today." "SMRs are a band-aid on a bullet wound. A nuclear renaissance is coming." Ha names Cameco ($CCJ) and $BWXT. (4) Solar and batteries are critical to the reliability of the U.S. grid. "Solar assets stand to benefit from a windfall. The marginal plant's fuel price is rising while sun costs the same. Residential solar is really one of the only ways to protect yourself from what you pay for electricity at your house once gas gets really tight. We think residential solar grows exponentially from here, even without tax incentives." "That margin expands. The market has not priced it." He names $XIFR and $CWEN at utility scale and $RUN in residential.

Invest Like the Best

157,712 views • 15 days ago

The Convair 880, a remarkable yet underappreciated jet airliner in aviation history, completed its final flight in 1991, nearly two decades after its commercial retirement in 1973. Manufactured by Convair, a division of General Dynamics based in the United States, this sleek aircraft was designed to compete with industry giants like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. Introduced in 1959, the Convair 880 was celebrated for its impressive cruising speed of approximately 615 mph (990 km/h), making it one of the fastest commercial jetliners of its era, capable of rivaling or even surpassing the Boeing 707 in speed. Powered by four General Electric CJ805-3 turbojet engines, it was engineered for efficiency and performance, with a range of about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) and a capacity to carry up to 110 passengers in a typical configuration. Despite its technological achievements, the Convair 880 faced significant challenges. High operating costs, driven by its fuel-hungry engines, and fierce competition from more economical and versatile rivals limited its market success. Production ceased in 1962 after a brief six-year run, with only 65 units built—a stark contrast to the hundreds of Boeing 707s and DC-8s produced. The aircraft primarily served major U.S. carriers like TWA, Delta, and United, but its high costs led to its gradual phase-out by the early 1970s. The final flight in 1991, departing from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, marked the end of the Convair 880’s operational life, as it was retired to storage or scrapped. Today, the Convair 880 is a rare relic of aviation’s jet age, with only a handful of airframes preserved. Notable examples include one displayed at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta and another in private hands, occasionally used for film productions or as a static display. Its sleek, narrow-body design and historical significance as a symbol of the early jet era make the Convair 880 a cherished piece of aviation heritage, though its limited production and short service life render it a largely forgotten gem in the shadow of its more successful competitors.
1:02

The Convair 880, a remarkable yet underappreciated jet airliner in aviation history, completed its final flight in 1991, nearly two decades after its commercial retirement in 1973. Manufactured by Convair, a division of General Dynamics based in the United States, this sleek aircraft was designed to compete with industry giants like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. Introduced in 1959, the Convair 880 was celebrated for its impressive cruising speed of approximately 615 mph (990 km/h), making it one of the fastest commercial jetliners of its era, capable of rivaling or even surpassing the Boeing 707 in speed. Powered by four General Electric CJ805-3 turbojet engines, it was engineered for efficiency and performance, with a range of about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) and a capacity to carry up to 110 passengers in a typical configuration. Despite its technological achievements, the Convair 880 faced significant challenges. High operating costs, driven by its fuel-hungry engines, and fierce competition from more economical and versatile rivals limited its market success. Production ceased in 1962 after a brief six-year run, with only 65 units built—a stark contrast to the hundreds of Boeing 707s and DC-8s produced. The aircraft primarily served major U.S. carriers like TWA, Delta, and United, but its high costs led to its gradual phase-out by the early 1970s. The final flight in 1991, departing from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, marked the end of the Convair 880’s operational life, as it was retired to storage or scrapped. Today, the Convair 880 is a rare relic of aviation’s jet age, with only a handful of airframes preserved. Notable examples include one displayed at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta and another in private hands, occasionally used for film productions or as a static display. Its sleek, narrow-body design and historical significance as a symbol of the early jet era make the Convair 880 a cherished piece of aviation heritage, though its limited production and short service life render it a largely forgotten gem in the shadow of its more successful competitors.

aircraftmaintenancengineer

14,567 views • 1 year ago

This turbine blade is part of a $250+ million machine that can power an entire city Inside this Mitsubishi Power M501JAC 60 Hz gas turbine is one of the most advanced thermal machines ever built. This single turbine can produce around 440 MW in simple-cycle operation and 600+ MW in combined-cycle mode, enough electricity to power roughly 400,000+ homes continuously 24/7. To achieve this, the turbine compresses incoming air at pressure ratios around 20:1, mixes it with natural gas, and creates a combustion environment exceeding 1,500°C. That extreme temperature is what enables these machines to reach over 60% thermal efficiency. The first-stage turbine blades operate in conditions hotter than the melting point of their own materials. They are built from nickel-based single-crystal superalloys containing elements such as rhenium, tungsten, cobalt and chromium, then protected with ceramic thermal barrier coatings and cooled internally through microscopic channels. At 3,600 RPM, every blade is individually measured, numbered, balanced and tracked. A tiny manufacturing variation in one blade can create destructive vibrations in a machine costing hundreds of millions of dollars and shred the hot section entirely. At full power, this turbine consumes roughly 1,500+ cubic metres of natural gas every minute, around 25 cubic metres every second, while producing enough electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes. The hottest components are not replaced every few days. They are engineered for tens of thousands of operating hours, with major hot-section inspections typically after 20,000-30,000 equivalent operating hours depending on operating conditions. A Gas turbine engine based on technology that has existed for decades has become one of the bottlenecks of the AI revolution. Large gas turbines require years of manufacturing capacity, specialised factories, advanced metallurgy and decades of operational knowledge. Normal lead times are already around 5-6 years for some large units. With AI data centres demanding unprecedented amounts of electricity, ordering some of these machines today can mean waiting until the early 2031s for delivery. The future of AI is not limited only by GPUs and Semi-Conductor Chips. It is also limited by our ability to manufacture giant turbines with blades operating at the edge of material science. Video by 1989alibek
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This turbine blade is part of a $250+ million machine that can power an entire city Inside this Mitsubishi Power M501JAC 60 Hz gas turbine is one of the most advanced thermal machines ever built. This single turbine can produce around 440 MW in simple-cycle operation and 600+ MW in combined-cycle mode, enough electricity to power roughly 400,000+ homes continuously 24/7. To achieve this, the turbine compresses incoming air at pressure ratios around 20:1, mixes it with natural gas, and creates a combustion environment exceeding 1,500°C. That extreme temperature is what enables these machines to reach over 60% thermal efficiency. The first-stage turbine blades operate in conditions hotter than the melting point of their own materials. They are built from nickel-based single-crystal superalloys containing elements such as rhenium, tungsten, cobalt and chromium, then protected with ceramic thermal barrier coatings and cooled internally through microscopic channels. At 3,600 RPM, every blade is individually measured, numbered, balanced and tracked. A tiny manufacturing variation in one blade can create destructive vibrations in a machine costing hundreds of millions of dollars and shred the hot section entirely. At full power, this turbine consumes roughly 1,500+ cubic metres of natural gas every minute, around 25 cubic metres every second, while producing enough electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes. The hottest components are not replaced every few days. They are engineered for tens of thousands of operating hours, with major hot-section inspections typically after 20,000-30,000 equivalent operating hours depending on operating conditions. A Gas turbine engine based on technology that has existed for decades has become one of the bottlenecks of the AI revolution. Large gas turbines require years of manufacturing capacity, specialised factories, advanced metallurgy and decades of operational knowledge. Normal lead times are already around 5-6 years for some large units. With AI data centres demanding unprecedented amounts of electricity, ordering some of these machines today can mean waiting until the early 2031s for delivery. The future of AI is not limited only by GPUs and Semi-Conductor Chips. It is also limited by our ability to manufacture giant turbines with blades operating at the edge of material science. Video by 1989alibek

Ammanichanda

157,508 views • 12 days ago

I’ve been using GPT-5.6 Sol internally for the past two months, I've spent probably 25+ billion tokens. Here’s my review and comparison to Fable 5: > Let's start with the analogy because everyone seems to be giving theirs - GPT-5.6 is likely the last version of the GPT-5 training run series. It's kind of like an athlete at their peak. Through years of experience in the game, they've become the most reliable player and has the highest game IQ. But, there's no more room to grow. Fable on the other hand, being essentially the first version of a new training run, is the first round draft pick rookie. Raw talent mixed with the energy only a young person would have results in some incredible plays we didn't think possible, but also mistakes due to lack of experience. But that rookie will only improve and likely will be better than the veteran ever was because it's a new game and a new era. > GPT-5.6 is genuinely better at long, sustained work. With /goal, I've had it running complex projects for days with almost no intervention. It built a Minecraft-style game, kept adding features and mobs after the core game worked, and only stopped because I stopped the run. I never felt as though I had to jump in and guide it back to the right path. > It keeps finding useful work when you give it a concrete finish line. I had it recreate Excel with a loop. It inspected the real desktop excel app with Computer Use, comparing that against its own build, and closing the gaps. I stopped it after six days after it had built an incredible amount of functionality. > It's faster than other models in two different ways. The raw generation speed is higher, something OpenAI has been putting effort into. But it also takes a shorter path to solutions. It wanders less, changes less code, and generally knows how to get things done directly. In daily use, it feels about 2-3x times faster than Fable. That's my impression, not a controlled benchmark. The difference is large enough that I notice it constantly. > It works well across a wide range of tasks. I use it for one-line edits, quick questions, browser chores, and multi-day builds without changing my prompting style. Speaking of browser control, its the best ever I've used. To the point where I actually use it often. If a task lives on a website, GPT-5.6 usually opens the browser and does it there instead of asking for an API key or forcing everything through the terminal. When I switched back to GPT-5.5, it went straight to the command line even when the browser was clearly the better tool. > And it can handle real browser work, not just toy demos. During a data import, I had it monitor Supabase and resize instances as the load changed. It stayed on the dashboard, adjusted capacity, and checked the result without an API or a custom script. > I also gave it a full Google Workspace migration. It moved Forward Future from to preserved the old aliases, and configured MX, SPF, and DKIM. Before a consequential save, it stopped, explained exactly what would change, and waited for confirmation. > The reasoning setting matters a lot. Light is good for questions and small edits. High and Extra High are the sweet spots for serious work. Ultra usually takes longer than the extra thinking is worth and burns tokens. > I love that 5.6 is split into 3 sizes. Not only can you control speed and cost that way, but you still also have the thinking effort setting for each of them. Very precise controls. I just wish Codex automatically routed my prompts for me. > Its personality is blunt and a little bland. Claude feels warmer and more natural to talk to. GPT-5.6 is more clinical, but I like that for work. It gives me enough explanation and rarely pads the answer. I usually have to ask Fable to explain things more simply and/or more concise. > Its front-end taste has improved, but the default is predictable. Left alone, it turns websites into PowerPoint decks with huge statements and hard section breaks. The good news is that it takes design direction well and can revise without destroying the parts that already work. > It still makes confident mistakes. I asked it to rebuild parts of a system, and it told me the job was finished. Later, I found out it wasn't. Bits of its internal process also leak into the answer occasionally. > Claude Fable is more naturally autonomous on large, open-ended projects. GPT-5.6 is easier to reach for. I don't need to invent a huge project to justify using it. It works just as well for a small edit or browser chore. > GPT-5.6 is also cheaper. Sol costs $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. Fable costs $10 and $50. Cached input is cheaper too. Still, cost per finished task matters more than cost per token. > GPT-5.6 isn't the best at everything, and it still needs supervision. But it generates faster, wanders less, works at almost any scale, and wastes less of my time. It's the model I have the most confidence in to get the job done right the first time. I put together a full breakdown with all the tests, prompts, and examples on a site. You can read it here:
7:46

I’ve been using GPT-5.6 Sol internally for the past two months, I've spent probably 25+ billion tokens. Here’s my review and comparison to Fable 5: > Let's start with the analogy because everyone seems to be giving theirs - GPT-5.6 is likely the last version of the GPT-5 training run series. It's kind of like an athlete at their peak. Through years of experience in the game, they've become the most reliable player and has the highest game IQ. But, there's no more room to grow. Fable on the other hand, being essentially the first version of a new training run, is the first round draft pick rookie. Raw talent mixed with the energy only a young person would have results in some incredible plays we didn't think possible, but also mistakes due to lack of experience. But that rookie will only improve and likely will be better than the veteran ever was because it's a new game and a new era. > GPT-5.6 is genuinely better at long, sustained work. With /goal, I've had it running complex projects for days with almost no intervention. It built a Minecraft-style game, kept adding features and mobs after the core game worked, and only stopped because I stopped the run. I never felt as though I had to jump in and guide it back to the right path. > It keeps finding useful work when you give it a concrete finish line. I had it recreate Excel with a loop. It inspected the real desktop excel app with Computer Use, comparing that against its own build, and closing the gaps. I stopped it after six days after it had built an incredible amount of functionality. > It's faster than other models in two different ways. The raw generation speed is higher, something OpenAI has been putting effort into. But it also takes a shorter path to solutions. It wanders less, changes less code, and generally knows how to get things done directly. In daily use, it feels about 2-3x times faster than Fable. That's my impression, not a controlled benchmark. The difference is large enough that I notice it constantly. > It works well across a wide range of tasks. I use it for one-line edits, quick questions, browser chores, and multi-day builds without changing my prompting style. Speaking of browser control, its the best ever I've used. To the point where I actually use it often. If a task lives on a website, GPT-5.6 usually opens the browser and does it there instead of asking for an API key or forcing everything through the terminal. When I switched back to GPT-5.5, it went straight to the command line even when the browser was clearly the better tool. > And it can handle real browser work, not just toy demos. During a data import, I had it monitor Supabase and resize instances as the load changed. It stayed on the dashboard, adjusted capacity, and checked the result without an API or a custom script. > I also gave it a full Google Workspace migration. It moved Forward Future from to preserved the old aliases, and configured MX, SPF, and DKIM. Before a consequential save, it stopped, explained exactly what would change, and waited for confirmation. > The reasoning setting matters a lot. Light is good for questions and small edits. High and Extra High are the sweet spots for serious work. Ultra usually takes longer than the extra thinking is worth and burns tokens. > I love that 5.6 is split into 3 sizes. Not only can you control speed and cost that way, but you still also have the thinking effort setting for each of them. Very precise controls. I just wish Codex automatically routed my prompts for me. > Its personality is blunt and a little bland. Claude feels warmer and more natural to talk to. GPT-5.6 is more clinical, but I like that for work. It gives me enough explanation and rarely pads the answer. I usually have to ask Fable to explain things more simply and/or more concise. > Its front-end taste has improved, but the default is predictable. Left alone, it turns websites into PowerPoint decks with huge statements and hard section breaks. The good news is that it takes design direction well and can revise without destroying the parts that already work. > It still makes confident mistakes. I asked it to rebuild parts of a system, and it told me the job was finished. Later, I found out it wasn't. Bits of its internal process also leak into the answer occasionally. > Claude Fable is more naturally autonomous on large, open-ended projects. GPT-5.6 is easier to reach for. I don't need to invent a huge project to justify using it. It works just as well for a small edit or browser chore. > GPT-5.6 is also cheaper. Sol costs $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. Fable costs $10 and $50. Cached input is cheaper too. Still, cost per finished task matters more than cost per token. > GPT-5.6 isn't the best at everything, and it still needs supervision. But it generates faster, wanders less, works at almost any scale, and wastes less of my time. It's the model I have the most confidence in to get the job done right the first time. I put together a full breakdown with all the tests, prompts, and examples on a site. You can read it here:

Matthew Berman

186,994 views • 27 days ago

Elon Musk in 2008: "NASA was going to pay Russia $70M per astronaut. SpaceX could do it for $15M" Musk is presenting SpaceX to a small audience. He shows a video of the Falcon 9 first stage firing: "This is almost a million pounds of thrust in vacuum, about four times the maximum thrust of a 747. It's pretty much Armageddon down there. You don't want to be standing at the base of that test stand." He explains the NASA contract: "The contract SpaceX has right now is to demonstrate cargo transfer to the space station and return of experiments to Earth. What we're hoping NASA will exercise is an option on that contract to also carry astronauts. I think they will exercise that option fairly soon." On the coming gap in American spaceflight: "The Space Shuttle is retiring in 2010. So unless our spacecraft is active, the US will not have the ability to send people to orbit. For about five or six years, unless SpaceX is successful, there will be no American manned space capability. There'll just be the Russians." He describes the situation bluntly: "The Russians are charging us over $70 million per seat after the shuttle retires. They got us over a barrel and they're doing us hard. We'll spend half a billion dollars per year on the Russians just buying tickets for six or seven astronauts to go to the space station." Musk shares SpaceX's cost: "Our cost per person, even assuming no reusability, assuming every bit of it is expended and no refurbishment, is about $15 million per person. And it's us. The jobs are here. So I think it's kind of a no-brainer. But no-brainers in Washington DC don't always happen." On Congress: "We've been given money for the cargo portion but not for the manned portion. The amount we're asking for to get this done is $300 million. For every year that we're dependent on the Russians, we have to send them half a billion dollars. It seems kind of ludicrous. But anyway, that's DC." Someone asks about the space elevator: "The idea is you have this really long cable, like 40 to 60,000 miles long, with the ends way out in space and the base on Earth. There are a lot of issues with the space elevator. It relies on super strong materials, carbon nanotubes. Until we build, say, a carbon nanotube footbridge, then I think we should not really be thinking too much about building a 60,000-mile elevator. Not this century." On space solar power: "If there's anyone in the world who should love space solar power, it's me. I'm chairman and the largest shareholder of a solar company called SolarCity, and I've got a rocket company. So it should be perfect. Unfortunately, I don't think space solar power makes sense. I wish it did because that'd be awesome. But even if you assume it costs zero to transport the solar panels to space, when you take into account the equipment to convert the energy to microwaves, then equipment on the ground to convert it back to electricity, just that capital cost blows you out of the water. It's not competitive with terrestrial solar power. So there's no point in even thinking about it." On fuel costs: "The fuel and oxidizer cost is really super low. For our big rocket, it's only a couple hundred thousand dollars. For our small rocket, it's about $30,000 or $40,000. If you just look at the propellant cost, it's very, very cheap." On the long-term goal: "One of the design goals for Falcon 9 is that it can go from in the hangar to in the air in under 60 minutes, which would be super fast for a rocket, particularly a big rocket. It's going to take several flights before we get there. But as long as we lay the foundation and make sure the design is capable of that, we can at least have the possibility of getting to a flight an hour in the future."
16:43

Elon Musk in 2008: "NASA was going to pay Russia $70M per astronaut. SpaceX could do it for $15M" Musk is presenting SpaceX to a small audience. He shows a video of the Falcon 9 first stage firing: "This is almost a million pounds of thrust in vacuum, about four times the maximum thrust of a 747. It's pretty much Armageddon down there. You don't want to be standing at the base of that test stand." He explains the NASA contract: "The contract SpaceX has right now is to demonstrate cargo transfer to the space station and return of experiments to Earth. What we're hoping NASA will exercise is an option on that contract to also carry astronauts. I think they will exercise that option fairly soon." On the coming gap in American spaceflight: "The Space Shuttle is retiring in 2010. So unless our spacecraft is active, the US will not have the ability to send people to orbit. For about five or six years, unless SpaceX is successful, there will be no American manned space capability. There'll just be the Russians." He describes the situation bluntly: "The Russians are charging us over $70 million per seat after the shuttle retires. They got us over a barrel and they're doing us hard. We'll spend half a billion dollars per year on the Russians just buying tickets for six or seven astronauts to go to the space station." Musk shares SpaceX's cost: "Our cost per person, even assuming no reusability, assuming every bit of it is expended and no refurbishment, is about $15 million per person. And it's us. The jobs are here. So I think it's kind of a no-brainer. But no-brainers in Washington DC don't always happen." On Congress: "We've been given money for the cargo portion but not for the manned portion. The amount we're asking for to get this done is $300 million. For every year that we're dependent on the Russians, we have to send them half a billion dollars. It seems kind of ludicrous. But anyway, that's DC." Someone asks about the space elevator: "The idea is you have this really long cable, like 40 to 60,000 miles long, with the ends way out in space and the base on Earth. There are a lot of issues with the space elevator. It relies on super strong materials, carbon nanotubes. Until we build, say, a carbon nanotube footbridge, then I think we should not really be thinking too much about building a 60,000-mile elevator. Not this century." On space solar power: "If there's anyone in the world who should love space solar power, it's me. I'm chairman and the largest shareholder of a solar company called SolarCity, and I've got a rocket company. So it should be perfect. Unfortunately, I don't think space solar power makes sense. I wish it did because that'd be awesome. But even if you assume it costs zero to transport the solar panels to space, when you take into account the equipment to convert the energy to microwaves, then equipment on the ground to convert it back to electricity, just that capital cost blows you out of the water. It's not competitive with terrestrial solar power. So there's no point in even thinking about it." On fuel costs: "The fuel and oxidizer cost is really super low. For our big rocket, it's only a couple hundred thousand dollars. For our small rocket, it's about $30,000 or $40,000. If you just look at the propellant cost, it's very, very cheap." On the long-term goal: "One of the design goals for Falcon 9 is that it can go from in the hangar to in the air in under 60 minutes, which would be super fast for a rocket, particularly a big rocket. It's going to take several flights before we get there. But as long as we lay the foundation and make sure the design is capable of that, we can at least have the possibility of getting to a flight an hour in the future."

Grey

56,512 views • 3 months ago

The first question I asked Elon Musk: What’s the point of sending GPUs into space? The whole idea behind orbital data centers is that if the launch costs continue to drop, it will become cheaper to put GPUs in orbit than to build power plants on Earth. The problem with this argument is that energy is only about 15% of a datacenter’s lifetime cost. The chips themselves are around 70%. And you still have to launch those to space! Elon kept returning to one point over and over again: It will simply not be physically possible to scale power production to the scale needed for AI on Earth. He kept pointing out the bottlenecks we’ve already run into on Earth: You can’t plug into the utilities - the interconnect queues are too long. You can’t do behind-the-meter natural gas and generate power yourself - lead times for turbines stretch past 2030. You can’t do solar on Earth, because of permits, and because of the tariffs. For it to make economical sense to shift compute to space, all of the following things would need to be true: - Power generation on Earth hits a ceiling, or AI demand outstrips every terrestrial option (for context, 1 TW of solar power is only 1% of the land area of the US, and AI currently only uses about 20 GW globally). - Chip production scales faster than power generation (because Elon builds TeraFab). It would be surprising if building and placing solar panels turned out to be harder than scaling semiconductor manufacturing. - Starship reaches thousands of launches per year. In that world, Elon wins the AI race outright. SpaceX is the only entity that can launch at that scale. xAI would have unlimited power. Everyone else will be stuck fighting over grid interconnects and turbine orders. And if those 3 conditions aren’t met? Well, on Earth, xAI is just gonna be one of the pack anyways - and there’s no market for the 4th best AI model. Elon’s comparative advantage was never going to be navigating utility interconnect queues or filing permits faster than Google. His advantage is SpaceX. So why not just bet on the world where SpaceX becomes the kingmaker? I asked Elon what that world looks like. 100 GW = 10,000 starship launches, and he wants to do more than that every year by 2030. That’s one starship launch every hour.
5:33

The first question I asked Elon Musk: What’s the point of sending GPUs into space? The whole idea behind orbital data centers is that if the launch costs continue to drop, it will become cheaper to put GPUs in orbit than to build power plants on Earth. The problem with this argument is that energy is only about 15% of a datacenter’s lifetime cost. The chips themselves are around 70%. And you still have to launch those to space! Elon kept returning to one point over and over again: It will simply not be physically possible to scale power production to the scale needed for AI on Earth. He kept pointing out the bottlenecks we’ve already run into on Earth: You can’t plug into the utilities - the interconnect queues are too long. You can’t do behind-the-meter natural gas and generate power yourself - lead times for turbines stretch past 2030. You can’t do solar on Earth, because of permits, and because of the tariffs. For it to make economical sense to shift compute to space, all of the following things would need to be true: - Power generation on Earth hits a ceiling, or AI demand outstrips every terrestrial option (for context, 1 TW of solar power is only 1% of the land area of the US, and AI currently only uses about 20 GW globally). - Chip production scales faster than power generation (because Elon builds TeraFab). It would be surprising if building and placing solar panels turned out to be harder than scaling semiconductor manufacturing. - Starship reaches thousands of launches per year. In that world, Elon wins the AI race outright. SpaceX is the only entity that can launch at that scale. xAI would have unlimited power. Everyone else will be stuck fighting over grid interconnects and turbine orders. And if those 3 conditions aren’t met? Well, on Earth, xAI is just gonna be one of the pack anyways - and there’s no market for the 4th best AI model. Elon’s comparative advantage was never going to be navigating utility interconnect queues or filing permits faster than Google. His advantage is SpaceX. So why not just bet on the world where SpaceX becomes the kingmaker? I asked Elon what that world looks like. 100 GW = 10,000 starship launches, and he wants to do more than that every year by 2030. That’s one starship launch every hour.

Dwarkesh Patel

404,497 views • 6 months ago

NEWS: Neoen Australia says it has begun construction of a new $220 million big battery project, which will also be the first project in the world to deploy Tesla's new Megablock product, its next generation grid-scale battery tech. Megablock combines four Megapack 3 units into a single deployable block offering 20 MWh units, each with an integrated transformer and switchgear. Tesla says this will translate into faster installations and lower costs for grid-level storage, up to 40% cheaper. Megapack 3 production will begin at Tesla's upcoming Megafactory in Houston, Texas in 2026 with up to 50 GWh per year of manufacturing capacity. Megablock: • 23% faster to install with up to 40% lower construction costs • Plug and play platform (hardware, software and services) delivered as one all from Tesla. It's a pre-engineered medium-voltage block that integrates next-gen Megapack 3 • Eliminates above ground cabling between the transformer and the megapacks using new flexible busbar assembly • 91% MV round trip efficiency • 20 MWh of usable AC energy • Operates in temps of -40°C (-40°F) to 60°C (140°F) • 248 MWh per acre • 25-year life & >10,000 cycles Megapack 3: • 5 MWh of usable AC energy • Weight: 86,000 lbs • 28 foot long enclosure that can be shipped globally • Optimized for up to 8-hour applications • New drastically simplified thermal bay. Uses Model Y heat pump, but on steroids. 78% fewer connections, which minimizes failure points • Larger battery module and larger battery cell • 2.8 liter battery cell, co-engineered with Tesla's cell team • LFP battery • Operates in -40°C to 60° • Went from 24 cable connections in Megapack version 2XL, down to 3 simple busbar connections • 75% of the mass of Megapack 3 is battery cells. • A single module in it weighs as much as a Cybertruck • Tesla has enabled easier front access service, so there are no roof penetrations • Drastically simplified bussing system • Will partly use battery cells from Tesla's new 7 GWh LFP battery facility in Nevada. Additional cells sourced elsewhere.
0:37

NEWS: Neoen Australia says it has begun construction of a new $220 million big battery project, which will also be the first project in the world to deploy Tesla's new Megablock product, its next generation grid-scale battery tech. Megablock combines four Megapack 3 units into a single deployable block offering 20 MWh units, each with an integrated transformer and switchgear. Tesla says this will translate into faster installations and lower costs for grid-level storage, up to 40% cheaper. Megapack 3 production will begin at Tesla's upcoming Megafactory in Houston, Texas in 2026 with up to 50 GWh per year of manufacturing capacity. Megablock: • 23% faster to install with up to 40% lower construction costs • Plug and play platform (hardware, software and services) delivered as one all from Tesla. It's a pre-engineered medium-voltage block that integrates next-gen Megapack 3 • Eliminates above ground cabling between the transformer and the megapacks using new flexible busbar assembly • 91% MV round trip efficiency • 20 MWh of usable AC energy • Operates in temps of -40°C (-40°F) to 60°C (140°F) • 248 MWh per acre • 25-year life & >10,000 cycles Megapack 3: • 5 MWh of usable AC energy • Weight: 86,000 lbs • 28 foot long enclosure that can be shipped globally • Optimized for up to 8-hour applications • New drastically simplified thermal bay. Uses Model Y heat pump, but on steroids. 78% fewer connections, which minimizes failure points • Larger battery module and larger battery cell • 2.8 liter battery cell, co-engineered with Tesla's cell team • LFP battery • Operates in -40°C to 60° • Went from 24 cable connections in Megapack version 2XL, down to 3 simple busbar connections • 75% of the mass of Megapack 3 is battery cells. • A single module in it weighs as much as a Cybertruck • Tesla has enabled easier front access service, so there are no roof penetrations • Drastically simplified bussing system • Will partly use battery cells from Tesla's new 7 GWh LFP battery facility in Nevada. Additional cells sourced elsewhere.

Sawyer Merritt

172,732 views • 7 months ago

Elon Musk: My initial plan was not to start a rocket company. I just wanted to fund a one-time Oasis mission to Mars. “I started off initially with the idea of doing something in the space exploration arena. In fact, it wasn't actually with the idea of creating a company. It was initially with the thought of spurring interest in sending people to Mars. So I put together this idea called Mars Oasis, which was to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars and get people excited about the idea of going there and thus increase NASA's budget in order to make it happen. As I got more and more into that, I discovered that the real issue was that the cost of space transportation was really high, and it was getting worse. So we're used to technology getting better every year, but in some arenas it actually does not. It gets worse, particularly when you consider that in 1969 we were able to go to the moon and then we were unable to go beyond low Earth orbit. And now with the space shuttle retired, we're not even able to go to Earth orbit at all, even with people. That was not the right trajectory. So I actually went to Russia three times to look at buying an ICBM to launch this mission. Just very crazy. After my third trip of trying to negotiate with the Russians to buy an ICBM and I did actually get a deal, so figured out what it would cost and everything. But I concluded that my initial assumption had been wrong, that it was not a question of trying to generate more will to explore. Because I think the United States in particular is distillation of the human spirit of exploration. Space exploration is fundamental to the American psyche. But people really need to believe that it can be done and it's not going to break the bank if it does. So that's when I decided to start a rocket company. And I actually didn't think it would succeed and it almost didn't. We started off developing a small rocket which was kind of a scale model version. It was about 100,000 pounds of thrust. So big, you know, big, big by normal standards, but small for a rocket. And developed the engine and the airframe and the electronics and the guidance control system and then proceeded to have three failed launches in a row. And so for various technical reasons, the first three launches did not succeed in reaching orbit. Launches two and three did get to space, but they didn't achieve enough speed to reach orbital velocity. So this is 2008. And so we were heading into the recession and we had one rocket left. And fortunately in late 2008, that fourth launch did work and we made it to orbit. And then we won a NASA contract after that. And so fortunately things worked out. But if that fourth launch had not worked, then SpaceX wouldn't be around. So it was very close call. In fact, when I started I thought, okay, I've got enough money, I think I've got enough money for three launches. Fortunately, it was just enough to make that fourth one.” Montana Jobs Summit, September 16, 2013
2:45

Elon Musk: My initial plan was not to start a rocket company. I just wanted to fund a one-time Oasis mission to Mars. “I started off initially with the idea of doing something in the space exploration arena. In fact, it wasn't actually with the idea of creating a company. It was initially with the thought of spurring interest in sending people to Mars. So I put together this idea called Mars Oasis, which was to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars and get people excited about the idea of going there and thus increase NASA's budget in order to make it happen. As I got more and more into that, I discovered that the real issue was that the cost of space transportation was really high, and it was getting worse. So we're used to technology getting better every year, but in some arenas it actually does not. It gets worse, particularly when you consider that in 1969 we were able to go to the moon and then we were unable to go beyond low Earth orbit. And now with the space shuttle retired, we're not even able to go to Earth orbit at all, even with people. That was not the right trajectory. So I actually went to Russia three times to look at buying an ICBM to launch this mission. Just very crazy. After my third trip of trying to negotiate with the Russians to buy an ICBM and I did actually get a deal, so figured out what it would cost and everything. But I concluded that my initial assumption had been wrong, that it was not a question of trying to generate more will to explore. Because I think the United States in particular is distillation of the human spirit of exploration. Space exploration is fundamental to the American psyche. But people really need to believe that it can be done and it's not going to break the bank if it does. So that's when I decided to start a rocket company. And I actually didn't think it would succeed and it almost didn't. We started off developing a small rocket which was kind of a scale model version. It was about 100,000 pounds of thrust. So big, you know, big, big by normal standards, but small for a rocket. And developed the engine and the airframe and the electronics and the guidance control system and then proceeded to have three failed launches in a row. And so for various technical reasons, the first three launches did not succeed in reaching orbit. Launches two and three did get to space, but they didn't achieve enough speed to reach orbital velocity. So this is 2008. And so we were heading into the recession and we had one rocket left. And fortunately in late 2008, that fourth launch did work and we made it to orbit. And then we won a NASA contract after that. And so fortunately things worked out. But if that fourth launch had not worked, then SpaceX wouldn't be around. So it was very close call. In fact, when I started I thought, okay, I've got enough money, I think I've got enough money for three launches. Fortunately, it was just enough to make that fourth one.” Montana Jobs Summit, September 16, 2013

ELON CLIPS

24,586 views • 2 months ago