Inflation, Energy, Power, US Dominance, It's All Good -- March 13, 2024

Locator: 46745B.

If you have time, today, to read just one article on the state of the economy, this is it -- plus a week's worth of CNBC interviews and observations. Link here, from Barron's:

Data centers: not gonna be enough power. The fix is not renewable and it won't be overnight. No, nuclear is not the answer -- not in my investing lifetime. My investing lifetime -- twenty years.

Link here. One of my favorite graphs. It's been a long time since we've seen this graph updated by the EIA. I wonder if folks see in this chart what I'm seeing?

If I'm reading this correctly, Saudi Arabia's production in the last ten years peaked at barely 10 million bopd in 2018 and by 2019 already on a declining slope. At low volume, 2020 and 2021, the years of the plague.

Link here. A recurring theme on the blog.

Bitcoin mining, data center buildout and energy now followed here.

Link here.

From the linked article:

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently.

Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction.

Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.

Only thing wrong with this article? North Dakota was not mentioned.

Link here. 

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Previously

Locator: 46737B.

Breaking: Both President Biden and Donald Trump clinch their party's respective nomination. Good, bad, or indifferent, this is quite a milestone.

Now, back to regular programming.

Link here. 

• 2019, pre-pandemic: Americans drive record number of vehicle miles per day (average);
• it took four / five years, but finally,
• 2023: US reaches a record 8.9 billion vehicle miles per day, setting a new all-time record, albeit barely
• EIA predicts new records to be set in 2024 and 2025

Locator: 46700B.

Under the Biden administration, link here, Carl Q:

The Bakken revolution, link here: