John Kostyack

"We're headed toward an amazing, exciting era of abundance...We're headed to a future of universal high income." -Elon Musk's first words on (checks notes) the earnings call for his car company $Tesla #TeslaTakedown 🧵

Simple cycle…

To get around CCGC supply chain bottlenecks, we can expect many of these data center complexes to feature simply cycle turbines. "These produce higher and more locally concentrated emissions than result from grid-connected data centers."

The growing free-market push to let data centers go off grid A wave of new legislation aims to let Big Tech build its own private power islands.

The tech industry is joining the world of fossil fuel power generators. Nearly a third of tech companies responding to a recent survey expect to operate data centers entirely with onsite power by 2030. Many hope to go off-grid to avoid interconnection queues and PUC regulations.

Microsoft Pledged to Save Water. In the A.I. Era, It Expects Water Use to Soar.

Meanwhile fossil fuel pollution from Microsoft data centers, and water use from those same data centers, is exacerbating water stress around the world. We're going to need more than shifting workloads around the various data centers to reverse this 2026 trend.

This blog suggests that a more sustainable approach will be achieved by ensuring that computing power is "packed more densely and routed dynamically so nothing sits idle." Is this referring to powering up idle coal plants? Unclear.

What’s next in AI: 7 trends to watch in 2026 Seven AI trends to watch in 2026 will make AI a true partner — boosting teamwork, security, research momentum and infrastructure efficiency.

Microsoft identified what it saw as the 7 trends to watch in 2026. Sad to report that the concept of sustainability shows up just once, in the same paragraph where it makes clear we'll be seeing "building more and bigger datacenters." news.microsoft.com/source/featu...

I skied right past that guy yesterday.

The people of Minnesota have executed one of the most impressive civil resistance campaigns I can remember:

- Organized a city wide general strike
- Maintained nonviolent discipline amidst violence
- Mobilized 10,000s in subzero temps to protest and watch ICE
- Flipped public opinion against ICE

Energy demand and decarbonization in 2025 and beyond - Nature Reviews Clean Technology Rapid expansion of renewables has thus far mostly covered fast-growing energy demand rather than displacing fossil fuels. New demand drivers such as data centres and cooling could reverse declining de...

”Achieving a genuine and sustained global-scale energy transition — where renewables structurally displace fossil energy — requires greater emphasis on reducing energy demand while increasing well-being.”

#Sufficiency

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

An A.I. Pioneer Warns the Tech ‘Herd’ Is Marching Into a Dead End

AI pioneer LeCun says the systems promoted by Big Tech make too many mistakes. "As they tackle more complex tasks, mistakes pile up like cars after a collision on a highway." “The good ideas are coming from China.”

Earth was hit by 55 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2025 » Yale Climate Connections The world endured its costliest wildfire on record in 2025, its sixth-deadliest heat wave, and four floods or storms that caused at least 1,000 deaths.

I summarized the biggest weather disasters of 2025 using last week's summaries from Gallagher Re and Aon. The costliest: $65 billion in damage from the L.A. wildfires. The deadliest: 24,000+ killed in the summer heatwave in Europe.

yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/01/eart...

The customer for this GW-scale energy park is not identified, yet it's suggested that the primary generation source will be simple-cycle gas turbines. Pratt states that solar microgrids are attractive only where gas is unavailable (AZ, CA). Really?

Pacifico's Pratt: “For our big GW Ranch project, we do have in our design about a GW worth of solar on site as well.. But we will leave it up to the customer. And ultimately, what’s driving decision making is speed: speed to reliable power.”

"[Solar] microgrids no longer imply modest size, with new projects scaling up into the hundreds of megawatts and even gigawatt size."

CONTRIBUTOR GREG BROCKMAN AMOUNT ELECTION TO DAT $25,000,000 $25,000,000

The largest Trump superPAC donor so far this cycle is the president of OpenAI

“We are in scary times,” the congressman said. “Please stay safe and do not let these people silence you. Onwards.”

This will be the first competitive race for DC's Delegate slot in Congress since Norton ran for it in 1990. A critically important role at a time when democracy and civil liberties in the nation's capital are eroding fast.

"There is a US city living under occupation by fascist presidential secret police right now."

"One child bleeding from an eye injury wasn’t seen by medical staff for two days. Another child’s foot was broken when a member of the staff dropped a volleyball net pole."

They were fed meals "that were moldy and had worms" and then refused to treat food poisoning.

apnews.com/article/immi...

This gives me hope.

Michigan Sues Big Oil ‘Cartel’ for Conspiring to Block Clean Energy | Center for Climate Integrity Michigan Becomes the 11th State to Take Oil Majors to Court for Climate Deception, Arguing They Violated Antitrust Laws to Limit Energy Options and Drive Up Costs

Today Michigan became the 11th state to sue the fossil fuel industry for climate deception, filing an antitrust suit in federal court against #BigOil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell, and trade association American Petroleum Institute
#BigOilLies #ClimateAccountability

@desmog.com's DeMelle: Accepting this new disclosure method "would be akin to a tobacco company saying ‘we just make the cigarettes, we’re not responsible for the damage once you light up.’”

Exxon-Backed Coalition Challenges How Companies Account for Emissions. Some Say It Could Stop Them From Decarbonizing. Leading climate figures argue the “E-ledgers” approach absolves businesses of their climate responsibilities.

Oxford & Harvard profs develop a new GHG emissions inventory system to mirror the way that financial accounting is done, where liabilities are passed down to the buyers. Did they know that it would help polluters evade disclosure? That Exxon & others would use it to sow chaos?

two images of an arrest, one digitally altered by the White House to make it look like the arrestee is crying

This is the first example I’ve seen of an American government using AI to meaningfully misrepresent actual events with the intent to deceive the public. We are at Stalinesque levels of propaganda.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/past-the-b...

Solar and Batteries Are Squeezing Out Natural Gas in California The state's power emissions fell 8% last year, even as they rose almost everywhere else.

CA is demonstrating that rapid deployment of solar and batteries can displace fossil gas generators and drive down emissions. Bucking the national trend, its carbon emissions fell by 8% in 2025. Also, no significant data center expansion.

Why does the incoming storm have a very good chance of becoming the most intense nor’easter ever observed? "Exceptional" ocean heat off the US east coast, 2-4 degrees Celsius above the 1971-2000 average.

AI bot swarms threaten to undermine democracy When AI Can Fake Majorities, Democracy Slips Away

Heads up that AI slop may be the least of our problems. AI "swarms" - bad actors unleashing swarms of AI bots to perpetuate disinformation- are emerging as one of the big threats to elections and democracy. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Opinion | The Hidden Risk to the Housing Market

@whitehouse.senate.gov enlists climate denier Tim Sheehy to join his resilience-building push in the Senate w no mention of climate & a depressing statement of today's political reality: "While there is persistent debate over what’s causing these extreme weather events to happen more frequently...."

The slavery exhibits at the President’s House have been removed following Trump administration push President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. to be reviewed and potentially removed.

I forgot to mention slavery. No looking at slavery either. www.inquirer.com/politics/nat...