Latest news with #JimSpencer
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Floods force Buchanan Dam to open flood gates for first time in years
BURNET COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — One of the most important lakes in Central Texas is overflowing, forcing the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) to open its flood gates for the first time in six years. On Monday, July 14, the LCRA announced that at least two flood gates at Buchanan Dam will open to prevent water from topping over the spillway. Buchanan Dam separates Lake Buchanan from Inks Lake. According to the LCRA, water will flow into Inks Lake. Inks Dam does not have flood gates and water is expected to flow over its spillway into Lake LBJ. The last time Buchanan Dam opened its flood gates was in 2019. Water from Lake Buchanan flows downstream and eventually ends in Lake Travis. That lake has returned to its average level of 666 feet for the first time in four years. Lake Buchanan is 96% full. No floodgates at Mansfield Dam, which separates Lake Travis and Lake Austin, are expected to open. Lake Travis can hold another 15 feet of water before it is considered full. Lake Travis largely reopens, caution still advised According to KXAN's Jim Spencer, the 'Sometimes Islands', small landmasses that appear when Lake Travis is low, could soon vanish beneath the waves. The islands submerge when the lake reaches 670 feet full. This is the first time Lake Travis has been this full since July 4, 2020. Currently, recreational watercraft are banned on Lake Travis as a result of recent floods. The LCRA is asking watercraft on the other Highland Lakes to navigate with extra caution due to possible debris in the water. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Fast Company
08-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Wind and solar companies are racing to build before their tax credits disappear
A proposed solar farm in New Mexico aims to finish construction by 2029 or 2030. But the developer that hopes to build it now plans to buy solar panels for the project early—so it could potentially beat the government's new deadline to qualify for federal tax credits. The new budget law signed by President Trump on July 4 slashed incentives for clean power. New solar and wind projects were left with two limited options to get tax credits. First, a new project can qualify if it starts generating power by the end of 2027. That's a tiny window of time for projects that typically take several years to permit and build. The law also offers a 'safe harbor' option: if you start building a new wind or solar farm within the next 12 months, you have another four years to finish. 'While we're not thrilled with this legislation—to say the least—we're going to just respond to the circumstances,' says Jim Spencer, president and CEO of Exus Renewables North America, a wind and solar developer. 'What that means, of course, is grandfathering as many projects as possible.' To qualify as 'starting construction,' such as wind turbines or solar panels. In New Mexico, Exus has multiple proposals under consideration for new solar farms; by buying solar panels early, the company will be ready to move forward quickly when it wins a bid. Developers can take a few other steps to accelerate projects. If they still need approval from a local community, for example, they might offer extra incentives like more funding for schools or roads. If the regional grid has limited capacity to add energy on local transmission lines, the developer could decide to add more battery storage to ease demand and help it get approval. In some cases, developers might be able to work directly with a customer like a data center and build a microgrid that avoids the need to connect to the grid at all. Right now, the slowest part of building any new wind or solar farm is the interconnection queue, where grid operators analyze and approve energy projects. There are currently more than 10,000 renewable projects in the queue, according to Getting approval can take years. Technology could also potentially help. PJM, the regional grid that covers an area ranging from parts of Illinois to Tennessee, recently announced that it was working with Google and Tapestry, an Alphabet project, to use AI to review interconnection requests more quickly. And 'grid-enhancing technologies' can make it possible for transmission lines to handle more power, removing another bottleneck. Permitting is another challenge, but states could change policy to help speed that up. First, some outdated types of permits could potentially be eliminated for clean energy. 'Applying conventional energy permitting requirements for a coal plant to a solar project is apples to oranges,' says Harry Godfrey, who leads the federal policy team at Advanced Energy United, an industry group. States could also move to a checklist approach, where developers are responsible for doing their own assessments and validating them. In Texas, where permitting requirements are streamlined, 'we see real differences in terms of speed and scale of project development compared to the vast majority of the rest of the country,' Godfrey says. States could also make it easier to site projects. Local communities should be able to make some decisions about whether projects should get built, says Evan Vaughan, executive director at MAREC Action, a coalition of renewable developers and manufacturers. But he argues that also has to be balanced with the energy demand in a region. PJM has said that its peak demand could rise by a staggering 70 gigawatts—enough to power around 52 million homes—over the next decade. 'That's an almost inconceivable amount of energy,' Vaughan says. 'The more of these near-term projects that don't reach fruition, not only does it mean it's harder to meet that goal, but it's also going to come at a higher expense.' For utilities, there's an incentive to help get as many projects built now as possible. 'I think that they all realize that the sooner that they can contract and avail themselves projects with tax credits the cheaper their electricity is going to be,' says Spencer. But it's not clear how quickly states or grid operators could make the changes to help more projects get built soon enough to use the tax credits. In many areas, state action would be politically difficult; a growing number of counties across the country have restricted or even banned new renewable projects. Some projects that are at an early stage now likely won't get built. An analysis from Jesse Jenkins, who leads Princeton's ZERO Lab, found that future projects without the credits could cost 50% more. If the supply of projects in the pipeline shrinks while demand continues to quickly grow, the price of energy will go up. So even if some projects aren't financially viable now without the tax credits, they soon could be. 'That's because we'll all be paying more for power,' Godfrey says. 'That's one of the fundamental ironies of this bill. It's intended to make life more affordable, but the result is it makes it more expensive.' The industry also faces a risk that the administration may go farther. Trump reportedly promised Republicans in Congress that he'd find ways to stop all projects from getting tax credits, despite what the new law says. But because of the growth in demand for energy, and the fact that large customers like data centers prefer renewables, wind and solar could still continue to grow. In many parts of the country, they're the cheapest source of new power even without the tax credits. Meanwhile, developers like Exus will continue racing forward. 'I think for the next couple of years, we're all going to be very, very busy,' says Spencer. 'Because we're going to be building everything that we can.'
Forbes
01-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Green Energy's Role In A World Where AI Data Centers Are Power Hungry
On a sunny afternoon in April, a massive power outage swept across the Iberian Peninsula. Millions were left in the dark while businesses closed, travelers were stranded, and communication lines were cut. The diagnostics are still pending, but this incident has sparked a conversation about which fuel sources are best suited to guide us as artificial intelligence and data centers experience rapid growth. Renewables are essential, and their ability to support AI and data center growth is improving due to advancements in energy storage, grid intelligence, and demand-side innovation. However, for the foreseeable future, we must integrate clean energy sources with natural gas to ensure reliability. While green power and nuclear energy will be the backbone over time, the most optimal approach is to combine them right now. 'Thanks to a massive increase in the adoption of renewables and utility-scale battery storage in the U.S., along with the emergence of grid-enhancing technologies, our grid is better equipped to handle these stressors than it was just 5 years ago,' says Jim Spencer, chief executive of Exus Renewables North America, in an email exchange. 'Renewables are essential for powering AI data centers to keep up with rapidly increasing demand, keep costs low, and drive the next wave of economic innovation.' Political partisans blame competing energy sources for previous power outages. Inevitably, advocates of traditional fuels emphasize that wind and solar energy only function when weather conditions allow, necessitating backup from batteries or natural gas, which incurs additional costs. In this context, renewables provided 70% of the energy during the Iberian Peninsula blackout. However, this outage cannot be attributed to wind and solar but rather to the grid's inability to respond quickly to unexpected issues. Two significant power losses occurred at substations in southwestern Spain, causing a sudden drop in power supply and affecting the grid's voltage and frequency—the heartbeat of the grid. According to Spencer, green energy is the cheapest and quickest to integrate into the network. It works effectively alongside additional support systems like batteries, demand response, and fast-starting natural gas generation. Indeed, battery costs have dropped by more than 85% since 2010, which has improved reliability. Renewables can be co-located next to modular data centers. 'We must understand commercial readiness and cost," relative to when data centers come online," adds Ron Schoff, director of R&D for EPRI, during a United States Energy Association virtual press event I participated in. 'Our big challenge is that data center demand is coming between now and the next two to three years," noting that the system must be able to respond to rapid changes in supply and demand for electricity. Consider Wind Harvest, which claims its turbines are technologically superior and designed to operate in the harshest conditions. Because its turbines continue functioning when others fail, they can generate electricity even during storms or grid stress, preventing blackouts and maintaining grid stability. The company states that its wind mills are unique because they are vertical and closer to the ground than conventional tall horizontal turbines. Because they rotate around a vertical pole, they can handle wind from any direction. They can also operate in gusty and choppy conditions, often near the ground, where other turbines struggle. 'No one has yet made a turbine that can handle the gusty, turbulent conditions near the ground,' says Kevin Wolf, CEO of Wind Harvest, during the press event. 'They didn't have the aeroelastic modeling. Our turbines can then be integrated into these wind farms, allowing for the establishment of an AI data center in California or other windy locations near the ground. We can utilize the wind when it blows and also when it is calm. This opens up an entirely new resource.' As it stands now, renewable energy must work with other fuels to meet AI data centers' urgent and high demands. These centers have enormous power requirements and cannot afford to go offline, necessitating high-quality and affordable battery storage or backup solutions, such as natural gas units that fire up instantly. Meanwhile, AI is advancing, and various clean energy technologies—including long-duration storage, clean hydrogen, and small modular nuclear reactors—are not yet scalable. This leaves natural gas and large nuclear plants to run 24/7 to power AI data centers. The Trump Administration promotes coal for this purpose, although it cannot compete without substantial subsidies or regulatory favors. Coal is also inflexible and slow to ramp up, making it a mismatch. 'In a global marketplace increasingly challenged by seemingly infinite power demand driven by AI, we need an all-of-the-above approach to energy generation that expands the definition of renewable energy. This means renewable power that's always on, locally deployable, and designed to scale. Organic waste streams hold untapped energy,' says Cornelius Shields, founder of Kore Infrastructure, in an interview. The utility sector aims to provide reliable power at the lowest rates possible. This commitment contradicts coal's qualities, which is not just dirtier but also more expensive than renewables or natural gas. Most U.S. coal plants are decades old, and retrofitting them is too costly. Utilities make long-term decisions based on 20–40-year cost projections, while coal's market prospects continue to decline. Energy consumption is set to soar over the next 5 to 10 years due to the push for decarbonization and electrification and the growth of AI and data centers. To meet this challenge, we need modern grid technologies that can expand the network's ability to handle the increased demand for electricity. At the same time, we must retire aging coal, nuclear, and natural gas plants that have been in service for four decades. Welcome, renewables, which are stepping up; solar and battery storage accounted for 81% of the electric generation capacity additions last year. Major AI companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have committed to operating entirely on renewable energy. This initiative responds to investor and regulatory pressure to reduce emissions and improve environmental footprints. AI data centers can be co-located in renewable-rich regions, alleviating stress on the central network. Guess what? Roughly 260,000 megawatts of power are poised to join the U.S. grid—more than double the current output from power plants. And here's the reality: according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 95% of this power is generated from solar, wind, and battery storage. 'It boils down to the power grid,' says Jason Huang, CEO of TS Conductor, during the virtual press event. 'We do not have enough capacity in the power grid. There are plenty of bottlenecks. We have the next-generation advanced conductor available—ready to be deployed on a large scale to address that issue, in a way that brings you affordability.' Unfortunately, the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula is not an anomaly but rather a consequence of regulatory inadequacies, grid technologies, and extreme weather events. Adding electricity demand to these existing dynamics only heightens the challenges and opportunities, necessitating greater research and development in cutting-edge grid and energy technologies. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the clean energy supply can meet the real-time demands of data centers.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Alan Turing papers saved from shredder could fetch £150,000
Nicknamed the father of theoretical computer science, Alan Turing's influence on modern life continues to be felt in the age of artificial intelligence. But despite this legacy, a cache of his most important papers was nearly shredded – only to be saved at the last minute when their significance was recognised at a family event. At auction next month, the papers are expected to sell for as much as £150,000 in 13 separate lots. Among the collection is the wartime codebreaker's personal signed copy of his 1938 PhD dissertation, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, valued at between £40,000 to £60,000. Also featured is his paper On Computable Numbers, also known as Turing's Proof, which introduced the world to the idea of a universal computing machine in 1936. It has been described as the first programming manual of the computer age and also has a guide price of £40,000 to £60,000. The papers, known as offprints, were produced in very small numbers and distributed among fellow scholars, making these incredibly scarce survivors of a kind that rarely ever appear on the market. Jim Spencer, the director of Rare Book Auctions of Lichfield, Staffordshire, was asked to assess the papers, which were handed to him in a carrier bag, and he is now overseeing their sale. 'Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to find in that carrier bag. I opened it and thought 'good lord',' he said. 'Intensively researching and cataloguing these papers has left me feeling that Alan Turing was superhuman. For me, it's like studying the language of another planet, something composed by an ultra-intelligent civilisation.' Turing played a vital role in cracking the German Enigma code when he worked at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, which was crucial to the allied victory in the second world war. His theories have been credited with informing and shaping modern artificial intelligence. Spencer said he expected interest would be strong in Silicon Valley, where Turing's influence continues. Turing was later persecuted for being gay and took his own life in 1954 aged 41. The discovery of the papers was the result of a series of serendipitous events. After Turing's death, his mother, Ethel, gave his papers to his loyal friend and fellow mathematician Norman Routledge. Routledge kept the papers for the rest of his life, storing them in the loft of his home in Bermondsey, south London. Routledge died in 2013 and his sister recovered the documents during a clearout. She stored them in her attic where they remained until she moved into a care home. Her daughters then came across the papers but did not realise their significance and planned to put them through a shredder along with other documents. But last November they took them to a family reunion event and one relative suggested they seek an expert opinion. This was where Spencer came in. 'These seemingly plain papers – perfectly preserved in the muted colours of their unadorned, academic wrappers – represent the foundations of computer science and modern digital computing,' he said. The papers include The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, from 1952. Thisis described as Turing's lesser-known masterpiece of mathematical biology, and his last major published work. It has since become a basic model in theoretical biology. Turing's life ended in tragedy. Charged as a criminal, barred from GCHQ, banned from the US and forced to undergo chemical castration, he took his own life two years after his conviction. 'This injustice, and the fact he didn't survive to see his enormous influence and impact, makes these papers feel so special,' Spencer said. The sale takes place on 17 June.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SBA recognizes outstanding West Virginia small businesses
FAIRMONT, (WBOY) — The West Virginia District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) celebrated its annual Small Business Awards celebration Wednesday at the Mollohan Research Center in Marion County, featuring 12 News Anchor Eric Minor as the emcee. SBA Regional Administrator Jim Spencer gave the keynote address. 'In West Virginia, there are over 115,000 small businesses,' said Spencer. 'One of the things we've talked about—if only ten percent of those small businesses created one new job this next year, that would be huge for the state of West Virginia. So, when you think about it, a lot of times in economic development, you want to go out and land the next 'big fish' and next big project, but we have the power in West Virginia to strengthen our economy just by one job at a time.' Advocates raise awareness for ovarian cancer in Fairmont The award winners included: SpaOasis in Fairmont, Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year Hatfield Family Distillery in Charleston, Veteran-Owned Small Business of the Year Paul Wissmach Glass Company in Paden City, Small Business Exporter of the Year and Mid-Atlantic Regional Winner Cathy Jo Higgins of The Developmental Advantage in Charleston, Small Business Person of the Year Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
