Virtual Data Centers Could Replace Big Box Model

CNBC:

Even as more communities rise up against the proliferation of massive, energy- and water-sucking data centers, some big players in housing are betting consumers would be willing to put mini data centers right on the walls of their homes.

Span is a California-based startup that originally launched with “smart” electrical panels designed to help homeowners save money on their electricity bills. Now, with the help of Nvidia, it has come up with something new — small, fractional data centers, or “nodes,” called XFRA units, that can be put on the side of residential homes and small commercial businesses. 

The idea is to take advantage of unused electrical capacity on local grids, which the Span smart panels can pinpoint. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has strained power grids nationwide and, in some cases, resulted in higher electricity bills for homeowners. 

A network of these nodes, communicating with each other across the country, is the equivalent of a small to mid-sized traditional data center, which could either augment an existing center or negate the need to build a new one, Span says. Hyperscalers and AI cloud providers just tap into the network as they would a traditional data center. 

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As War for Oil Destroys American’s Lives – the Real Threat is Wind Turbines

Expected US peak power demand shows a shortfall beginning in 2028 – after which, prices will skyrocket

Financial Times:

The Trump administration has brought US onshore wind development to a halt citing national security concerns, representing a major escalation in the president’s crusade against renewable energy. 

Approvals for about 165 onshore wind projects on private lands are being stalled by the Department of Defense, including wind farms which were awaiting final sign-off, others in the middle of negotiations and some that typically would not require oversight by the department, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACP) and people close to the matter.

Wind farms require routine approval from the defence department to ensure they do not interfere with radar systems. This typically involves the level of risk being assessed and the developer paying an agreed sum for the army to update its radar filter system so it can locate the windmill.

Some projects can be deemed not to pose a risk due to their distance from army facilities and flight paths. Normally these assessments can take as little as a few days to complete.
Since August 2025, developers have faced a mix of setbacks, including not receiving expected communications from DoD, having meetings to discuss the status of their projects cancelled without the opportunity to reschedule, and being informed that the department has stopped processing their applications, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

John Ketchum is CEO of NextEra, the largest US operator of Nuclear, gas and renewable generation. Without aggressive renewable adoption, he says, electric prices will skyrocket
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Ford Opens a Crack into EV “Skunkworks”

Wall Street Journal:

The secret is now out as Ford races toward building its first model, a new truck it says will be nearly as fast as a Mustang, travel around 300 miles on a single charge and feature in-car technology to compete with Tesla and China. It’s aiming for a 2027 launch and a price tag of around $30,000, the cost of a Toyota Camry.

Getting there means tearing up a century of manufacturing practices in a notoriously hidebound industry. At stake for Ford is securing a future beyond the gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs that have long defined its bottom line. 

The project had been kept quiet from its 2022 start, led by veterans from Tesla and Apple who worked on designs out of a California office. Ford eventually brought in some of its own employees to help execute the vision. The process was filled with misunderstandings and distrust as the techie outsiders worked to win over the risk-averse industry veterans. 

To build these new EVs, the company must use fewer people and simpler parts, and dismantle decades of engineering inertia. Chief Executive Jim Farley is calling it Ford’s new “Model T moment.” Rival automakers say overcoming China on EVs can’t be done, given their advantages: extensive government backing, low-cost labor and a massive head start.

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DOGE Cuts Bite As Tornado Warnings Delayed

Everybody loves a surprise, but not so much when it’s a tornado.
Trump’s DOGE cuts bite as weather warnings delayed.

NBC News April 16:

..in its Monday afternoon outlook, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, which forecasts severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, did not anticipate a tornado threat for the Kansas City area. The disconnect has prompted concerns among some outside meteorologists that ongoing changes to staffing and weather balloon releases at the agency might be leaving forecasters in the dark about threats. 

Many forecasting offices in the Great Plains did not launch weather balloons at 7 a.m. Monday, as they have for decades, and instead they released the balloons at noon — a change that several meteorologists think was made because of staffing issues. 

“We are missing data at the normal times,” said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and research manager at the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet, a statewide network of weather monitoring stations. He added that the staggered balloon launches Monday left a “big area over the southern Plains in the central United States without that weather balloon data, which might have caused the models to not forecast the day’s activity as well as it could have.” 

The strongest tornado in the Kansas City area Monday was rated EF2, according to the enhanced Fujita scale, which rates tornadoes by wind speed and destruction. That tornado’s wind speeds reached about 125 mph, according to preliminary damage reports.

War Opens Pakistan’s Solar Divide

Pakistan is the world’s leading importer of solar panels, and that has changed the way the grid works, and how people are paying for it.
The Closure of the Strait of Hormuz has accentuated some of the class divisions in the energy transition.
Pakistan will be a forerunner of the developing world’s accelerating move to clean energy, so this DW report is worth a look.

In Korea: Hormuz Impact Preserves Coal, Accelerates Solar

AlJazeera reporting on the status of a small village’s solar project, and how it has changed lives in the area.

Korean Leadership has vowed to ramp up renewable energy in response to shortages following the Hormuz closure, and the report backs that up.
One unfortunate side effect is extending the life of existing coal fired power plants. While undesirable, I don’t think coal is that much worse that the Liquified Natural Gas that has been cut off. Recent history suggests that, economically, it will not be competitive with a strong solar commitment.

Politico:

Import-dependent countries such as Pakistan and Thailand have used the moment to emphasize their desire to transition faster to renewables. Pakistan’s rooftop solar boom — sparked in part by natural gas price spikes in 2022 — have helped cushion it from the current supply shock.

“We were on the right track,” the country’s finance minister, Muhammad Aurangzeb, said at an IMF panel this week. “But clearly we feel the journey needs to be accelerated.”

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The Onion has Taken over Info Wars, and It’s Comedy Gold

Rolling Stone:

An emergency motion by Alex Jones didn’t stop The Onion from turning over control of the new InfoWars to Tim Heidecker, who made his debut as host and creative director on Friday via a surprise livestream.

“Lot of turmoil the past couple days on our road to total victory. We have just won a major battle, folks. Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street, they have lost InfoWars, InfoWars.com, and their various platforms,” Heidecker said in his pitch perfect Alex Jones impression.

“They have been cast out, ladies and gentlemen, and make no mistake, we will be the new InfoWars. Now we got to go through the machinations of the court, we’ve had some setbacks over past couple days, but that is not stopping us, that is not tempering our resolve. Over the next couple days or weeks, you will see much more coming out of this.”

Mocking Jones’ own celebration of the Texas court decision, Heidecker added, “This is merely a distraction by the courts. We knew this was gonna be coming, we prepared for it, we are continuing the fight. We have never been more resolved to seek restitution and justice for the Sandy Hook families.”

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Oil’s End Game and OPEC

@global.intel.ltr

The UAE’s move to dump OPEC is ultimately going to kick Americans in their wallet. #oil #oilprices #opec #explain #moneytok

♬ original sound – Global Intelligence Letter

FWIW:

Jeff D. Opdyke is an American financial writer and investment expert.

He spent 17 years covering personal finance and investing for The Wall Street Journal, worked as a trader and a hedge fund analyst, and has written 10 books on such topics as investing globally and personal finance.

UPDATE:
This piece above has gone viral, and was picked up for some further comment by Matt Randolph, aka “Mr Global”. Worthy extension to the discussion.

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Talarico Threading an Energy Needle in Oil Soaked Texas

Can relate.
I am constantly working, talking and interacting with Farmers and landowners from Deep Red rural Michigan.
They know exactly who I am, and they know we probably don’t agree on a number issues, but they have come to know that I keep showing up, I do what I say I’m going to do, and I’m there to help them get that wind turbine, or solar field on their land.
Talarico has a tall order, but he’s a talented guy, and has Texas Republicans running scared.

Houston Public Media:

Democratic state Rep. James Talarico is leading both of his prospective Republican opponents in two new polls of Texas’ U.S. Senate race — though he falls short of the 50% mark in both surveys, suggesting the contest remains tight.

A poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research from April 17-20 and published Tuesday found Talarico leading Sen. John Cornyn by three percentage points, 44% to 41%. The Austin Democrat leads Attorney General Ken Paxton by a margin of five percentage points, 46% to 41%. Both results fell within the margin of error of +/-2.5 percentage points. The survey included 1,865 likely general election voters. TPOR labels itself as a nonpartisan public opinion research group; it is directed by Democratic strategist Luke Warford. 

In a separate poll, the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found Talarico ahead of Cornyn by seven points, 40% to 33%, and of Paxton by 8 points, 42% to 34%. The Texas Politics Project surveyed 1,200 registered voters from April 10 to 20 and produced a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and in recent cycles, polls have routinely offered rosy projections for the minority party that are not borne out in November.