“I think there are lots of people who want to deploy capital to the infrastructure business … infrastructure itself is a great long term investment,” remarked Wil VanLoh, CEO and founder of Quantum Capital Group.
The basis for all energy comes from materials that must be mined and produced. Whether it’s gas for cars, batteries for mobile phones, or steel for wind turbines, critical minerals such as aluminum, lithium, copper, and other materials are vitally important to enable the transition.
Jesse E. Gary, president, CEO, and director of Century Aluminum, explained the desperate role of aluminum in the solar and EV industries across the globe. In China alone, they have experienced a 40% aluminum demand increase for EVs and another 20% increase year over year just for energy distribution.
“When you look at EVs and you look at distributed energy in general, you start to see and start to calculate just how much more material intensive these industries are than the traditional gas turbine or a coal power station,” Gary continued.
One of the cleanest forms of energy is wind. While offshore wind may take 5–10 years to develop from concept to production, onshore wind has the potential to ramp up more quickly by taking advantage of local grids and power systems. Clint Plummer, CEO of Rise Light & Power, says wind plays an important part of that solution, but it’s not the silver bullet. The cost of capital and supply chain issues hinder development. However, Plummer thinks smart government policies and an open competitive marketplace will affect the most responsible energy transition.
“We think that’s the right type of market where it’s an open competition, where the policymakers are identifying reliability needs, where they’re appropriately valuing the energy, the capacity, and the environmental attributes,” Plummer explained. “That’s a much more effective use of public policy than only throwing additional [federal tax] incentives or economics toward projects.”
VanLoh spoke to the incentive benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act on clean energy, but also noted in his keynote speech the need for planning on a wider scale.
“We really do need a Manhattan project in the U.S. to reestablish the United States as the preeminent leader, because we have the technology and the ability to bring manufacturing jobs back,” VanLoh said.
While artificial intelligence (AI) was a topic throughout many of the sessions, one panel focused entirely on the technology’s immense demand for energy consumption.
Examining AI’s role on data center dynamics, guest panelists discussed the shift toward GPU power, the challenges of escalating power consumption, and the necessity for advanced cooling technologies.
Anand Mohanrangan, a partner at McKinsey & Company, indicated that projected data center capacity will grow from 55 gigawatts to between 155 and 290 gigawatts before 2030; 70% of that capacity will be AI-driven workloads.
The search to fuel those data centers is already heating up as Microsoft plans to restart Three Mile Island while Google is partnering with Kairos Power. The demand to find power sources for AI will be an endless pursuit in the next one to two years, according to Asher Genoot ’14, the CEO of Hut 8 Corp.
When asked what type of power will companies seek next, Genoot answered, “Any source of power they can get their hands on.”
People power was also an indirect topic of the summit and the immense competition for talent.
Paul Flynn, managing director/CEO of Whitehaven Coal, spoke of the need for upcoming leaders in the energy industry from engineers to finance to governance and essentially assured students’ future from a career perspective.
“This area requires lots of intelligent, driven, smart minds to be devoted to the solutions that we require over time,” Flynn declared. “If we’re going to meet those [lower emissions] goals, then we’re going to need a lot more people than what the old folks here up on stage are doing.”
As the summit came to a close, Darpan Kapadia, the COO of LS Power, and a major funder behind the creation of BET, remarked how the world is at a unique crossroads as large parts of the planet are trying to “industrialize and decarbonize” at the same time.
“There’s two transitions happening simultaneously, and that’s going to put enormous strains on the availability of capital, the availability of labor, supply chains, and the like,” Kapadia said. “And because we’re trying to build new energy ecosystems on top of existing ones, it’s an enormous task.”
A task made less daunting, perhaps, when diverse voices, experiences, and perspectives discuss the challenges and opportunities in deliberative ways.
