The energy transition is waiting on transformers
Panels and turbines are cheap and available. The boring steel box that connects them has a four-year lead time.
Energy & Climate Tech
Karim Fadel
Karim measures the energy bill behind modern computing, from datacentre cooling to grid-scale storage.
5 stories
Stories by Karim Fadel
Small fusion projects learn to publish their failures
A cohort of privately funded reactors started releasing negative results, and the field got measurably healthier.
Liquid cooling stopped being exotic and started being required
Rack densities passed the point where moving air is physically enough. The retrofit bill is now the story.
The cheapest carbon saving in software is deleting work
Efficiency initiatives chase language choice and hardware. The biggest wins came from jobs nobody needed to run.
Grid batteries are being paid for the wrong service
Storage is billed as energy arbitrage. Most of its value is frequency response, and the market barely prices it.
