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Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

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Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#121

Post by nielsbot »

tencentshill wrote: post #59
mixdup wrote: post #22

I guess that whole carbon negative by 2030 goal got shuffled down the priority list

Another illustration that corporations do not have morals or ideologies. Do not anthropomorphize the lawnmower.

And yet they are operated by people and people pull the levers. Interesting and confounding psychology there.

This is where government regulation, ideally a smart representative of the people's interests, comes into play. Hence the effort for companies to do regulatory capture. (See point #1)

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#123

Post by nielsbot »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #104
happosai wrote: post #79

Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders - A Microsoft employee 2080

The planet go destroyed millions of times during its 4 billion history. I'm pretty sure it will survive this time as well.

I'm not really worried about the planet, but humanity. But I get your point.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#124

Post by buzer »

Retric wrote: post #115
buzer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Near the arctic circle Wind fill the same niche. What do you mean? Long periods of calm weather during cold temperatures is not unheard of in Finland and does cause issues at times due to amount of wind energy that has been built in recent times.

Long periods of low output isn’t 0 energy output over a ~3 month long winter. Beyond that wind for each location is somewhat seasonal so if you’re doing this for winter energy you pick areas with better wind in winter.

Not 3 month period, but looking at e.g. capacity factor over 5 day period can be under 3% and even 10 day period can be under 5%. Capacity factor for whole year is around 30% (22TWh produced with 9433MW in 2025, rounded it up since some capacity came online during 2025). That's a lot of extra power or storage.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#125

Post by Retric »

buzer wrote: post #124
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long periods of low output isn’t 0 energy output over a ~3 month long winter. Beyond that wind for each location is somewhat seasonal so if you’re doing this for winter energy you pick areas with better wind in winter.

Not 3 month period, but looking at e.g. capacity factor over 5 day period can be under 3% and even 10 day period can be under 5%. Capacity factor for whole year is around 30% (22TWh produced with 9433MW in 2025, rounded it up since some capacity came online during 2025). That's a lot of extra power or storage.

We’re optimizing for cost here, nothing else matters. You can always turn off a wind turbine.

If you’re proposing seasonal storage as a viable option then cutting total storage needs by 90% (to handle a 10 day lull vs 90 day gap) is inherently cheaper.

Hell traditional hydro is well suited for such situations as annual output and storage is limited but nontrivial. Doubling output for 10 days isn’t nearly as problematic as trying to cover a 90 day shortfall.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#126

Post by jtbaker »

stonogo wrote: post #39
epistasis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might make sense for oil producers to get rid of their natural gas, which is nearly a waste material, but I'm struggling to understand how it makes sense for Microsoft. Despite the cheap natural gas, and an abundance of investors and builders with natural gas expertise, in the competitive electricity generation market everybody is deploying solar and batteries in west Texas because it's still more profitable tha…

The cost of gas is completely irrelevant. In order to bring a new large load onto the grid, you have to coordinate with ERCOT, and they just made that process more tedious. Once you get your grid connection approved and built out, you have to source your own power anyway, and frankly there just isn't enough power on the market to realize the stated datacenter buildout goals in this country. In short, you're going to…

> Gas is the cheapest, fastest zero-to-production choice for onsite power generation, and has been for a long time.

Last I heard the wait time for turbines was ~5 years at the moment. I'm sure MSFT has some inside baseball with Chevron but it doesn't work as a general rule of thumb.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#127

Post by acheron »

jmward01 wrote: post #58
mlsu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, solar turbines has had the name since 1929 (they were then called solar aircraft company). It’s not like they’re being intentionally misleading.

Thanks for point that out. I missed that context.

Maybe you should have looked it up before posting?

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#128

Post by ETH_start »

I think one of the highest-leverage U.S. economic strategies right now is to maximize the upside from the AI data-center boom.

That means reducing any bottlenecks around not just data-center construction, but also adjacent industries like power generation and transmission.

If the U.S. can scale the infrastructure around AI faster than other countries, it can gain a decisive economies of scale advantage in numerous industries that could lead to export boom.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#129

Post by jmward01 »

acheron wrote: post #127
jmward01 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for point that out. I missed that context.

Maybe you should have looked it up before posting?

I'll take a minute to respond here. Would you rather live in a world where people admit they made a mistake and thanked people that pointed it out or one where they didn't? You just sent a reward signal to the 'don't ever admit your mistakes' world in case you didn't realize.

Re: Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center

#130

Post by otterley »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #80
bob1029 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West Texas is like Costco for natural gas. There are cases where the fields can produce more than the pipelines can carry away. If you put your gigantic gas turbines right next to the fields you can obtain access to some extremely cheap fuel. They might even pay you to burn it sometimes. Negative gas prices are a thing.

Replace "extremely cheap" with "zero cost" and you've got it correct. Texas at night is an endless sea of flare stacks. We burn off an unbelievable amount of natural gas just to get rid of it.

I've often wondered how this is lawful under the EPA. Obviously it must be, but it seems like a gross oversight to allow people to just burn natural gas and allow its byproducts to escape into the atmosphere yet not get any useful work out of it.
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