alt Hacker NewsThis article feels like the perfect distillation of a uniquely American problem.
Some weird tech startup proposing a novel solution based on a product that isn't even in it's production phase yet. Lots of pretty 3d renders and a wall of (what appears to be AI written) corpo-speak proposing some crazy technology that will revolutionize x.
It looks cool -- don't get me wrong -- but how is this going to get power online faster than just installing solar and batteries?
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> Some weird tech startup proposing a novel solution based on a product that isn't even in it's production phase yet
It's not even a novel solution, jet engines as stationary emergency 'power stations' goes back to at least the 1950s (e.g. search for TURBOLEKT here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEB_Entwicklungsbau_Pirna).
You get 42MW inside the footprint of what looks like 2 truck trailers, that you can park in the parking lot next to the electrical transformers. Virtually no permitting or installation required.
Pah! Solar and batteries?! Have you been living under a rock for the last 12 months? Any startup that dares to suggest solutions based on solar and batteries (not to mention windmills) is sure to attract the ire of the Trump administration, so they'd better keep quiet and hope he doesn't notice them!
Actually, renewables seem to be such a no-no that the Boom blog even avoids mentioning them in the sentence "Meanwhile China is adding power capacity at a wartime pace — coal, gas, nuclear, everything" - even though China added overwhelmingly more renewable capacity last year than anything else: according to https://climateenergyfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/..., solar increased by 43% from Feb. 2024 to Feb. 2025, wind increased by 17.6%, hydro by 3.5%, while thermal and nuclear increased by 3.9% and 6.9% respectively.
To be fair, you end up needing insane amounts of batteries if you want to run 24/7/365 just on solar, particularly if you insist on building your data centres in places with dark winters.
by the way, china achieved the trendline in that comparison graph by installing solar and batteries
> This article feels like the perfect distillation of a uniquely American problem.
I think at this point LinkedIn culture is fairly globalized. Though America may be to blame for getting it there, largely via Deloitte & co originally. It's originally the language of managerialism.
Did I miss something or does the article not even say how much gas they need as an input to generate the 42MW? I see they deride conventional turbines for needing cooling, but the reason they do is to increase the temp differential between hot and cold end of the turbine because some clever fellow named Carnot figured out that the amount of energy you can extract depends on this. Instead it seems that they just full-tilt run a supersonic turbine and blow the hot exhaust with all its energy into the air. So what’s the efficiency of this?