Welcome to EnergyNews.ai
Join me for a fresh, periodic exploration of the most interesting developments at the intersection of Energy, Climate, and AI.
Thank you so much for finding EnergyNews.ai!
I believe that the world is changing fast- for better and for worse. I think that one of the fundamental questions of our time is: Will the pace of technological innovation provide us with the tools we need to address the effects of climate change? Or will our new, energy-hungry AI tools only accelerate our dependence upon carbon-intensive energy sources and raw materials?
EnergyNews.ai is a curated periodic email newsletter that aims to shed some light on that very question.
Who is this for?
Are you passionate about ClimateTech? Are you curious about how AI might help to advance our clean energy goals? Are you worried about the intense energy consumption required by AI? Are you looking for opportunities to apply your AI skills to address climate change?
If your answer is yes to any of these, I hope you’ll subscribe! EnergyNews.ai is currently free to all, so please come along for the ride :)
About me
Connect with me here or email me here
I started my first company in 2007 to develop demand-side energy management for commercial and industrial buildings. We called it “CleanTech” back then- and a wave of new investments flooded the space. Most of us failed. Now we call it “ClimateTech”, which is both a) a brilliant (if cynical), collective marketing re-brand that allows us to sweep under the rug all of the failed CleanTech companies, and b) an indication of real progress; we can safely say “Climate” now, and though it’s certainly still a politicized term, it’s finally widely accepted amongst investors, corporate partners, and the general customer base.
I’ve been in the space ever since, serving as CxO and board member of several innovative technology startups. I’m a technologist at heart- I like to build things, I like to write code, and I generally (and often, naively) believe that technology solutions exist to address our most pressing issues, even if we haven’t discovered them yet.
I was initially very skeptical when “AI” started dominating my newsfeeds (led mostly by ChatGPT in late 2022). My general reaction was that this was just another fad, another cycle of techno-hype that would soon go the way of blockchain. I had personally worked on several machine learning projects, and my general response to the hype was something like, “What’s the big deal? We’ve been doing ML stuff for more than a decade; it’s cool and all, but why all the noise now?”
The answer, of course, is that I had missed all of the innovation happening within the world of LLMs.
Fast forward to today, and I’m very much an AI convert. I believe that we absolutely hit an inflection point sometime in 2023, and it’s for real. AI will touch all aspects of our personal and professional lives (whether we like it or not). I believe that AI has the potential to unlock incredible innovations in Climate and Energy, and it just might be the core technology that helps humanity survive the effects (if not address the causes) of climate change.
Why am I doing this?
AI has exploded onto the scene. The pace of innovation is staggering. It’s hard to keep up with all of the developments- even for a technologist like myself. EnergyNews.ai is my attempt to distill all of the news from the world of AI into a regular collection of the most relevant content, curated for an energy and climate-focused audience.
The content I select will relate to the following topics:
Exciting uses of AI for energy and climate
Innovative ClimateTech companies using AI
Energy consumption of AI
How to reduce the carbon footprint of AI
Ultimately, I have two lofty goals:
Help the energy and climate audience understand and keep up with all of the developments in the AI space, and, hopefully, inspire you to leverage AI to unlock groundbreaking innovations in your work.
Help the AI folks in my audience understand the climate implications of their work, and, hopefully, inspire you to direct your talents towards applications in the energy and climate space.
Can we achieve this with a simple weekly newsletter? I don’t know! But please join me as we give it a go…
Thanks again- and stay tuned for the next post!
J.M.