Large loads are the biggest shift in utility planning in a generation. Data center hyperscalers get the headlines—U.S. planners are forecasting roughly 90 gigawatts of data center peak growth by 2030—but the same risks apply to any outsized single customer. These loads demand custom infrastructure, ramp on compressed timelines, and carry a financial profile that standard large-power tariffs were never built to handle. Get the cost recovery right and the load strengthens your system. Get it wrong and your existing members absorb the cost.

Here are the five safeguards every utility and cooperative should have in place before connecting a large load.

The Top 5 Safeguards

SAFEGUARD 1

Make the New Load Pay for Its Own Infrastructure

When you build a substation, transmission tie, or distribution upgrade specifically to serve one customer, those costs should follow that customer—not get socialized across the rate base where every other member quietly picks up the tab.

The cleanest tools are contributions in aid of construction (CIAC), direct facilities charges, and dedicated infrastructure riders that isolate the cost recovery. The starting point is a defensible cost-of-service study that shows exactly what serving the new load costs, so the assignment is grounded in numbers, not negotiation.

SAFEGUARD 2

Set a Minimum Bill or Take-or-Pay Floor

The carrying cost of dedicated infrastructure does not pause when a customer runs below capacity or idles a facility. A minimum bill establishes the floor the large-load customer pays regardless of consumption; a take-or-pay clause goes further, requiring payment for a set quantity of power whether or not it is taken.

These are not penalties—they are cost-recovery tools. Model the floor against your actual infrastructure carrying costs so it provides real protection rather than a symbolic number. Regulators in several states now require minimum bill provisions as a condition of approval.

SAFEGUARD 3

Require Credit Assurance Up Front

A utility extending hundreds of millions in infrastructure investment is, in effect, extending credit to a developer. Secure it. Letters of credit, performance bonds, cash deposits in escrow, and parent guarantees all work—sized to your at-risk investment and the term of the agreement.

Impressive capital commitments on paper are not the same as a creditworthy counterparty. Spell out drawdown conditions, replenishment obligations, and the requirement to refresh instruments that expire during the contract term.

SAFEGUARD 4

Plan for the Exit and the Stranded Asset

Large loads move. Facilities get sold, technologies shift, and a twenty-year infrastructure commitment can outlive the customer that justified it. An early termination provision should make the utility whole—covering unamortized infrastructure, lost margin, and any specialized assets that cannot be repurposed for other customers.

Stranded-cost exposure is also a credit story. Rating agencies watch concentration risk closely, and a single large load gone bad can pressure your numbers. Strong exit terms are part of protecting your utility or co-op bond rating.

SAFEGUARD 5

Take It to the Board and the Members

A large-load agreement is a governance decision, not just a finance one. The board needs to understand the commitment, the protections, and the consequences of getting it wrong before it signs—and members deserve to know that a new customer will not quietly raise their rates.

Public board meetings, workshops, and clear communication build the record that regulators and members will look for later. This is the same discipline behind sound rate setting—see our article on board responsibility for the bond rating.

The Regulatory Dimension

In a growing number of states, these safeguards are no longer optional. Commissions have begun requiring specific ratepayer protections as a condition of approving large-load and data center agreements, and a utility that signs without them faces real regulatory risk if the deal later produces stranded costs. Even where regulators have not acted, the agreement is your first and best line of defense.

Start With the Numbers

Large-load developers are sophisticated counterparties, and they will push back on minimum bill levels, security sizing, and termination math. That pushback is fair—the goal is a financially sound agreement, not a punitive one. Come to the table with detailed infrastructure cost modeling, a credit analysis of the developer and any guarantors, and a clear read on what your regulators will expect.

The opportunity in large loads is real. So is the risk. The utilities that come out ahead will be the ones that did the cost-recovery work before the contract closed—not the ones explaining to members afterward why their rates went up. Review your rate structure, model the new load honestly, and put these five safeguards in place before you say yes.

WRITTEN BY

Russ Hissom, CPA

Principal, UtilityEducation.com  ·  35+ Years of Utility Accounting Experience

Russ Hissom, CPA is a principal of UtilityEducation.com, an online training platform offering certified continuing education courses in accounting, rates, construction accounting, financial analysis, management, and artificial intelligence applications for utilities.

Learn more at UtilityEducation.com or contact Russ at russ.hissom@utilityeducation.com.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA’s) Oil Market Report for August 2026 confirms what traders have suspected for weeks. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. The global oil deficit is widening. And the numbers keep getting worse with each monthly revision.

The IEA now expects global oil supply to fall by 4.3 mb/d this year, up from a 3.7 mb/d cut projected just a month earlier. Demand is also being marked down, but by less. That combination pushes the third-quarter deficit to 1.8 mb/d, more than double last month's estimate. It would be the deepest quarterly shortfall since late 2021.

For India, the reasons behind the deficit matter as much as its size. 👉 Read the full story: https://indoen.com/news/ieas-august-outlook-deepens-the-deficit-what-it-means-for-india

This post describes the admission made by the SDT member at that meeting: Despite the SDT’s repeated assurances that a NERC entity that doesn’t want to use cloud-based systems in its high or medium impact BES environment will not need to comply with the 100 series standards, they haven’t mentioned the fine print (perhaps because they didn’t realize it themselves until recently).

If you read that (and the only place I’ve seen the fine print is in my post just linked), you’ll learn that entities that want to use cloud-based software that meets the definition of EACMS (Electronic Access Control or Monitoring System) or PACS (Physical Access Control System) will have no choice other than to comply with the 100 series standards – which, if you take a look at the draft standards and definitions that were posted last month, won’t be a piece of cake, to say the least.

As background, there are three problems that constitute the “Cloud CIP” problem; they were laid out (not in exactly these words) in the original Standards Authorization Request (SAR) that led to the SDT being constituted in 2024. These are:

1.      NERC entities with a high or medium impact BES environment can’t utilize BES Cyber Systems (BCS) that are installed in the cloud while maintaining compliance with all (or even most) NERC CIP requirements.

2.      NERC entities with a high or medium impact BES environment can’t utilize EACMS that are installed or made available in the cloud while maintaining compliance with all (or even most) NERC CIP requirements.

3.      NERC entities with a high or medium impact BES environment can’t utilize PACS that are installed or made available in the cloud while maintaining compliance with all (or even most) NERC CIP requirements.

The original SAR made it clear that by far the two most important of these problems are the second and third ones; the SAR requested – nay, begged – that the SDT focus on those two problems first. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Thus, a NEC entity that wants to utilize a cloud-based SIEM or MFA service, or PACS service, to protect their on premises medium or high impact systems will be exactly where they are today: SOL (which doesn’t stand for “system operating limit”, BTW).

During the Q&A at the end of the meeting, a person who introduced himself as new to the NERC CIP world asked a simple question (which I am paraphrasing, since I’ve forgotten the original wording): “It seems like you’re not sure about a lot of this.” Unfortunately, this person hit the nail on the head. This was confirmed in another meeting I attended this week, in which a drafting team member was discussing some of the fundamental questions they’re running into now, as they are starting to draft more of the 100 series standards, beyond the five they’ve drafted so far. Why didn’t they nail these issues down two years ago when they started meeting, or at least when they decided to rewrite the existing CIP standards – which activity was never mentioned in either of their SARs?

Comments on the initial posting are due next week. The comment form asks some very specific questions about the standards, most of which require a yes or no answer (with the option of adding freeform comments at the end). These questions all assume the framework of what the SDT is proposing is basically sound and it just needs some fine tuning. That’s far from being the truth. Here are some questions I intend to ask the SDT in my comments:

1.      After starting work in the summer of 2024, why did it take you until only two or three months ago to finalize definitions for fundamental terms like “BES Cyber System or Service”? That should have been the first thing you did. How can you even discuss requirements when the terms addressed in those requirements haven’t been at least preliminarily decided on – as evidenced by the fact that the white paper you published last December doesn’t have any definition at all? The team that drafted CIP version 5 starting in 2011 (CIP v5 was the only complete rewrite of the CIP standards before now, but the 100 series is far more ambitious than v5 was) had already defined the fundamental term in v5 – BES Cyber System – in a “concept paper” in 2009.

2.      You have – ahem! – pushed the boundaries of CIP (or even NERC) compliance with concepts like System Security Plan and the idea that a NERC entity can choose, for each on-premises system that meets the BCS definition, whether to have it comply with the existing CIP standards or the 100 series. Have you ever formally run these ideas by the auditors, as well as the NERC lawyers, to determine whether changes to the Rules of Procedure will be needed to make them feasible? After all, the CIP v5 SDT spent at least a full day with NERC auditors within about 2-3 months of commencing work in January 2011. As you’ll see below, even that didn’t protect them against later pushback from FERC.

3.      I know the answer to the above question: No, we haven’t formally run our ideas by the auditors (despite promising me to do that at least a few times). Then, why did you ask NERC entities to comment on five draft standards and a number of draft definitions as they’re doing now, when you weren’t even sure they will pass auditor muster? Surely you know, since you collectively have decades of SDT experience, that the draft standards will never even make it to the first ballot if the auditors haven’t signed off on them. You are probably literally wasting NERC entities’ time, since once you’re revised the standards to address the concerns the auditors raise, you will have to re-post them for comment. The last thing you should want to do is submit standards for balloting when there are still problems that can be fixed, since it’s inevitable that the Ballot Body (i.e., the NERC entities who want to vote on this) will find all sorts of problems in what you submit, even if the auditors, lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson have all signed off on them beforehand.

4.      Perhaps you’ve heard that the CIP v5 SDT included, in all its drafts of the CIP v5 standards, the words “identify, assess, and correct” in just about every requirement. These were there to address what was considered the number one problem with CIP versions 1-3 (v4 was approved but never implemented): “zero-tolerance” auditors who insisted that even small deviations from a requirement were violations. The idea of IAC was that an entity wouldn’t be assessed only on whether they had complied with the strict wording of the requirement; instead, they would need to a) identify any potential violations, b) assess what problem caused the PV, and c) correct each problem found. If they did all that, there was no harm, no foul. I and lots of others thought this was a great idea, but FERC didn’t. When they approved v5 in 2013, they ordered that wording be taken out. They did that on the grounds that “No standard can dictate how it will be audited.”

5.      I think what you’re advocating now, especially the System Security Plan, is quite similar to “identify, assess and correct”. While you certainly have no channel by which you can get feedback on this issue – or anything else, other than perhaps the time of day – from the FERC Commissioners, this is certainly something you need to discuss with the NERC lawyers. The last thing you want to happen is to have FERC, 2-4 years from now, completely remand the 100 series (since they never ordered it in the first place, unlike almost every other change in the NERC CIP standards) due to this problem. This will mean you will have completely wasted 4-5 years of your time, as well as the industry’s time. Won’t that be a bummer?

6.      Did you ever figure out what the fundamental “cloud CIP problem” is – specifically, the issue at the root of the three problems I listed earlier? Why do you think that the wording of the current CIP requirements is at fault, since none of them even mentions the cloud, let alone forbids its use? The problem is with the definitions of the terms BCS, EACMS and PACS, since they don’t take into account any system based in the cloud. These three definitions can easily be changed in a day (even allowing for a long lunch break). In this post last December, I outlined eight simple changes (almost all to definitions, plus one new definition: “system”). All eight of the changes could easily be drafted within 1-2 weeks, not two years and counting. They would most likely sail through approval, since NERC entities wouldn’t have to change any CIP practices or documentation. If you started to draft those changes today, they could probably be in effect early next year.[i]

7.      After having needlessly decided to develop new versions of all the existing CIP standards, you compounded that error by deciding that the new versions you were developing need to apply both to on premises and cloud-based systems; moreover, they need to replace the current CIP standards in the future. Who asked you to rewrite the CIP standards? I and others have been advocating that since before the CIP version 5 standards (the basis for today’s standards) were implemented in 2016. We did this because we could see that cybersecurity is fundamentally risk management, so the standards need to be made risk-based (as the SDT is saying now).

8.      However, the reason I haven’t been pushing hard to make all of CIP risk-based is that the current NERC enforcement regime, which is encoded in the Rules of Procedure but probably other documents as well, does not handle risk well at all. For example, the new vulnerability management requirement in the 100 series, CIP-105 Requirement R6 Part 6.3, mandates “A plan to mitigate prioritized cyber security vulnerabilities.” What if an entity’s plan reads, “We recite a certain mantra as a group every morning; we find this protects us against attackers exploiting cyber vulnerabilities. Since no system in our ESP has ever been hacked, we think this is a very effective mitigation”? Of course, this is a ridiculous assertion, but what can the auditor point to in the requirement that will allow him or her to prove the entity has violated it?

9.      Conversely, what if an entity follows a reasonable patching program, but the auditor insists that the only acceptable mitigation plan is one that strictly implements zero trust throughout the entity’s OT environment, even for ten-year-old systems that have no ability to implement zero trust? How is the entity going to counter this, especially since the SDT decided that they don’t have time to develop implementation guidance – and since no other documents will provide guidance that must be considered in any audit dispute? As was often the case when CIP version 5 was being implemented (and will almost certainly be much more the case after the 100 series is implemented, if what we’ve seen so far isn’t changed), there will probably be lots of heated compliance discussions that will never be resolved, except through a fragile truce (i.e., a cease-fire).

10.   Why are so many 100-series requirements written to apply to cloud-based systems (most of which will be under the complete control of the cloud service provider) as well as on-premises systems, even though the CSPs have made it clear from the beginning that they will never provide any compliance evidence other than audit reports - which they’ll give to any customer that asks for them? And even though they’ve also made it clear that they won’t negotiate contract terms with any customer not named Uncle Sam (or maybe Aunt Samantha)?

11.   Continuing this thought, since the only possible evidence for most 100 series requirements will be audit reports, why not just require the entity to look at those? If they were about to sign a contract with Clem’s Cloud Services and Screen Door Repair, which probably isn’t FedRAMP authorized or SOC 2 Type 2 certified, this step will hopefully dissuade them from doing that. But if the entity long ago signed a contract with one of the Big Two CSPs (and my guess is 80-90% of NERC entities did this long ago for systems on the IT side of the house), reviewing the latest audit reports will just confirm to them that there’s no reason even to question the original decision. This won’t be compliance, it will be compliance theater. There will almost never be any doubt that the entity won’t be found in violation of any requirement. It’s like the Lake Woebegone effect: All the children are above average.

12.   Drafting team, I’ve heard you’re now starting to rewrite the BCSI (BES Cyber System Information) requirements: CIP-004-7 R6 and CIP-011-3 R1 and R2. Please stop. A drafting team started working on those requirements in 2019, to achieve their objective of making use or storage of BCSI in the cloud “legal” under CIP. Their changes were approved by FERC in 2022 and implemented on January 1, 2024. Those changes have been almost completely ignored since then, mostly because neither NERC nor any of the Regional Entities has taken it upon themselves to explain them to the CIP community. Fortunately, that SDT left a brief but workable guidance in their Technical Rationale, included in their filing to FERC in 2021 (see page 11, the second full paragraph). I hate to see you throw that away, when what’s needed is just real guidance from NERC.

Finally, here is the entire “Deliverables” section of the revised SAR that you drafted in 2024, which was approved by the NERC Standards Committee at the end of that year. This is, of course, the SAR you’re supposed to be following:

The following describes the proposed deliverables for this project:

1) The DT will strive to minimize impacts to existing requirements for on-premises systems and assets under the existing CIP-002 through CIP-015 suite of standards.

2) The Drafting Team will consider risks related to cloud services for CIP applicable systems, including but not limited to:

·        Procurement / supply chain controls

·        Reliability / operational risk / resilience

·        Compliance / enforcement risk

·        Data sovereignty

·        Life cycle

·        Key management

·        Cloud ramping / communications  

·        Concentrated Span of control

·        Reliance on indirect services

·        Multi-tenancy

·        Regional considerations

·        Blackstart scenarios

Note: I numbered the two deliverables.

Has the drafting team delivered the first deliverable? Only if you ignore the “fine print” that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. That is, they didn’t change any current CIP requirement except CIP-002; on the other hand, they also didn’t take the simple steps needed to allow current on-premises-only users to utilize the cloud without having to make the big leap to the 100 series (which will of course apply to their on-premises systems if they’re protected by a cloud based EACMS or PACS). My guess is most entities with only on-premises systems, who would otherwise utilize a cloud-based EACMS (e.g. SIEM or MFA system) or PACS will simply not do that, rather than make the huge investment of time required to understand and document compliance under the 100 series standards, for all of their on-premises systems.

And how about the second deliverable? Those 12 items are almost all purely “cloud risks” – i.e., risks that arise when BES systems are deployed freely in the cloud. I was expecting risks like these would be the focus of the SDT’s work, but I was very disappointed when I realized that the SDT wasn’t going to address them, perhaps for years. In fact, when they posted the initial standards and definitions for comment, they also officially stopped consideration of CIP-116, the standard that was going to address cloud risks. It’s not clear when or if they will resume consideration of that standard, but it will very likely not be in the first version of the 100 series, absent some drastic change.

Instead, as you can see, the SDT is focusing entirely on rewriting the existing CIP standards, which don’t address any purely cloud risks. Therefore, to facilitate use of the cloud by NERC entities, the SDT is no longer considering the risks that are most important. Instead, they are spending their time developing requirements that are already addressed by the CSP’s FedRAMP authorization and ISO 27001/SOC 2 Type 2 certification.[ii] This isn’t compliance; it’s compliance theater.

There’s one more problem that I just realized when I read the SDT’s comment form. Since this post is already very long, I’ll save that for a new post, hopefully tomorrow. I’ll also include my ideas for what the SDT should do, not that I have any great illusions that they’ll do it.

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[i] Also, implementation of what I’m proposing will come into effect at least two years before what the SDT is proposing, even if the implementation period is the same. This is because the SDT’s complicated compliance model requires a change in CIP-002. There are already two new approved versions of CIP-002, versions 7 and 8, scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2028. Since nobody wants three new versions to take effect the same day, this means the earliest that the 100 series standards can take effect is January 1, 2029. But even that isn’t likely, since it will require a NERC entity to make two major revisions to its CIP-002 compliance program in one year. To say the least, that’s not going to be a popular suggestion. Meanwhile, the eight simple definitional changes I’m proposing don’t require any change to CIP-002.

[ii] This is unfortunately like the old joke regarding a man who comes home at night and sees his neighbor on his hand and knees, looking for something under the streetlight. He goes over and asks what he’s looking for. The neighbor answers, “My house keys”. The man asks where the neighbor last saw his keys; the neighbor gestures toward the dark lawn. The man asks why he’s looking under the streetlamp if the keys are probably on the lawn. The neighbor explains, “Because the light’s better here.”

The global pipeline of proposed coal mine capacity grew nearly 11% in 2025, reaching 2,521 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), per the latest Global Coal Mine Tracker from Global Energy Monitor — and almost all of that increase came from one country. India's proposed capacity climbed from 329 Mtpa in 2024 to 638 Mtpa in 2025, enough on its own to explain why the global figure moved at all.

The timing is what makes this worth pausing over. Global coal demand grew by less than half a per cent last year and is expected to flatten through the decade, per the IEA. Wind and solar overtook coal in the global electricity mix for the first time in 2025, and coal-fired generation fell 0.6% worldwide, according to Ember data cited in a recent report.

👉 Read the full story: https://www.indoen.com/news/indias-coal-mine-pipeline-nearly-doubles-to-638-mtpa-defying-a-global-retreat

Once Washington greenlights nuclear fuel-making for Saudi Arabia, the spread won’t stop there. Iran will want to follow suit, which could lead to the UAE and Abu Dhabi wanting in on it, too.

In an odd twist, Washington is now offering Saudi Arabia a pathway to the very nuclear activity – uranium enrichment – that has been the prime target of American bombing in Iran.

If Iran gets the bomb and the kingdom exploits its “peaceful” nuclear program and follows suit, Israel may be pressed but will hold its own. But that’s only if Riyadh gets the bomb. The US deal, however, as currently drafted, is a prescription for much wider proliferation which no one, including Israel, is likely to survive.

Why? Deterrence will fail as the number of parties deterred rises. And, make no mistake, once Washington greenlights nuclear fuel-making for Saudi Arabia, the spread won’t stop there.

First up is Iran, which insists it has an “inalienable” right to enrich uranium. The United States denies this, but conceded in its first understanding with Iran this June that if Tehran meets certain terms, it may exercise a “conditional” right.

The problem is, even if Iran’s enrichment activities are “safeguarded,” they still can be hijacked to make a bomb. That’s why critics demand that any final agreement prevents Iran from enriching, full stop. They’ve got a point. If the Saudi deal proceeds as drafted, Iran can rightly insist that it should have no less a right.

Second up is the United Arab Emirates. Under the nuclear cooperative agreement that the United States negotiated and finalized in 2009, the Emirates agreed to forswear enriching uranium and recycling plutonium – processes that can bring states within weeks of acquiring a nuclear bomb.

That agreement, however, had a proviso: if Washington offered any of the UAE’s neighbors more generous nuclear cooperation, Abu Dhabi could renegotiate the terms of its agreement. It threatened to do that in 2015 when the US allowed Tehran to continue to enrich uranium under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran Nuclear Deal).

Washington pushed back, noting that the Iran Deal wasn’t a formal nuclear cooperative agreement. Unfortunately, the US-Saudi deal is.

Then there are Egypt and Turkey. Both have large nuclear power plant construction projects underway. Both previously refused American requests to follow the UAE’s example and forswear making nuclear fuel.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his heir-apparent, Hakan Fidan, both have said that if other nations get nuclear weapons, Turkey should. It’s currently developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Washington and Riyadh downplay these worries. The Saudis demand America trust them. Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright insisted there is no nuclear proliferation danger, and that the current Saudi deal will “reinforce global nonproliferation standards.” It’s hard to see how.

The secretary’s pitch is a hard sell. For starters, Riyadh has refused to adopt International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections that would allow them to investigate undeclared nuclear sites. A total of 144 nations have accepted such inspections; Saudi Arabia has refused. Apparently, Riyadh is wary of outsiders checking on what it might be up to.

But Wright argued that there is a way to “blackbox” whatever uranium enrichment plant the US might build for the Saudis. Possession, though, is 90% of the law: whatever is built on Saudi soil can be seized by Saudis. The Saudis also could bait-and-switch, using the declared enrichment activity to obscure covert efforts. Pakistan might help the Saudis carry this out.

Opening the gates

All of this recommends holding the line against even a “little bit” of nuclear fuel-making in states that lack nuclear weapons. The White House counters that we must be realistic that it is better to be in the nuclear slave trade and control it than not. Riyadh, after all, has threatened to take their business to China or Russia – and they have absolutely no scruples.

Really?

The last country to offer nuclear fuel-making assistance to a non-nuclear weapons state wasn’t Russia or China. It was the US. It did this 60 years ago, when it helped India reprocess nuclear weapons-usable plutonium that in 1974 fueled a “peaceful nuclear explosive.”

Since then, no state – including the United States – has offered nuclear fuel-making assistance to any non-nuclear weapons state.

Pushing the current US-Saudi nuclear deal would reverse that standard and open the sluice gates to nuclear proliferation. This, in turn, would pose a threat not just to Israel, but the world.

In 2009, Washington renegotiated its agreement with the UAE and set the right standard of no fuel-making. It should do the same with Riyadh.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989–1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024). This commentary first appeared in The Jerusalem Post.

The Quad Report, covering energy policy and politics

"Last week, Lake Mead reached its lowest water level on record, and is now at only 27% of its [design] capacity." It was last full in 1983 + has declined almost continuously over this century, with most of the water going to growing cities + thirsty crops in Arizona, California, and Nevada. "If levels continue to fall, it could jeopardize production of hydropower from the dams, which generate enough electricity for 1.6 million homes."

In 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) opened outlets at the base of the Colorado River’s mighty Glen Canyon Dam, unleashing gushers of water in an experiment meant to cool waters downstream. The strategy, called a “cool mix” release, aimed to thwart breeding of invasive smallmouth bass and protect native species. “It was very effective,” says Kevin Bestgen, a fish biologist at Colorado State University, so much so that the release was repeated in 2025.

"But with the Colorado’s reservoirs at historically low levels, there may be little political will to release water to protect ecosystems." In August, USBR, which operates dams on the river, canceled this year’s cool mix release. In April, the agency also nixed one of the periodic “controlled floods,” a much larger cascade intended to redistribute sediment and build sandbars that provide habitat for fish.

"This year saw record low snowpack levels in the Rocky Mountains, which means less water flowing downstream into the two largest reservoirs in North America: Lake Powell behind the Glen Canyon Dam and, [downriver], Lake Mead behind the Hoover Dam." The new management plan gives USBR the right to cut back significantly how much water is released from the reservoirs. "Alongside reliable water delivery, a long-standing USBR priority has been hydropower."

Most people can see the fingerprints of climate change all over this scenario. We are in an era of protracted drought for the southwestern US. This is not manageable unless we fix the climate system.

Create a bonus—funded by your company or institution—that rewards performance matching the "front-runners" in the energy sector.

An upper manager should devise the strategy, while a manager develops an operational plan—complete with a schedule of activities, deadlines, and assigned responsibilities—to bring that strategy to life.

If you would like to pursue this approach, count on me to help you develop a solid strategy and a plan to put it into action. The results will certainly be a pleasant surprise!

Does artificial intelligence help the fight against climate change, or does it quietly work against it? Most people would answer that AI helps, and not without reason. It sharpens solar forecasting, improves wind-pattern prediction, and makes power grids more efficient.

A new peer-reviewed study, however, has examined the fuller picture rather than the flattering half of it. Its conclusion is stated without much hedging. Net global carbon dioxide emissions rise by 0.5 to 1.8 gigatonnes annually as AI is adopted, equivalent to 1.2% to 4.8% of all energy-related CO₂ emitted worldwide in 2024.

👉 Read the full story: https://www.indoen.com/news/ais-carbon-math-the-technology-helps-oil-as-much-as-it-helps-solar-and-that-is-the-problem