What mattered this week

Worry more about AC, not AI: Cooling will be 2x data centre power 🤯

Getting hot, gotta have AC? Yup: 2035 will be 13% of global electricity: double each AI. Double EVs (DNV).

Where? Demand triples in India & quadruples in South East Asia. It’s hot there, you see. Emissions increase - roughly one extra Japan.

English air drinks 50% more than in 1980

Thirstier… air? Warmer air absorbs more water, mean soil & plants get, well, less. Scientists call that Vapour Pressure Deficit 🧐. (Tim Osborn).

How bad is this year? The highest in 126 years of records.

Is that why the drought came so fast? Mostly very low rain, says Osborn, with thirsty air probably adding to it. A 2024 study found Europe's air drying faster than at any point in 400 years.

Banks now preparing for El Niño to hit their… loans

Lend you an umbrella and ask for it back when it rains? Yes, they’re banks. BBVA has told risk teams in Peru, Argentina and Colombia to test loan books against the coming weather forecasts (Bloomberg Línea).

How exposed are they? Santander has €1.7bn of farm, forestry and fishing loans in the firing line. Credicorp has about 9% of its loan book.

When does it peak? Probably December, and 2027 is likely a record hot year (Carbon Brief).

One thing to worry about

A giant American reservoir got only 9% of its usual July waterflows. (KUNC).

Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona border is at 37% of average, already admitted won’t be working properly in 2027. (Western Water).

One thing to be optimistic about

Amazon cutting is the lowest since records began (in, um, 1988 🫣). Down 42% on last year (Al Jazeera).

How they do it? Satellites, and fines. 👏

If you’ve got more time…

China’s carbon emissions have peaked. The war accelerated something that was happening anyway.

China’s carbon emissions fell 3.1% in the third quarter, the biggest drop since Covid (Carbon Brief).

Not a blip: flat or falling since March 2024,

Part of it is the usual story. Solar, wind and nuclear are adding at twice the growth in power demand. Coal down 3.3%. True that construction is shrinking, so cement and steel down.

The new part is the war. For the first time an energy shock hit a country with a cheaper substitute already on saleL

• Oil down 4% in a quarter

• Fuel down 9%

• Electric cars took 67% of sales in September

• Electric trucks hit 50% of new sales (Electrek)

Even coal mines: driverless 90t electric trucks that stop for six minutes to swap batteries (Electrek) 😱.

The oil shocks of the 1970s cut demand but it came back after.

An electric car or truck never comes back to oil. The 450k barrels/day China stopped burning in May and June, are still gone when the Strait opens.

A new world…