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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="19895433" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tesla" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Tesla" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Tesla">Tesla</keyword> reported blowout earnings this week, but its biggest growth driver wasn't cars or robots.</li><li>Its energy business grew by over 50% year over year, earning Tesla over $7 billion in revenue so far in 2024.</li></ul><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla">Tesla</a> has a secret weapon, and it's not <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-robotaxi-empire-scrutiny-fsd-full-self-driving-2024-10">Elon Musk's robotaxi</a> or the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-optimus-robots-bartending-controlled-by-humans-2024-10">Optimus bot</a>. The company reported blowout earnings on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-earnings-analyst-reactions-basics-selling-electric-vehicles-robotaxi-2024-10">the strength of its automotive sales</a> on Wednesday — but its biggest growth area was Tesla's burgeoning business selling batteries and solar panels, not electric cars. Revenue for Tesla's energy generation and storage business was nearly $2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2024, up 52% from the same period last year. That's a big jump compared to revenue from Tesla's automotive sales, which <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2024-Update.pdf">rose by 2%</a> over the same period. The energy business's revenue so far this year exceeds $7 billion, meaning that it now accounts for nearly 10% of Tesla's total revenue. The segment primarily includes Tesla's sales of solar panels and its <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-announces-megapack-giant-new-battery-product-2019-7">Megapack</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rechargeable-battery-options-compete-tesla-2017-5">Powerwall</a> battery storage systems. It typically garners less attention than flashy but less lucrative projects like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-stock-robotaxi-cybercab-tsla-fsd-elon-musk-ross-gerber-2024-10">Tesla's robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robots</a>. Still, it has fast become a vitally important source of income for the automaker. The growth of Tesla's energy business was noted by Musk in the company's Q3 earnings call on Wednesday, with the Tesla CEO describing it as a "gigantic opportunity" for the automaker. "The <keyword id="20368669" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="energy-storage" source="keywords">energy storage</keyword> business is growing like wildfire, with strong demand for both <keyword id="23762419" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Megapack" source="keywords">Megapack</keyword> and <keyword id="23762420" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Powerwall" source="keywords">Powerwall</keyword>," Musk said. The billionaire said that Tesla's Megapack factory in Lathrop, California, had hit an important production milestone of 200 units per week. <a target="_blank" href="https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2024-Update.pdf">Tesla also </a><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2024-Update.pdf">told investors</a> that the company had installed a record number of Powerwall systems for the second quarter in a row. Tesla is also <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-plans-new-megapack-factory-in-china-2023-4">building a Megapack factory in Shanghai,</a> which is expected to begin mass production in the first quarter of 2025. Megapack is a commercial battery system used by grid providers to store energy and help avoid power outages. This is especially important as more providers switch to renewable energy sources that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-largest-federal-investment-ever-try-fix-power-grid-2023-10">can be more intermittent than fossil fuels</a>. Tesla says one Megapack can store over 3.9 MWh of energy, enough to power an average of 3,600 homes for one hour. The company sells them for around $1 million apiece. The Powerwall, meanwhile, is a home battery that allows customers to store energy generated by solar panels and use it to power their homes. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.tesla.com/energy/design/overview">It costs around $16,000 </a>before incentives, and Tesla offers it in a package with the company's solar panels and "solar roof" product. Correction: October 25, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the cost of a Megapack. One costs about $1 million, not $5 million.

Tesla's energy storage business was the highlight of its blowout earnings, and Elon Musk says it's 'growing like wildfire'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>All kinds of startups are rushing into the AI inference market.</li><li>Inference market competition may lower the price of AI, benefiting builders but challenging clouds.</li></ul>Jared Quincy Davis and his AI computing startup Foundry sell <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-competition-sambanova-groq-cerebras-show-faster-inference-speed-2024-9">inference.</a> They don't make chips or build <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-anthropic-ai-bots-havoc-raise-cloud-costs-websites-2024-9">large language models</a>. Foundry has a unique method of making cloud computing more efficient. Instead of selling its technology to cloud providers, the Foundry team decided to become one and use its tech to operate a more efficient cloud.Once companies looking to leverage and sell an AI product have trained their models and know that they perform, they're looking for ease, speed, and value whenever generating outputs. Inference-as-a-service providers like Foundry, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/foundry-ceo-hack-improving-ai-models-gpt-5-2024-8">aim to simplify</a> the process of generating those outputs.Foundry offers training and fine-tuning, too, as many cloud providers do, but these days, it seems like anyone with an AI compute-boosting technology is attempting to monetize by selling inference — or more specifically, tokens, the base unit of data in AI.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cerebras-nvidia-challenger-ai-chip-battle-2024-7">Cerebras</a> sells inference too. The company's core expertise is designing chips for training and inference, but it recently started selling the latter as a service. So does Groq, a chip company formed by two former Googlers, who recognized early that inference was going to get the bigger share of computing. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-competition-sambanova-groq-cerebras-show-faster-inference-speed-2024-9">SambaNova Systems</a>, another hardware platform, also sells inference as a service.Companies like Lambda, CoreWeave, Together AI, and Crusoe, all close partners of Nvidia, run data centers suited specifically to AI workloads and offer inference services. And then there are the hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure.With so many companies specializing in inference, suspicion is rising that the cost of inference is about to drop off a cliff."Part of the reason inference is a little commoditizable is customers are kind of paying for tokens at the end of the day," Davis told Business Insider.The current market for inference is kind of like the electricity market, Davis said. There are a ton of niche sources you can access if you actually shop around, but not everyone does. Most people just want to flip the light switch and have it work.But there is a lot of nuance to sift through for those willing. For some customers, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-competition-sambanova-groq-cerebras-show-faster-inference-speed-2024-9">speed is of the utmost importance</a>. Speed has distinctions too, like time to the first token and tokens per second. There's total job completion time and there are different kinds of inference workloads that lend themselves to different computing setups.Energy efficiency of the underlying hardware and networking is a big determinant of cost. And cost in inference computing is even more important than in training, Groq cofounder Jonathan Ross recently told BI. Training is an overhead cost, while inference is an operating cost.Zoom out from all of the intricacies, and inference is becoming the commodity of the AI age."Some companies just want output and they don't care about infrastructure," Mitesh Agrawal, head of cloud for Lambda, told BI.<h2 id="dff58147-0a83-484f-8489-a31c08d0a473">Commoditizing AI</h2>Lambda is in the early stages of an inference-as-a-service offering, but Agrawal said the company is going about it carefully, focusing on providing holistic computing services, and not just tokens.Inference profit margins can vary widely, Agrawal said. With general compute — where the customer rents fixed capacity — the margins are easier to manage. When you're charging for usage or input and output of a model, the return is less predictable.Organizing multiple users across a finite number of servers takes finesse. Whether or not the cost of operating the hardware is actually covered with room for profit comes down to how well that organization is done, Agrawal explained.So why would neoclouds offer the riskier service?Agrawal said it's about getting potential customers in the door. Inference-as-a-service customers can turn into more traditional compute customers, and as the slate of competitors grows, relationships, and history grow in importance.Lambda's financial models assume that price cuts are coming soon as more players enter the inference space and chips become more efficient.<h2 id="59b576b3-4703-4b08-b315-2c7f48e230fb">A race to the bottom?</h2>How fast the demand for inference is growing is up for debate, but in recent public statements, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said on multiple occasions that new models, like OpenAI's o1, require more compute to generate the same number of responses because they run multiple models to check their own work or "reason." Accuracy, it turns out, requires more compute.Inference loads are poised to grow, but service providers still anticipate a drop in price from the influx of new players. Davis isn't worried though.He recalled Jevon's paradox — an economic principle in which a drop in price or an increase in efficiency leads to more total consumption — like when you widen a highway and traffic gets worse."If I make something 10 times cheaper, people won't spend 10 times less, nor will they even hold their budgets the same. They'll spend more," Davis said. "That makes sense because what are you doing when you make something 10 times cheaper, you're making the ROI better."In other words, "it turns out, when you make inference cheaper, people decide to do a lot more inference," Davis said.The ride ahead could be "bumpy" though, and not all players are likely to survive the moments of mismatch between supply and demand."As my old boss at Intel Andy Grove used to say, 'Let chaos reign, and then reign in the chaos'," said Sriram Viswanathan, founding managing partner at Celesta Capital and investor in SambaNova Systems.He agrees the next few years will be wildly competitive for inference providers, but he believes the winners will be decided on merit."The core innovation can't be in the go-to-market, but in the performance and power of the underlying architecture," Viswanathan said.Many of the companies selling tokens to break into the AI market aspire to more. The chip designers eventually want to sell chips to hyperscalers rather than inference to AI startups. The ultimate version of Foundry's tech is bigger too."If we do our job, right, you know, we will be a core part of how every GPU runs," Davis said. All roads, it seems, run through inference.Hugh Langley contributed reporting.Got a tip or an insight to share? Contact Senior Reporter Emma Cosgrove at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:ecosgrove@businessinsider.com">ecosgrove@businessinsider.com</a> or use the secure messaging app Signal: 443-333-9088

'Let chaos reign': AI inference costs are about to plummet  

The Union Budget for 2024-25, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, places significant emphasis on <keyword id="19941381" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="energy-security" source="keywords">energy security</keyword> and sustainability. As per the government, the current strategy will focus on ensuring that energy resources are readily available, making energy affordable for all citizens and keeping energy costs low to prevent economic strain on consumers. Here's a breakdown of the key initiatives announced: <h2>PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana</h2>One of the standout initiatives is the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana. This program aims to install <keyword id="20366573" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rooftop-solar-plants" source="keywords">rooftop solar plants</keyword> across 1 crore households, providing up to 300 units of free electricity per month. As per the FM, the scheme has already seen significant interest, with over 1.28 crore registrations and 14 lakh applications. <h2>Pumped Storage Policy</h2>To enhance electricity storage capabilities and integrate more <keyword id="19895602" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="renewable-energy" source="keywords">renewable energy</keyword> into the grid, the government will introduce a policy promoting pumped storage projects. These projects are crucial for balancing the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111956035" title="Union Budget 2024: What FM Nirmala took from your pocket, what she gave you" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div> <h2>Development of <keyword id="20876045" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nuclear-energy" source="keywords">Nuclear Energy</keyword></h2>Recognising the importance of nuclear energy in India's future energy mix, the government plans to invest in new nuclear technologies. The announcement also mentioned partnering with the private sector to develop and set up Bharat <keyword id="20260886" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Small-Modular-Reactors" source="keywords">Small Modular Reactors</keyword>. Boasting up to a 300 MW capacity, Small Modular Reactors are mobile, flexible in design and require a smaller footprint. Unlike conventional nuclear reactors that need to be built on-site, SMRs can be factory-built. These advantages can add up to significant savings in cost and construction time. <h2>Advanced Ultra Super Critical Thermal Power Plants</h2>The Budget highlights the completion of indigenous technology development for Advanced Ultra Super Critical (AUSC) thermal power plants. These plants boast higher efficiency and will be established through a joint venture between the National Thermal Power Corporation and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited. The initiative includes government support for fiscal needs and aims to boost local production of high-grade steel and advanced metallurgical materials. <h2>Roadmap for Hard-to-Abate Industries</h2>A significant shift is planned for industries that are difficult to decarbonise. The government will move these industries from energy efficiency targets to emission reduction targets. This transition will be regulated through the Indian Carbon Market, replacing the current 'Perform, Achieve and Trade' mode. <h2>Support for Traditional Micro and Small Industries</h2>To promote cleaner energy usage and efficiency, the government will conduct energy audits in 60 clusters of traditional micro and small industries, including brass and ceramics. Financial support will be provided to help these industries switch to cleaner energy forms and implement energy efficiency measures. This initiative will be expanded to 100 more clusters in the next phase. As per Sameer Jain, Managing Director at Primus Partners, MSMEs consume approximately 50% of the nation's power needs while generating over 75% of greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, additional support — such as climate financing — will be crucial to ensure that the MSME sector adapts well to the green revolution, especially with how the budget has committed support to MSMEs to grow and compete globally. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111953230" title="Union Budget 2024-25: Mobile Phones to get cheaper, as FM Nirmala Sitharaman reduces basic customs duty to 15%" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div> <h2><keyword id="22521154" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate-resilient-crops" source="keywords">Climate-Resilient Crops</keyword></h2>The government will release 109 high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties of 32 field and horticultural crops for cultivation by farmers. With the provision of research funding, including for the private sector, this move is part of a broader strategy to enhance agricultural productivity while adapting to climate change. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111957080" title="What does Union Budget 2024-2025 have in store for farmers and the agricultural sector?" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div> <h2>Minerals for Green Technologies</h2>To support the growing demand for minerals used in green technologies, such as cobalt and lithium, the budget proposes exemptions from custom duties for 25 critical minerals and reduction on basic customs duty for two other essential metals. This move aims to bolster the domestic manufacturing of batteries and other components crucial for electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies. <h2>Development of Climate Taxonomy</h2>A new climate taxonomy will be developed to guide the green transition, ensuring that investments and policies are aligned with the goal of reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable practices. All in all, the Union Budget 2024-25 sets a promising course for India's energy and sustainability sector. With substantial investments and new initiatives, it aims to accelerate the transition to a greener future, and hopefully take us a step further towards India's net-zero emissions target by 2070.

Free solar electricity to mobile nuclear plants — major sustainability initiatives announced in Budget 2024!

Our homes should make us feel safe. A decent home is a refuge from the outside world, a relatively fixed point where people can drop their vigilance. Most of us need the security of home to stay balanced in the face of an unstable, sometimes frightening world.But Americans are increasingly less safe in their own homes. This isn't because of a sudden surge in crime (<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-murder-rate-dropped-by-13-percent-in-2023">which is actually declining in most places</a>) but because of climate and geography.Compared with much of the rest of the country, many of America's cities are well situated to weather the coming decades of the climate crisis. Their density makes them <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/passive-house-energy-efficient-lower-utility-bills-2023-7">more energy-efficient</a> — partly because residents tend to drive less and apartments are easier to keep cool than single-family homes. They also have more robust emergency-services infrastructure than rural areas and are situated further from fire-prone wooded areas.But as <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yimbys-winning-lower-house-prices-rents-build-more-homes-neighborhoods-2023-9">local zoning and resident opposition</a> have made it nearly impossible to build housing in these cities, would-be residents are pushed into more treacherous areas. In some parts of the country, the only affordable homes for middle-class households are in areas prone to disasters. The people who move to those high-risk areas are being robbed of the security that everyone should be able to enjoy in their homes. Because of our collective refusal to build more housing where it is most needed, millions of people live with elevated climate risk.Until we act, more of those people are fated to lose their homes — or their lives.<h2>The heat is on</h2>As is increasingly routine, extreme heat has been roasting much of the United States this summer. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.azfamily.com/2024/07/05/heatwave-hell-phoenix-high-temp-soars-118-shattering-previous-record/">Phoenix hit a daily high of 118 degrees</a> in June, breaking a 40-year-old record. In Texas, a broiling July heat wave caused power outages for millions of people and clogged hospitals with patients who could not be safely discharged to homes that lacked air conditioning. These heat waves have deadly consequences: <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dangers-extreme-summer-heat-united-states-poverty-air-conditioning-access-2023-8">Extreme heat killed 2,302 Americans</a> in 2023 alone.While many parts of the country have faced high temperatures this year, the danger has not been evenly distributed. Where I live, across the bay from San Francisco, thermometers climbed into the mid-80s — not exactly pleasant for perspiration-prone Ashkenazi men such as myself, but tolerable. Further-inland locales like California's fast-growing Central Valley, on the other hand, have been getting positively scorched. On the West Coast, the safest place to be in a heat wave tends to be near the Pacific Ocean. But that's not where people are moving. Thanks to the city's anemic new-housing growth, the population of San Francisco (average daily high in July: 66 degrees) has stagnated for years while home prices have soared. Growth has been faster and more consistent in white-hot cities like Fresno (98 degrees), Sacramento (93 degrees), and Bakersfield (98 degrees), where housing is more abundant but deadly heat is far more common. The Golden State's land-use patterns are putting middle-class and working-class households at a higher risk of exposure to extreme, possibly fatal, heat. This split is a miniature version of the trend playing out across the US: Migration is pushing more people into harm's way. The fastest-growing states in the country are in the Sun Belt: Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The Sun Belt also happens to be the part of the country <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-housing-market-prediction-sun-belt-climate-change-zelman-2024-7">most at risk of extreme heat</a> as the climate crisis gets worse. There were <a target="_blank" href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/12/texas-heat-deaths-2023-record-climate-change/">more than 300 heat-related deaths in Texas</a> last year. And that's to say nothing of the risk Gulf states face from hurricanes, which climate change has similarly exacerbated.The shift to the Sun Belt isn't part of some sublimated death drive or a desire to test the limits of modern sunscreen. The reason for the mass movement is pretty simple: People are going where they can afford housing. Compare homebuilding in Houston (average daily July high of 95 degrees) with homebuilding in San Francisco. I've found that <a target="_blank" href="https://cayimby.org/reports/housing-first/">Houston had roughly three times as many housing starts per capita in 2021 as San Francisco</a>, and even in parts of the past decade where Houston's housing starts dipped a bit, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-building-cheap-new-starter-homes-real-estate-construction-lots-2024-1">they were still significantly higher than San Francisco's</a>. No wonder, then, that a one-bedroom apartment in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/austin-real-estate-housing-market-prices-houston-zoning-affordable-2023-8">Houston costs half as much</a> as one in San Francisco, even though Houston has increased its population by more than 200,000 residents since 2010. Houston's ability to build more housing than San Francisco comes down to the rules the two cities impose on the construction of new housing. The same could be said of much of the rest of the Sun Belt. Houston is an extreme example because it literally does not have a zoning code, but in general, Sun Belt cities tend to have much looser zoning and permitting rules than high-cost California cities.Even within many states, new housing tends to get built in the areas most vulnerable to climate disasters. Once again, take California: San Francisco and other exclusionary coastal towns block new housing, so much of the state's homebuilding takes the form of single-family sprawl deep into extremely hot inland, low-lying areas or into what's called the <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=92a86309da8af9c28c10ca5b6aa5757a3e91f2f44f8b02e2d254a15f222499c9&amp;postID=66c33fc47d61a86c186c52d0&amp;postSlug=affordable-home-house-prices-americans-danger-death-climate-change-2024-8&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41598-022-09707-7">wildland-urban interface</a>: the part of the state where forest fires crash up against human habitation, with deadly results. Ironically, some of this allocation is done under the cover of environmentalism. The California Environmental Quality Act requires developers to go through a convoluted environmental-review process to get their projects approved. While California's legislature has spent the past few years expanding the types of projects that are exempt from the law, it's still a powerful tool that not-in-my-backyarders, or NIMBYs, can use to block development in their neighborhoods. Unsurprisingly, the threat of CEQA litigation tends to loom largest in affluent, exclusive communities; the risk of litigation is lowest in sparsely populated areas, where there are few residents to complain about new housing. Thus the law actually creates an incentive to concentrate development in the wildland-urban interface, away from the more densely populated areas that also happen to be more fire-resistant.To be sure, income and climate risk are not perfectly correlated; <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/million-nantucket-beach-house-sold-200k-after-erosion-swallows-land-2024-7">several wealthy enclaves</a> are at <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nantucket-homes-wealthy-falling-into-ocean-erosion-climate-2024-5">risk of coastal erosion</a>. And a fair amount of high-value real estate is nestled in the wildland-urban interface, as the San Francisco Bay Area learned during the 1991 Oakland Hills fires and as Los Angeles learned during the 2018 Woolsey fire that chewed up Malibu. But America's housing shortage tends to distribute climate-related suffering along class lines. Even if they manage to avoid sudden catastrophes, people who have been pushed out to the urban periphery may well face subtler long-term consequences. If living in a wildfire-prone area doesn't kill you or destroy your house, it can still increase your exposure to toxic smoke, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/symptoms-poor-air-quality-exposure-harms-health-wildfire-smoke">which can lead to serious respiratory and cardiovascular conditions</a>. Beyond the risks from heat, fire, and smoke inhalation are the more quotidian harms of being geographically cut off from the center of a metropolitan area. In 2010, nearly 10% of Americans lived in areas where it would take them more than an hour to reach a trauma-care center in the event of an emergency. For those who work in the central city, even the long commute from the exurbs can be dangerous. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/public-transportation-commuting-health-driving-2015-2">Long car commutes</a> have been <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/commuting-by-car-is-hurting-peoples-mental-health-2023-7">associated with higher blood pressure</a>, and that's to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ways-your-commute-is-slowly-killing-you-2016-2">say nothing of the other risks</a> associated with a long ride in a country where traffic collisions <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vehicle-related-deaths-increase-car-safety-pedestrians-cyclists-2023-9">kill more than 40,000 people each year</a>. If we could somehow wish away the large and growing risk of climate disasters, sprawl would still be bad for American public health.<h2>What makes a home</h2>In his book about Hurricane Katrina, the historian Andy Horowitz writes that "disasters are less discrete events than they are contingent processes." The true disaster is not the hurricane on its own but how the hurricane collides with society, politics, and infrastructure. A hurricane of a certain strength, speed, and rainfall can have drastically different effects depending on whether it makes landfall in an uninhabited area, a thoroughly prepared city, or a city with inadequate levees, entrenched patterns of residential segregation, and an ill-equipped emergency-response system.Similarly, the safety of our communities is directly tied to choices about where, how, and why we build them. Sure, small things like doing controlled burns, making air conditioning more widely available, and building better evacuation routes can reduce some of the dangers created by pushing people out to the periphery. But we have a moral imperative to allow more homebuilding in the parts of the country that are already well positioned to accept more people. While NIMBYs have cleverly cited environmental concerns to block housing development in these areas, making it possible for more people to live in them is essential to sustainably and safely growing our country for the next generation.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ned-resnikoff">Ned Resnikoff</a> is the policy director of California YIMBY and co-leader of the Metropolitan Abundance Project.

The deadly cost of America's housing crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Happy Friday! Looking for a new way to jumpstart your mornings? (Besides reading this newsletter, of course.) Retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-navy-seal-military-morning-routine-helps-him-in-business-2024-10">shared his daily routine</a> that keeps the now-business owner focused.Speaking of new, we've got a cool tool for you to play around with: AI-powered search. We're using generative AI to help easily find all of our great stories. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/">Check it out on our homepage</a>.In today's big story, inside Amazon's internal pitch for turning to nuclear power <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-nuclear-power-strategy-ai-2024-10">to meet its growing energy needs</a>.What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-price-q3-earnings-elon-musk-profit-margins-guidance-2024-10">Tesla's stock had a monster day</a> following its stellar earnings report.</li><li>Tech: In an exclusive interview, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-benioff-salesforce-ceo-interview-microsoft-ai-threatens-crm-lead-2024-10">Marc Benioff bashes Microsoft's Copilot</a>.</li><li>Business: The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-going-on-with-economy-jobs-inflation-election-voting-2024-10">good and bad about the economy</a> less than two weeks from the election.</li></ul>But first, let's power up.If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="7fa5f018-5b05-4a37-a8dc-d3f89138bcb3">The big story</h3><h2 id="5fd547b9-ec52-41fc-8e08-4f4b27dd8097">Nuclear needs</h2><div type="image" title="Amazon logo with smoke coming out." height="1250" width="2500" msid="114590276" hostid="261" sizebytes="87984"></div>What's bigger than tech's ambitious plans for generative AI? The amount of energy needed to power it.That's led Big Tech to consider nuclear power to address its skyrocketing energy requirements.Business Insider's Eugene Kim has a report on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-nuclear-power-strategy-ai-2024-10">how Amazon navigates its nuclear ambitions</a>. In a signal of how serious Amazon is about going nuclear, the company pitched the energy source to CEO Andy Jassy this June, according to a company document he obtained.Since then, Amazon has led a $500 million financing round for a company developing modular nuclear reactors. It also agreed to purchase power from Talen Energy's nuclear-powered data center in March.And it's not alone.Microsoft and Google have invested in the sector, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed a nuclear reactor startup.The stakes are high for tech players to get energy. Eugene previously reported on how Amazon's dreams of building a data center empire <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-data-centers-delays-costs-power-labor-shortages-aws-ai-2024-10">face the realities of electricity, water, and labor constraints</a>.Should those data center efforts continue to struggle, companies' big bets on generative AI could also falter.<div type="image" title="Protesters at Three Mile Island." height="470" width="700" msid="114590280" hostid="261" sizebytes="35920"></div>A tech-nuclear relationship is mutually beneficial.Tech companies need cost-efficient, reliable energy sources <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-nuclear-power-ai-data-centers-2024-10">that won't increase their carbon footprint</a>, writes BI's Hasan Chowdhury. Nuclear power ticks that box better than other clean energy options like solar or wind.Nuclear power, meanwhile, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/data-centers-amazon-ai-nuclear-power-grid-2024-5">is an industry in desperate need of some love</a>, BI's Daniel Geiger and Ellen Thomas previously reported. With at least one commercial nuclear plant closing every year since 2013, the sector has welcomed the interest."We're seeing customers approach us at a rate that we haven't seen in my history with this industry," Jim Burke, CEO of nuclear owner Vistra, said back in March.Naturally, there are skeptics. A byproduct of nuclear power is radioactive waste. The transportation and storage of that remains a hot-button issue. High-profile incidents involving power plants like Chernobyl and Fukushima also drew criticism and stoked fears around the globe.Big Tech hasn't shied away from it. In September, Microsoft cut a deal with Constellation Energy to get power from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-reopens-power-microsoft-ai-push-2024-9">part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant</a>, home to the worst commercial nuclear accident in US history.<h3 id="77f31a4c-8462-4e3d-a71f-838cb79493fb">News brief</h3><h2 id="1fcd294b-3f53-425f-9f20-4093e8623b59">Top headlines</h2><ul><li>Exclusive: Maven Clinic is swapping out its finance chiefs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mavens-cfo-out-as-womens-health-startup-gets-fresh-funding-2024-10">as the women's health unicorn looks ahead to an IPO</a>.</li><li>The 'whale' placing huge bets on a Trump win is a French national with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/polymarket-donald-trump-betting-odds-whale-french-trader-harris-polls-2024-10">extensive trading experience</a>.</li><li>The New York Liberty celebrated its first-ever championship and record-breaking WNBA season <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-liberty-wnba-championship-parade-photos-2024-10">with a jubilant party</a>.</li><li>Former Avenue employee accused of 'blackmailing' billionaire Marc Lasry countersues, claiming sexual harassment <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-marc-lasry-accused-of-sexual-harassment-in-countersuit-2024-10">including forced kissing, groping, and comments about her body</a>.</li><li>Putin once asked Elon Musk to not activate Starlink over Taiwan as a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-elon-musk-starlink-taiwan-china-favor-xi-jinping-report-2024-10">favor to Xi Jinping</a>: report.</li></ul><h2 id="8120060b-ae66-48dc-b149-f0489a30ffa2">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="Name plates on blue background" height="900" width="1200" msid="114590272" hostid="261" sizebytes="60254"></div><ol><li>Welcome to the world of hedge funds, where job titles are made up and don't matter. Unlike its Wall Street peers, the $4.3 trillion hedge-fund industry <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/an-inside-look-at-hedge-fund-job-titles-2024-10">has little uniformity regarding titles</a>. The naming free-for-all means employees and hiring managers can take advantage of using trumped-up titles.</li><li>Tesla's stock just went from 0 to 60. Shares of the EV giant <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/elon-musk-net-worth-gains-tesla-stock-price-earnings-tsla-2024-10">finished the day up almost 22%</a> after Wednesday's strong earnings report. Elon Musk added $30 billion to his net worth from the spike.</li><li>The election's biggest risk to the market isn't who wins but how long it takes to decide. BlackRock Investment Institute head Jean Boivin said <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/us-presidential-election-trump-harris-outlook-volatility-stock-sell-off-2024-10">a contested election would be bad news for investors</a>. He's not alone in his concerns, as others have pointed to short-term volatility when results were delayed in 2020 and 2000.</li></ol><h2 id="f4b54806-7f81-450c-ba32-92560d4fae9b">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff." height="1333" width="2000" msid="114590275" hostid="261" sizebytes="41956"></div><ol><li>Marc Benioff isn't buying Microsoft's AI hype. In an exclusive interview with BI, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-benioff-salesforce-ceo-interview-microsoft-ai-threatens-crm-lead-2024-10">the Salesforce CEO bashed Microsoft's AI Copilot</a>, calling it inaccurate and dubbing the tool "Clippy 2.0." Benioff's diss came after Microsoft recently announced new Dynamics 365 AI agents, directly competing with a new Salesforce product available today.</li><li>Keep your eyes on these 13 creator-economy startups. New startups are finding ways to break into an industry dominated by Big Tech. BI asked venture capitalists which new creator companies they felt showed promise. From advertising platforms to AI tech companies, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/promising-creator-economy-influencer-marketing-startups-per-top-vcs-2024-10">here's the startups to watch</a>.</li><li>A longtime safety researcher left OpenAI. Miles Brundage, who advised OpenAI leadership on safety and policy, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/another-safety-researcher-is-leaving-openai-2024-10">announced his departure</a> on X. The AGI Readiness team he oversaw will also be disbanded. Brundage's exit is the latest in a string of high-profile departures from the startup.</li></ol><h2 id="9260fa45-d397-4b3c-b4f8-4bb193976216">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="Ben Franklin flag on red background" height="900" width="1200" msid="114590270" hostid="261" sizebytes="100740"></div><ol><li>Here's what's going on with the economy ahead of the election. For many Americans, the state of the economy is top of mind heading into the polls. The good news? <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-going-on-with-economy-jobs-inflation-election-voting-2024-10">It's doing broadly well</a>. The unemployment rate remains relatively low, and inflation has slowed. Still, other not-so-great data points have voters feeling pessimistic.</li><li>The housing crisis, as explained by two swing states. Renters and homeowners in swing states have been disproportionately affected by rising housing costs. Two states, Pennsylvania and Arizona, exemplify the problem. While Arizona's population is surging, Pennsylvania's is shrinking — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-pennsylvania-swing-state-home-prices-surge-housing-shortage-2024-10">and neither can build enough homes</a>.</li><li>Behind the scenes of Emma Tucker's Wall Street Journal makeover. Tucker joined the legacy outlet in 2023 with a focus on diversifying and growing the paper's subscriber base. So far, it seems to be working, with subscriptions increasing by 11% over the past year. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-journal-editor-emma-tucker-interview-peter-kafka-2024-10">She spoke with BI about how she's remaking the paper</a> — including reorganizing and cutting staff.</li></ol><h2 id="1ad7b482-3f4b-44b4-81b6-a864aa386478">In other news</h2><ul><li>Jensen Huang says <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jensen-huang-tsmc-helped-fix-design-flaw-with-nvidias-blackwell-2024-10">a design flaw with Nvidia's Blackwell chips has been fixed</a> — with TSMC's help.</li><li>Why some CEOs are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-bill-gates-ceo-avoid-criticizing-trump-2024-10">afraid of publicly criticizing Trump</a>.</li><li>Norway wants to ban under-15s from social media, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-ban-social-media-kids-under-15-backfire-2024-10">expects an 'uphill battle.'</a></li></ul><h2 id="9f5d80ac-3466-429f-a50a-2ffbb70c65ff">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Former Abercrombie &amp; Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries will be arraigned on sex trafficking charges in federal court.</li><li>SpaceX's Crew-8 mission crew returns to Earth today.</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London.

Big Tech goes nuclear: Amazon's pitch to use power plants shows the crucial role the energy source plays for AI

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a cut in customs duty on minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt, which are critical for nuclear energy, renewable and other sectors, to give a fillip to the energy transition. In her budget speech in Lok Sabha, Sitharaman recalled that in the interim budget she had announced a strategy to sustain high and more resource-efficient economic growth, along with energy security in terms of availability, accessibility and affordability. "We will bring out a policy document on appropriate energy transition pathways that balances the imperatives of employment, growth and environmental sustainability," she said. Noting that minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and rare earth elements are critical for sectors like nuclear energy, <keyword id="19895602" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="renewable-energy" source="keywords">renewable energy</keyword>, space, defence, telecommunications, and high-tech electronics, she proposed to fully exempt customs duties on 25 critical minerals and reduce BCD (basic customs duty) on two of them. This will provide a major fillip to the processing and refining of such minerals and help secure their availability for these strategic and important sectors, she said. She stated that energy transition is critical in the fight against climate change. To support energy transition, she proposed to expand the list of exempted capital goods for use in the manufacture of solar cells and panels in the country. Further, she stated that in view of sufficient domestic manufacturing capacity of solar glass and tinned copper interconnect, I propose not to extend the exemption of customs duties provided to them. Noting that steel and copper are important raw materials and to reduce their cost of production, she proposed to remove the BCD on ferro nickel and blister copper. "I am also continuing with nil BCD on ferrous scrap and nickel cathode and concessional BCD of 2.5 per cent on copper scrap," she said. About the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which was rolled out earlier this year, he informed the House that in line with the announcement in the interim budget, PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana has been launched to install rooftop solar plants to enable 1 crore households obtain free electricity up to 300 units every month. The scheme has generated remarkable response with more than 1.28 crore registrations and 14 lakh applications, and we will further encourage it, he stated. She further stated that a policy for promoting pumped storage projects will be brought out for electricity storage and facilitating smooth integration of the growing share of renewable energy with its variable &amp; intermittent nature in the overall energy mix. She stated that nuclear energy is expected to form a very significant part of the energy mix for Viksit Bharat. Towards that pursuit, our government will partner with the private sector for setting up Bharat Small Reactors; research &amp; development of Bharat Small Modular Reactor and research &amp; development of newer technologies for nuclear energy, she informed the House. The R&amp;D funding announced in the interim budget will be made available for this sector, she added. The development of indigenous technology for Advanced Ultra Super Critical (AUSC) <keyword id="20421620" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="thermal-power" source="keywords">thermal power</keyword> plants with much higher efficiency has been completed, she informed the House. A joint venture between NTPC and BHEL will set up a full-scale 800 MW commercial plant using AUSC technology and the government will provide the required fiscal support, she added. Moving forward, the development of indigenous capacity for the production of high-grade steel and other advanced metallurgy materials for these plants will result in strong spin-off benefits for the economy, she pointed out. A roadmap for moving the 'hard to abate' industries from 'energy efficiency' targets to 'emission targets' will be formulated, she stated adding that appropriate regulations for the transition of these industries from the current 'Perform, Achieve and Trade' mode to 'Indian Carbon Market' mode will be put in place. She further stated that an investment-grade energy audit of traditional micro and small industries in 60 clusters, including brass and ceramic, will be facilitated. Financial support will be provided for shifting them to cleaner forms of energy and implementation of energy efficiency measures. The scheme will be replicated in another 100 clusters in the next phase, she stated. Gaurav Kedia, Chairman, Indian Biogas Association said that the <keyword id="19908389" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-Budget" source="keywords">Union Budget</keyword> 2024 has unveiled a roadmap towards a sustainable and resilient India, with agriculture and energy security at its core. It is anticipated that these initiatives will catalyze the growth of the biogas industry, leading to increased rural employment, reduced carbon emissions, and improved soil health, he stated. SEE ALSO:<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/budget-2024-25-changes-to-tax-slabs-increased-standard-deduction-and-other-changes-to-direct-taxation/articleshow/111951205.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/budget-2024-25-changes-to-tax-slabs-increased-standard-deduction-and-other-changes-to-direct-taxation/articleshow/111951205.cms" target="_blank">Budget 2024-25 – Changes to tax slabs, increased standard deduction and other changes to direct taxation</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/expectations-from-union-budget-2024-25-how-will-this-budget-impact-you/articleshow/111946291.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/expectations-from-union-budget-2024-25-how-will-this-budget-impact-you/articleshow/111946291.cms" target="_blank">Union Budget 2024-25: How will this budget impact you?</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/budget-2024-record-allocation-of-rs-1-48-lakh-crore-for-education-employment-and-skilling/articleshow/111951228.cms">Budget 2024: Record allocation of Rs 1.48 lakh crore for education, employment and skilling!</a>

FM cuts customs duty on minerals critical for energy transition

On Monday, July 22, Finance Minister <keyword id="22504403" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nirmal-sitharaman" source="keywords">Nirmal Sitharaman</keyword> tabled the <keyword id="20613906" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="economic-survey" source="keywords">Economic Survey</keyword> 2023-24 in the parliament ahead of the much-awaited budget 2024 tomorrow. In addition to a socio-economic stock take, the comprehensive report also outlines the strides India has made on the environment and climate fronts last year. India is in a weird grey area when the climate blame-game is concerned. We continue to average some of the lowest per capita CO2 emissions in the world. But, being the most-populous country in the world, these small bits add up to make India the third-largest emitter of CO2 in the world, after China and the United States. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111923746" title="Economic Survey 2023-2024 highlights emerging job trends in AI, Cybersecurity, 3D Printing and Web Development" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>However, this is not to say that the country has been sitting the green transition out either. As highlighted in the Economic Survey, India has been making notable strides in tackling climate change and promoting <keyword id="19895783" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sustainability" source="keywords">sustainability</keyword> — efforts that will be crucial to protect billions in the coming years and decades. Let's take a look at these efforts and compare them with findings from other recent environmental reports to see the full picture. <h2><keyword id="21818512" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="emission-intensity" source="keywords">Emission intensity</keyword> reduction</h2>The economic survey proudly states that India has reduced the emission intensity of its GDP by 33% from 2005 levels by 2019. This means the country is producing less greenhouse gas for every unit of economic activity. This is a commendable achievement because India’s original climate change target — or Nationally Determined Contribution — was set to precisely 33% reduction of emission intensity by 2030, before being revised to 45% in 2022. While the jump from 33% to 45% is still a significant one with barely half a decade to go, this progress is a clear sign that India’s climate policies are having a real impact. <h2><keyword id="19895602" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="renewable-energy" source="keywords">Renewable energy</keyword> capacity</h2>According to the economic survey, 45.4% of India’s installed electricity generation capacity — which includes solar, wind, and hydropower — now comes from non-fossil sources, as of May 31, 2024. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111774972" title="Economic Survey shows India&amp;#39;s energy needs to grow 2.5x, healthy growth in formal employment" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>As per reports by the Ministry of New &amp; Renewable Energy, India added a record renewable energy capacity of 18.48 GW in 2023-2024, with solar installations amounting to 12.78 GW, followed by 2.27 GW of wind energy. However, industry experts have also noted that India Inc. cannot afford to run out of steam now, and must continue to add at least 50 GW for the next six years to meet the target of 500 GW of renewables by 2030. <h2>Indian energy needs</h2>India's energy needs are expected to grow 2 to 2.5 times by 2047, as per the latest economic survey. This necessitates a balanced approach to <keyword id="19951336" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="energy-transition" source="keywords">energy transition</keyword> that considers resource limitations and the need for resilience to climate change. India has suffered from an overdependence on coal and fossil fuels in the past, accounting for around 75% of total energy generation in 2021, as per the Energy Information Administration. However, this number has been quickly falling, even dropping below a historic 50% in Q1 2024. <h2>Sovereign <keyword id="20177085" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="green-bonds" source="keywords">green bonds</keyword></h2>To fund green projects, India issued Rs 16,000 Crore in sovereign green bonds — financial instruments that support green projects at lower capital costs — in early 2023 and another Rs 20,000 Crore later in the year, the economic survey reports. As per the government, these proceeds were utilised in many eco-friendly projects, such as New and Renewable Energy, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Housing and Urban Affairs, Railways. To widen the investor base, the <keyword id="19899810" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="reserve-bank-of-india" source="keywords">Reserve Bank of India</keyword> (RBI) also recently permitted eligible foreign investors to invest in such bonds. <h2>Mission LiFE and Green Credit Programme</h2>The survey also talks extensively about Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), which promotes sustainable living, and the Green Credit Programme (GCP), which incentivises eco-friendly actions by offering “green credits”. In the past few months, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and a few other states have reportedly approved thousands of hectares of degraded forest land for greening exercises as part of the GCP. <h2>International initiatives</h2>India has spearheaded several international initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance (ISA), One World, One Sun, One Grid (OSOWOG), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States’ (IRIS) and the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT). Hundreds of nations are signed up for these climate coalitions and our participation will help reflect India's commitment to advancing global <keyword id="20000756" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate-action" source="keywords">climate action</keyword> and fostering international cooperation in sustainable development. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111923191" title="Economic Survey 2024 – industries grow by 9.5%, fueling economic growth to 8.2%" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>The report even notes that India is currently the only G20 nation who is set not to cross the 2°C warming threshold. All in all, India’s economic survey and environmental reports together show a nation making impressive progress in combating climate change and advancing sustainability. These achievements will hopefully set a strong example for other countries to follow.

You Searched For "energy costs" and got 7 results

Tesla's energy storage business was the highlight of its blowout earnings, and Elon Musk says it's 'growing like wildfire'

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FM cuts customs duty on minerals critical for energy transition

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On the right track — Economic Survey 2023-24 outlines India’s commendable climate action

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