Ramez Naam
Person
Ramez Naam is an author, speaker, and technologist who focuses on clean energy, innovation, and climate change. He has appeared as a guest on podcasts such as 'Moonshots with Peter Diamandis' to discuss advancements in grid capacity, battery technology, and wave-powered datacenters.
What Ramez Naam has said on podcasts
37 statements
Sodium-ion batteries could reduce battery costs tenfold.
“new technologies like sodium ion batteries could drop the cost of batteries by a factor of 10”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 0:13
Battery costs will decline another tenfold.
“Batteries are plunging in cost and are going to drop another 10x.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 0:29
Energy availability constrains AI development.
“energy is the bottleneck for AI”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 6:57
Grid transmission infrastructure is a major obstacle to new power connections.
“the poles and wires are a huge problem”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 7:52
Software-only recursive self-improvement will eventually show diminishing returns.
“Every model of RSI and software fizzles over time.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 12:44
Recursive self-improvement is unlikely to produce an intelligence takeoff with a vertical asymptote.
“There is no mathematical model of RSI that's valid that I can see. That leads to an actual like, you know, vertical asymptote to take off.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 12:56
Large Texas data centers requesting power now may not connect before 2031–2032.
“if you put in a request for hundreds of megawatts of power to build the data center today, good luck getting that power before 2031. 2032.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 16:14
Grid poles and wires have not experienced exponential technological improvement.
“the poles and wires have thus far not become an exponential technology”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 19:13
Large natural-gas turbines for data centers have approximately seven-year backlogs.
“These are now sold out for something like seven years.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 23:30
Utility compensation should reward speed of power delivery rather than only capital spending.
“Utilities, instead of just getting paid for a percentage over capex, they should be paid on things like how fast they can deliver power.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 27:52
Flexible or interruptible loads can receive faster grid connections.
“if you can either find some alternate way to power yourself or just turn down your power at moments of peak demand will get you connected much, much faster”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 29:30
One percent annual flexibility could unlock roughly 100 gigawatts of grid capacity.
“if you can be flexible, 100 hours out of the year, four days out of the year, 1% downtime, that unlocks 100 gigawatts of capacity on the grid”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 32:28
Battery-backed load shifting will become common beyond Texas within a year.
“Twelve months from now, this will be a super common approach, not just in Texas.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 33:58
Grid-responsive loads could support roughly five years of AI data-center growth.
“I think that's 100 gigawatts. I think that's if we're smart about it, that's the next five years of AI data center growth.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 38:34
Sodium-ion chemistry could substantially lower battery costs relative to lithium-ion technology.
“new technologies like lithium ion has been dominant. Sodium is much more common on planet earth. And lithium. So new technologies like sodium ion batteries could drop the cost of batteries by a factor of 10.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 39:43
Each cumulative doubling of solar deployment reduces costs by approximately 30%.
“every cumulative doubling of solar scale reduces costs by, let us say 30%.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 43:16
Solar costs may fall four- to eightfold, not one-thousandfold, under ordinary deployment growth.
“the cost of solar might drop by a factor of four, maybe even by a factor of eight, but not by a factor of 1,000.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 43:49
Winter seasonality, rather than cost or nighttime, is solar power’s key remaining problem.
“the problem for solar is not cost and it's not nighttime because batteries are plunging in cost and are going to drop another 10x. Ultimately it is winter.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 52:38
Nuclear, seasonal storage, fusion, and advanced geothermal can address solar’s seasonal limitations.
“nuclear is super useful as is, you know, efforts to get seasonal storage, as are all of efforts on fusion, as is advanced geothermal”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 54:27
AI compute should be located where energy is abundant.
“Why don't we cite it where the energy is. Right. So that's one viewpoint.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 55:19
Nuclear fission is very expensive outside leading countries because deployment volume is low.
“the core issue with nuclear fission today is that outside of China and perhaps South Korea, it is ruinously expensive. And why is it ruinously expensive? It's because we don't do a lot of it.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:04:47
New nuclear fission designs are passively safe against loss of power.
“New nuclear fission designs are passive safe.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:09:34
No commercial small modular reactor is expected before 2030–2031.
“I don't expect anyone to actually have a commercial small modular reactor in 2030, 2031.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:15:45
Fusion energy is no longer necessarily fifty years from practical realization.
“The joke was always that fusion is 50 years in the future and always will be. That's just no longer true.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:21:19
Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans a fusion reactor reaching break-even at roughly 600 megawatts.
“instead of a 5 gigawatt reactor being necessary to be break even, they can do it in like 600 megawatts is their plan.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:24:13
Helion aims to provide Microsoft 50 megawatts of fusion power in 2028.
“The most aggressive timeline is Helion. They have a power purchase agreement from Microsoft to provide 50 megawatts of power. So very small. And again, the smaller you can build, the more modular it is when we get those learning rates in 2028.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:28:04
Fusion reactions shut down without catastrophic consequences when reactor operation fails.
“with fusion if like if you mess something up up in the reactor, it just like goes, it just like fails and nothing bad happens.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:31:40
Fusion companies may fail technically or succeed without achieving economical power.
“all of these companies might fail, they might 100% fail and in addition to that, they might succeed but be too expensive.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:32:53
Proton–boron-11 fuel could potentially enable nuclear power costing one to three cents per kilowatt-hour.
“PB11 is one of the ways that you can. One of the fuels you can use to potentially get a nuclear reactor that is down to the like 1, 2, 3 cents kilowatt hour.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:36:21
Space-based AI becomes cost-competitive if launch costs fall four- to tenfold.
“AI in space, it becomes cost competitive. When you get down to a launch cost that is, you know, something like four times to 10 times cheaper than what we have today.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:41:05
Space is likely to host most compute if compute demand remains effectively unlimited.
“Space is the obvious place if the demand for compute is truly unbounded.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:48:32
Compute demand will rise sharply before reaching a saturation point tied to economic needs.
“my guess is we're on an S curve right now. We're going to see a huge demand and then we're going to see, we're going to hit to some point of satisficing”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:50:00
Current AI is better understood as a tool than as an autonomous, volitional being.
“I do not see AI as a being and I do not see it as particularly volitional. I see it as a tool.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:50:31
Wave-powered ocean data centers could eventually produce electricity at about two cents per kilowatt-hour.
“So they can get their power down to like we think 2 cents a kilowatt hour. Ultra cheap.”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:56:08
Advanced geothermal technologies could provide inexpensive power far beyond geological hotspots.
“Those open up the possibility of getting cheap geothermal power anywhere instead of just only near hot spots in the Earth's crust”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 1:58:16
Future algorithmic discoveries could substantially improve AI energy efficiency.
“there are algorithmic discoveries waiting to be made”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 2:00:23
Digital intelligence can eventually surpass human intelligence.
“I believe fully that digital intelligence, there's every reason to believe that it can surpass us”
Open the episode · 200GW Hiding in Grid, Sodium Batteries 10x Cheaper, Wave-Powered Datacenters w/ Ramez Naam | EP #280Listen at 2:02:45
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
