• O'Leary Digital's CEO says a Wall Street firm's analysis misses work happening before construction.
• Paul Palandjian, the CEO, said the company's two campuses will generate their own electricity.
• He outlined land deals, permitting, and early funding, saying delivery should be judged in phases.

Kevin O'Leary's data center company has a message for analysts who doubt its enormous AI ambitions: You're not seeing the whole picture.

Paul Palandjian, CEO of O'Leary Digital, pushed back on a Bernstein Research assessment that put the firm near the bottom of the data center industry's credibility rankings. In an emailed response to Business Insider, he detailed land agreements, water applications and licensing, engineering work, and funding that he said the analysis overlooks.

"Scrutiny during this cycle is fair," Palandjian wrote. He added, "A score built from announced-capacity data ranks every pre-construction project low on construction progress by definition, and it cannot see confidential work."

His response gets at a central question in the AI building boom: How much weight should investors give the work that happens before data center construction begins?

Bernstein examined thousands of data center projects using data from the tracking firm Aterio, assessing factors such as construction progress, electricity availability, and industry experience. Its analysis concluded that only about 35% of announced data center capacity in the US will get built.

O'Leary Digital received a credibility score of 0.35 out of 5. Bernstein estimated that 489 megawatts of its announced 15-gigawatt pipeline would materialize, roughly 3%. The analysts grouped it with ambitious newcomers described as "bragawatts."

Palandjian said the 15-gigawatt figure represents the full build-out of two campuses in Utah and Alberta over several years.

"We would rather be judged on milestones than on a model," he wrote.

Data center power without the queue

Palandjian's clearest distinction concerns electricity, one of the biggest obstacles facing data center developers.

"We are not in an interconnection queue," he wrote, referring to the waiting lists for connections to the electricity grid.

Instead, both campuses are designed to generate all their electricity on-site, he said, with direct access to natural gas pipelines and supplies. That's what the industry calls "behind the meter": producing power at the facility rather than relying on an electricity utility to supply it from the grid.

Data center land, water, and early money

In Utah, Palandjian said the Military Installation Development Authority had approved and executed a 30-year development agreement naming O'Leary Digital as master developer of the project area.

About 11,000 acres are under binding agreements, he said. Master planning, ground studies, and laser-based land surveying have finished at both sites, and the company filed an engineered Utah water application in late September, he added.

In Alberta, about 13,000 acres are under a binding agreement, and a water license for 6 million cubic meters a year has been granted, Palandjian said. He also said that both sites are away from densely populated residential communities.

On money, Palandjian said his firm has capital for both pre-development and advancing the project toward key milestones. He did not specify a funding amount or say the entire build-out was financed.

He said that the engineering, power, and construction firms working with the company, and the global banks advising it, provide evidence of its ability to deliver.

"With that team, every critical part of the project is being worked through, gaps are identified early, and we are closing them to raise our probability of success," he wrote.

Palandjian said that while O'Leary Digital is young, its team has decades of experience in real estate, power, and infrastructure.

Bernstein's skepticism does not mean every newcomer will fail.

"It's not that all of these guys are sort of terrible and not going to deliver, but we just have lower confidence because we don't know them," analyst Madison Rezaei said.

With Palandjian's update, now we know a bit more.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

Earlier this week, EU officials said in unusually staunch terms that they would not buy Arctic oil and gas.

Even if someone (Norway) decided to drill new oil or gas wells in the Barents Sea, which is well above the Arctic Circle, the EU would not purchase it.

The goal is to dissuade investors. It costs many billions of euros to develop gas or oil at scale in the harsh conditions of the far north.

If there is no offtake market in continental Europe, no-one is going to take the risk.

The thing is, EU buyers already buy gas (and oil) from the Arctic. A lot of it.

Most of the gas, some 12 million tonnes so far this year, comes from Russia’s Yamal LNG plant, which sits on the shore of the biggest estuary you have never heard of, the Gulf of Ob (Obskaya Guba in Russian).

But that will end 10 weeks from now, when the EU ban on Russian LNG kicks in.

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The Trump administration is advancing some wind projects after a court order required it to do so. A White House official said Thursday that an initial set of wind projects under Pentagon review have been released. The official said this represents two projects located in Maine and South Dakota. The official said the Defense Department…

The Trump administration is advancing some wind projects after a court order required it to do so. A White House official said Thursday that an initial set of wind projects under Pentagon review have been released. The official said this represents two projects located in Maine and South Dakota. The official said the Defense Department…

Claims that Washington and Tel Aviv are preparing a large-scale new military strike on Iran have raised regional tension, just days before Israel's October 27 parliamentary election and the United States' November 3 midterm vote. Neither government has confirmed the reports.

Australia's largest renewable energy project, Snowy 2.0, now costs an estimated $25 billion and has slipped to late 2029.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the EU to weigh a naval operation in the Black Sea after a string of attacks on civilian commercial vessels. Lawmakers want Brussels to explore options to protect shipping lanes vital to regional trade.

US President Donald Trump has failed to reach an agreement with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin on halting strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure. However, Trump is trying to shift the blame for this failure onto President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he said on The Diary of a CEO podcast.

His words came amid Russia's four record waves of ballistic missile attacks, after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff described Putin as a "humanitarian." Previously, US officials cut Kyiv off from US intelligence and lowered a speed cap on Starlink to pressure Ukraine into stopping strikes on Russia's oil refineries that bring Moscow revenue for its war.

Trump pins the problem on Kyiv, not Putin

Zelenskyy explained the behavioral pattern behind Trump's recent actions and statements. At first, Putin rejected his proposal for a ceasefire. Then, the US president blamed it all on him, explaining to his people that world fuel prices are rising because of him, which is not true at all, said the Ukrainian leader.

He pointed to the blocked Strait of Hormuz shipping chokepoint, not Ukraine’s refinery campaign, as the driver of higher prices.

He also noted that the volumes of diesel allowed by the US are insufficient to lower global oil prices.

Even so, Zelenskyy said he keeps a working relationship with Trump. What he will not accept is being cast as the villain in Russia’s war: by his account, the US president is rewriting the context, turning Ukraine’s leader into the target for a problem that starts in Moscow.

Earlier, experts said the diesel deal was unlikely to meaningfully lower diesel prices. For Putin, the agreement itself was a win.

Trump’s Russian diesel deal, which drew fury in Ukraine, is unlikely to lower prices, experts say

A former senior State Department official says it hardly matters whether the fuel arrives, because Putin “has already achieved the result he wants,” with Trump believing he has a pre-election card that could move markets.

Following hot-on-the-heels of Rewilding Portugal, and backing up stiff opposition from local people and quite a few celebrities, several environmental organisations have spoken out today against the revised Sophia solar

The post NGOs unite to warn revised Sophia solar project still presents significant environmental challenges appeared first on Portugal Resident.

In questi giorni il caro vita turba i sonni del mondo politico e sindacale, compresi quanti finora hanno ignorato i diffusi rincari dell’energia e dei beni di prima necessità, riducendo l’emergenza a mera polemica politica.

Segue nostro Telegram.

In questi giorni il caro vita turba i sonni del mondo politico e sindacale, compresi quanti finora hanno ignorato i diffusi rincari dell’energia e dei beni di prima necessità, riducendo l’emergenza a mera polemica politica.

Tuttavia, anche le poche mobilitazioni in corso dimenticano che la causa primaria dell’inflazione è proprio l’economia di guerra: l’escalation militare ha fatto ripartire la corsa dei prezzi, con conseguenze particolarmente pesanti per le economie europee, dipendenti dal greggio in transito nel Golfo Persico.

Un tempo le forniture principali arrivavano dalla Russia a costi decisamente inferiori a quelli attuali. Affermare che l’economia di guerra sia la causa principale dell’inflazione e del rallentamento economico europeo significa semplicemente prendere atto della realtà.

I dati parlano chiaro: tra marzo e agosto la UE ha sostenuto 54 miliardi di dollari di costi aggiuntivi netti solo per le importazioni di gas e petrolio. Questo dato basterebbe da solo ad aprire un dibattito serio sulle conseguenze economiche dei conflitti.

A confermare il quadro è l’Ufficio Studi della CGIA di Mestre: a fine anno gli italiani pagheranno 29 miliardi di euro in più tra rincari di elettricità, gas e carburanti. Solo in Italia il costo dell’energia elettrica è balzato del 51,2%. Rincari dovuti all’instabilità delle catene di approvvigionamento, alle speculazioni finanziarie e all’aumento delle spese militari, che sottraggono risorse essenziali al welfare.

Di fronte a questo scenario, la risposta del Governo appare timida e priva di coraggio. Mentre sostiene le spese per il riarmo, prova a calmierare con fondi pubblici le bollette degli italiani (che stimano una spesa aggiuntiva media di 153 euro all’anno per l’elettricità e 477 euro per il gas). Parallelamente, i rincari a doppia cifra colpiscono anche i beni alimentari di largo consumo: la dimostrazione che non si tratta di un incidente di percorso, ma di un effetto strutturale dell’economia di guerra.

In questo contesto, le manifestazioni di piazza rischiano di rivelarsi inefficaci, sia per la scarsa adesione sia per la debolezza delle motivazioni. Manca una riflessione complessiva sul sistema economico e sui meccanismi che spingono verso il basso i salari (a partire dai criteri di calcolo dell’IPCA). I bonus non sono la soluzione, bensì il sintomo del progressivo smantellamento del welfare pubblico.

È urgente iniziare a parlare apertamente di “economia di guerra”: un modello di produzione che alimenta la corsa alle risorse, dirotta i fondi pubblici verso la difesa e giustifica la sottrazione di risorse ai servizi essenziali. In caso contrario, continueremo a inseguire singoli provvedimenti tampone senza mai affrontare la vera radice del problema.

Articolo originale:  lantidiplomatico.it

QatarEnergy has signed two long-term agreements to purchase up to 4 million tonnes of U.S. liquefied natural gas annually from Cheniere Energy through 2054, as the Gulf producer continues to...

Officials say country currently has a competitive advantage but urgently needs funds to stay relevant

The European Parliament on Thursday (22 October) backed a three-year delay to the EU’s methane rules for oil and gas importers, two years more than the European Commission proposed last week.

MEPs also voted to extend the delay to European oil and gas producers, which goes beyond the commission’s plans.

The text now forms parliament’s position for negotiations with member states, whose ambassadors failed to agree on Wednesday.

Under the amendments, tabled by the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), importers would only have to prove that their oil and gas meets EU monitoring standards from 2031, instead of 2027 under the current law.

Reporting on methane intensity would also be delayed from 2028 to 2031.

A separate amendment from a cross-party group of 36 Romanian and Bulgarian MEPs, which also passed, delays reporting obligations for EU operators by three years, to 2030.

MEPs also approved an amendment, tabled by Dutch Socialist MEP Mohammed Chahim, that the extra time should not apply to oil, gas and coal from countries under EU sanctions, which in practice means Russia.

A far-right Patriots for Europe proposal to suspend the regulation altogether was rejected, as was a push by the conservative ECR group to delay parts of the rules even longer.

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New projections by the Snowy Hydro company show tunnelling work is now 65% finished, but the completion date has been pushed back to 2029

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The cost of Snowy Hydro 2.0 has blown out to as much as $25bn, with a major reassessment finding the long-delayed renewable energy project will not be completed until the end of the decade.

First touted by the Turnbull government in 2017 with a price tag of $2bn, the cost of the project in the Kosciuszko national park has increased dramatically over time. In 2023 it was revised to almost $13bn, with construction due to completed by the end of 2028.

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© Photograph: Snowy Hydro

© Photograph: Snowy Hydro

© Photograph: Snowy Hydro

Saudi Arabia is in talks with foreign governments to give state-owned Aramco access to their strategic oil storage, as the kingdom seeks to make its supplies to customers more resilient during disruptions, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said.

Iran's navy said four vessels were struck simultaneously while transferring oil cargo ship-to-ship in the northern Persian Gulf and continued burning. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy did not say who was responsible for the strikes.

SINGAPORE: Oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel ‌on Thursday after more Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia stoked concerns over a broader escalation of conflict and further disruptions to supplies from the Middle East. Brent crude futures rose $1.93, or 1.77 percent, to $110.75 a barrel at 07:42 a.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude gained $1.43, or 1.47 percent, to $98.58. ​Brent had settled largely unchanged on Wednesday, while WTI had eased 67 cents. “Oil prices remain well bid

European Union leaders have correctly identified high energy prices as a threat to households, industry and the wider economy, but their proposed response remains inadequate, energy systems expert Andreas Poullikkas has warned.

Writing after the EU summit held on October 15-16, the former Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority (CERA) chairman and vice-rector of Frederick University argued that Europe needed structural investment in electricity networks, interconnections and energy storage rather than continued reliance on temporary support measures.

“The diagnosis is correct, but the treatment remains largely inadequate,” Poullikkas said, assessing the summit’s conclusions.

EU leaders called for a coordinated response based on targeted and temporary measures, welcoming delays to certain obligations under the methane regulation and the proposed extension of the temporary state aid framework for the industrial sectors most exposed to high energy costs.

They also supported voluntary pooling of energy demand by businesses and industries, allowing larger combined purchasing volumes to strengthen negotiating power and potentially secure lower, more stable prices.

On the EU emissions trading system (ETS), leaders called for faster legislative work on the Market Stability Reserve to limit excessive volatility and for an updated assessment of the impact of the ETS2 system.

Poullikkas welcomed the recognition that the energy transition could help address both energy security and affordability, describing it as the most positive aspect of the summit’s conclusions.

“The energy transition, with faster electrification, more renewables and other low-emission sources, stronger grids, storage and energy efficiency, is the most effective strategy for structurally lower prices,” he said.

However, he warned that the volatility of carbon allowance prices was already affecting energy costs rather than representing a theoretical concern.

Carbon allowances approached €88 per tonne in early October 2026 and remained above €85 in the middle of the month, according to his analysis.

“When fossil fuel power plants set the electricity market price, every increase or decrease in the price of emissions allowances is transferred directly to the consumer’s bill,” Poullikkas said.

He argued that the EU needed a clear and predictable intervention mechanism to ensure carbon pricing continued to encourage investment without becoming an additional source of uncertainty.

The first weakness in the summit’s approach, he said, was that temporary measures could ease immediate pressure without changing the underlying cost structure.

“If state aid is not linked to investment in renewables, storage and energy savings, it risks entrenching the dependence it is supposed to reduce,” Poullikkas warned.

He also questioned the consistency of the EU’s approach to regulatory certainty, with leaders calling for a transparent and predictable carbon market while simultaneously welcoming delays to certain methane obligations.

“Investors and importers need stable rules, not continuous revisions,” he said.

In his assessment, every postponement risked reinforcing the impression that regulatory requirements could be changed under pressure.

Poullikkas identified infrastructure as the third and most serious weakness, noting that the package of measures for European electricity grids was among the files expected to be completed by the end of the year.

However, the summit conclusions did not set quantitative targets, specify funding or establish an implementation timetable for the necessary infrastructure.

“Interconnections and storage are not a luxury,” he said, describing them as essential infrastructure for security of supply and price stability.

Although EU leaders explicitly recognised the role of cross-border electricity interconnections in supporting Ukraine, Poullikkas argued that the conclusions did not provide equivalent attention to the bloc’s own island and isolated energy systems.

The protection of vulnerable consumers represented another gap, particularly in relation to ETS2, the emissions trading system intended to cover additional sectors.

Under the mechanism, additional allowances can be released from the Market Stability Reserve if the average auction price exceeds €45 per tonne in 2020 prices, adjusted for inflation, for two consecutive months.

“This is a mechanism for easing price pressures, not an absolute price cap,” Poullikkas said.

While he considered the direction appropriate, he argued that household protection needed to be explicit and adequately funded to prevent climate policy from becoming a social burden.

He called for a more substantial European intervention built around binding targets and EU funding for electricity grids and interconnections, with specific provision for island and isolated energy systems.

Clear targets and market mechanisms for energy storage were also needed to absorb more renewable electricity and reduce reliance on expensive peak-generation plants.

At the same time, Poullikkas argued that Europe needed a genuinely competitive electricity market with transparent price signals that encouraged investment and prevented market distortions.

He proposed introducing a price shock absorber to limit the temporary pass-through of extreme fossil fuel price fluctuations into wholesale electricity prices.

“During periods of extreme fluctuations in fossil fuel prices, their transmission to the wholesale electricity market should be temporarily limited, protecting consumers and businesses without undermining the functioning of the market,” he said.

Temporary support measures should also be tied to investment commitments and clear expiry dates, he added, so they acted as a bridge towards a different energy system rather than becoming permanent exceptions.

Poullikkas also highlighted the strategic importance of the Eastern Mediterranean, arguing that the region could become an energy corridor to Europe and strengthen security of supply.

Concerns expressed by EU leaders over the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, as well as the possibility of prolonged disruption to international energy supply chains, made the need for regional energy cooperation more urgent, he said.

“The EU will not solve the cost of energy through successive emergency interventions,” Poullikkas warned.

“Grids, storage, interconnections and a stable carbon market are needed,” he added.

Unless the summit’s diagnosis is translated into binding targets, specific timetables and sufficient funding, Europe risks returning to the same emergency measures every winter, he concluded.

Saudi Arabia's energy ministry says two people were killed and two others wounded in an attack on the Shaybah oil field in the kingdom's Eastern Province. TRT Haber reports that the strike comes amid a broader rise in attacks on Saudi Arabia. The field is one of the kingdom's largest oil-producing sites.