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Energy Empire · Thursday · 1 hr 18 min

AI Is Breaking the Grid. A Flywheel Could Fix It.

AI data centers make power demand jump in milliseconds. The grid can't keep up, and ratepayers get the bill. Nate Walkingshaw, founder and CEO of Torus, has a fix already spinning: a multi-ton steel flywheel in a vacuum, one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2024, now part of a 500-megawatt agreement with PacifiCorp. Nate was a paramedic making $7.14 an hour when he started inventing. Stryker bought his company when he was 29. Then came the Pluralsight IPO, a Christmas tree farm that could make its own power but couldn't store it, and a flywheel equation his sons worked out at home. In this episode: The argument with a utility CEO that redirected the company: "You have no idea what you have." Why a GPU load looks like an EKG, and why a power plant 300 miles away can't keep up with it From 33 dispatches a year to 500: how one utility went from teacher to biggest customer The 33 gigawatts Nate says we could free up tomorrow, without building a single power plant Inside GigaOne, where new hires go from $22 an hour to six-figure programming jobs "We're the Sudafed of the grid" Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Energy Empire Merch: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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AI data centers make power demand jump in milliseconds. The grid can't keep up, and ratepayers get the bill.


Nate Walkingshaw, founder and CEO of Torus, has a fix already spinning: a multi-ton steel flywheel in a vacuum, one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2024, now part of a 500-megawatt agreement with PacifiCorp.


Nate was a paramedic making $7.14 an hour when he started inventing. Stryker bought his company when he was 29. Then came the Pluralsight IPO, a Christmas tree farm that could make its own power but couldn't store it, and a flywheel equation his sons worked out at home.


In this episode:

  • The argument with a utility CEO that redirected the company: "You have no idea what you have."
  • Why a GPU load looks like an EKG, and why a power plant 300 miles away can't keep up with it
  • From 33 dispatches a year to 500: how one utility went from teacher to biggest customer
  • The 33 gigawatts Nate says we could free up tomorrow, without building a single power plant
  • Inside GigaOne, where new hires go from $22 an hour to six-figure programming jobs
  • "We're the Sudafed of the grid"



Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar

S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas

Energy Empire Merch: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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