Welcome to Moral Money, I’m Jennifer Hughes from the Lex team, standing in for Simon this week. Here’s a topic dear to the interests of both MM and Lex readers: AI, and how to power it, where already enormous numbers just seem to keep growing. This week that was writ large in the proposed $420bn merger of utilities giants NextEra and Dominion Energy. Ostensibly, the deal is all about gearing up to power more AI. But underneath, it shows a US pragmatism about the future mix of energy sources not always reflected in headline-grabbing caricatures of a fossil fuel and “woke” green debate.
欢迎来到“金钱与道德”(Moral Money)栏目。我是来自Lex团队的珍妮弗•休斯(Jennifer Hughes)，本周代替西蒙主持。本期的话题既切合“金钱与道德”的读者兴趣，也符合Lex读者的关心：AI，以及如何为其提供动力——在这个领域，本就庞大的数字似乎只会不断膨胀。本周，这一点在一桩规模高达4200亿美元的合并计划中体现得尤为明显：公用事业巨头NextEra与道明尼能源公司(Dominion Energy)拟合并。表面上，这笔交易完全是为了为不断增长的AI用电需求做好准备。但更深一层看，它体现出美国在未来能源结构搭配上的一种务实态度，而这种态度并不总能在那些围绕化石燃料与“觉醒”绿色议题的、博人眼球的争论图景中得到体现。