Writes Joanne Nova:

Way back in his 2021, annual CEO letter, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, wrote: “No issue ranks higher than climate change.” It will reshape global capital flows, he said, and declared, “…anyone can see the impact of climate change in the natural disasters in California or Florida.”

Now though, never mind about global extinctions and flash floods. Fink just spoke at the Davos ski club for billionaires and declared that we need “trillions of dollars” of investment for AI. Data centres, he said, are rapidly expanding — one technology company he spoke to said that “its data centres currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.”

But like a true banker, he doesn’t see a backflip, he sees only investment opportunities — the world is short of power he says. (He doesn’t say that this is in large part because BlackRock leaned on companies and countries all over the world to abandon fossil fuels.) Fink helped create the energy shortage that he now calls an investment opportunity. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling $10 trillion dollars in assets, or five times Australia’s GDP. When that much money talks, everyone listens.

Now Larry Fink throws wind and solar under the bus.

He’s matter-of-fact, with a straight face, almost like he never pushed intermittent generators:

Fink: “At the same time, this represents a huge investment opportunity. The world is going to be short of power. And to supply these data centres, you cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power, because these data centres cannot simply turn on and off.”