Writing
I write to think. Free, short pieces live here. The longer essays live on Medium.
Op-Eds & Press
A national debate, argued from the front line
- Columbus Dispatch
- cleveland.com
- Utility Dive
- Fast Company
- Ohio Capital Journal
Big Business Has Bamboozled Ohio Before — But Banning Data Centers Is the Wrong Answer
Co-authored with former Congressman Tim Ryan. The citizen petition has the right diagnosis, but a ban is the wrong prescription. The real choice is what these facilities owe the communities where they're built.
A Hidden Solution to Ohio's Data Center Dilemma
Co-authored with former Congressman Tim Ryan. Ohio doesn't have to choose between data-center growth and good outcomes — pair campuses with greenhouses, water reuse, and real local jobs.
Data Centers Can Stack Sustainability, Energy Innovations
Co-authored with former Congressman Tim Ryan. A wave of state laws is reshaping how America builds data centers — but speed alone won't solve the harder problems of power, water, and community benefit.
Data Centers Use Massive Energy and Water. Here's How to Build Them Better
Co-authored with former Congressman Tim Ryan. The race to build AI infrastructure is draining grids and water supplies — but a data center that stacks functions can clean the air, grow food, and power communities.
Ohio Can Solve the Electric Grid's Biggest Problem, and Grow Food While Doing It
Ohio should proactively seize the opportunities in AI data center growth — using local energy, building microgrids, and harnessing waste emissions to support year-round agriculture.
Articles
Free, short-form — published here
Abundance Is a Distribution Problem
Intelligence is getting genuinely cheap. But abundance has never become justice on its own — somebody has to decide how far the wire goes.
The World Runs on Energy and Data
Energy and information were always civilization's two flows. AI is fusing them into one — so we should build them on the same ground.
Build Boring
A sixth-generation farmer on why the durable, unglamorous infrastructure beneath AI — power, heat, water, land — is the real opportunity of the era.
The Thermodynamics of Not Wasting Anything
Follow the second law through the energy cascade — gas to electricity to compute to heat — and co-location stops being a virtue and becomes a necessity.
Keeping the Wells Running
How a problem in our family's oil business became my first company — and the through-line from an Ohio farm to the frontier of energy and AI.
Waste Is a Design Failure
Why I stopped trusting the meter — and started measuring energy in loops instead of lines.
Long-form on Medium
Deeper essays and the memoir series
The Five Loops, One Pad
Burn once. Benefit twice. Close your loops. Publish your receipts.January bit the air hard. The greenhouse smelled like...
The Microgrid Is a Neighborhood
Mansfield VisionRain ran sideways and the street blinked. The greenhouse kept its own weather, steady and warm. Two door...
Removing the Blockers (Location, Location, Location)
Speed isn’t a mystery; it’s a map.Speed isn’t a mystery; it’s a map. Put a campus near power, gas, fiber, water, sewer,...
Boring Wins Winters (Plug It In, Then Sleep)
Frost on the hood. Diesel that smells like old earth. The morning you forget the block heater is the morning that steals...
Roots, Fire, and Energy
AI Is the Civilization’s New Fire — Roots, Fire, and EnergyAmmonia and straw. Dawn light slanting through dust. The barn...
Straight Lines in Snow
Pick a far point. Hold the heading.Snow clean enough to hear it. Tractor idling low, breath fogging the glass. The sprea...
Don’t throw out the baby
Honor the builder; wedge the problem; make it reversible.Boardroom pause; senior engineer speaking from the back; skylin...
When Equity Didn’t Move the Needle
I gave ownership. The work didn’t show. That’s on me.Operations war‑room wall with a visible milestone map: permits, int...
Silo Steps, No Handle
Training fear by exposure you can survive.I was 10 (pre-accident) and fear-ridden. Metal rung. Cold bite. Silage smell t...
Half‑Frozen Load
Finish ugly; prep so you don’t repeat ugly.Night field; stalled spreader; frost on metal; breath visible in headlamp; ci...
What I Write About
The throughlines
Circular Energy
Energy-first campuses, microgrids, and turning waste heat, CO₂, and water into value instead of liabilities.
AI as Infrastructure
Why the real constraint on AI is power, land, and water — and how to build the physical layer responsibly.
Food & Land
Controlled-environment agriculture, regenerative systems, and feeding communities from the same sites that power them.
Mud to Machine Code
Farm to oilfield to software — resilience, systems thinking, and lessons from 40 surgeries and a sixth-generation Ohio farm.