US power price rises are from data centres. Nothing but data centres.
Brookings: make the data centres pay to build the power plants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYWs1HQEEHE&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260305-power-prices-data-centres-nothing-but-data-centres - podcast
time: 8 min 47 sec
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/05/power-prices-data-centres-nothing-but-data-centres/ - blog post
@mtrojan yyyeahhh one thing nuclear is not is fast
(despite trump's decrees to move fast and irradiate things)
@davidgerard what you’d hope for: AI companies are forced to invest in new renewable generation and storage capacity, which society can inherit at a nice discount when they go bust
What we’ll get: a bunch of reconditioned jet engine turbines and re-opened coal-fired plants
@mark_f_lynch @davidgerard Yes.
Here in Michigan we have one decrepit coal plant that the DoE has demanded stay up despite it being costly and redundant as well as a nuclear plant that has been offline for a decade and in the process of decommissioning until the decommissioning company had the bright idea of re-commissioning it. Meanwhile the gas, renewables, and storage to replace those is already up and running. Or not, because they are excess capacity.
@davidgerard Or, hear me out here, shut down the data centres that drive "AI".
Remember that climate collapse we were all talking about pre-"AI"? Still happening, and all the techno-ouija crap is accelerating the time scale.
@davidgerard I beg to differ.
Trump’s DoE has worked on multiple fronts to thwart the migration to renewables in ways that land the costs of doing so on ratepayers rather than investors: ordering antique coal plants to stay up, stalling half-done renewable projects, etc.
Data center demand is the dominant source of higher prices in many places, but horrendous MAGA policy is adding to the problem.
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