Tech companies are creating an energy Wild West grabbing land and turbines.
Desperate for Electricity
The Wall Street Journal reports AI Data Centers, Desperate for Electricity, Building Their Own Power Plants
In West Texas, natural-gas-fired power generation is under construction as part of the $500 billion Stargate project from OpenAI and Oracle (ORCL). Gas turbines are in use at Colossus 1 and 2, the massive data centers Elon Musk’s xAI is building in Memphis, Tenn. More than a dozen Equinix (EQIX) data centers across the country are using fuel cells for power.
With the push for AI dominance at warp speed, the “Bring Your Own Power” boom is a quick fix for the gridlock of trying to get on the grid. It’s driving an energy Wild West that is reshaping American power.
Most tech titans would be happy to trade their DIY sourcing for the ability to plug into the electric grid. But supply-chain snarls and permitting challenges are complicating everything, and the U.S. isn’t building transmission infrastructure or power plants fast enough to meet the sudden surge in demand for electricity.
Data centers have long taken power for granted, said KR Sridhar, founder and chief executive of Bloom Energy (BE) which provides fuel cells to companies that need on-site power, often in a hurry. “You build the data center. Well, you just plug it in.”
That isn’t possible anymore given the city-sized amounts of electricity needed to train AI models. One data center can devour as much electricity as 1,000 Walmart stores, and an AI search can use 10 times the amount of energy as a google search.
President Trump in January declared a national energy emergency, in part to keep the U.S. from falling behind China in the AI race. He has issued a series of related executive orders including one that aims to fast-track data-center construction and needed power infrastructure.
China will invest twice as much as the U.S. this year in power plants, storage and the grid, according to the International Energy Agency. It added about 429 gigawatts of new power generation last year, according to the think tank Climate Energy Finance, while the U.S. built about 50 gigawatts.
In some locations, data centers won’t be able to plug into the power grid until the 2030s because of the sheer backlog of projects and the fact that the nation’s high-voltage electric wires are running out of room.
Planning and building large-scale power plants or expanding grid infrastructure takes years. The process, normally gummed up, is even more difficult lately. Projects of all kinds face hurdles obtaining permits, equipment shortages, a labor crunch and rising costs, exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as some copper products.
Orders for transformers began climbing just as global supply chains became snarled at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Data-center demand for the equipment is up 10-fold since then. It’s expected to quintuple next year. New factories and utilities’ efforts to replace aging or damaged equipment have added to the order backlog.
Massive turbines for large power plants have a yearslong backlog. But smaller turbines, reciprocating engines or fuel cells that also can use natural gas remain available—for now. Companies are snatching them up, adding them to data-center sites like Legos. Enough of them equal the output of utility-sized power plants or nuclear reactors.
One project opting to forgo a grid connection altogether is a Meta Platforms (META) data-center campus in Ohio. Regulators in July approved a plan by pipeline company Williams to build on-site natural-gas power. Williams has said it would spend about $1.6 billion on power and pipeline infrastructure for the Columbus-area site as part of the 10-year deal.
In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt is clamoring for a piece of the action. His state advertises cheap electricity and, as needed, abundant natural-gas supplies for those with the money for a DIY power plant.
“I don’t want to play Mother, May I? Can you generate power for me? Is it going to take seven years to connect to the grid? I need a gigawatt of power for AI,” Stitt mused in an interview.
Complicating the picture further, most of the recent investment nationally has focused on renewable energy. About 214 gigawatts of large-scale solar, wind and battery projects are under construction or in various stages of planning, about two-thirds of what is currently operating in the U.S. for those technologies, according to government data.
Analysts, however, expect spending on wind and solar to drop and project cancellations to rise because they are set to lose key federal tax benefits under Trump’s tax-and-spending law. The president and his team argue clean-energy projects don’t provide the round-the-clock power generation needed to meet AI demand and have promised to make permitting more difficult for wind and solar. Wind and solar developers say every available electron will be needed to help meet demand, and they can deliver quickly.
Already, at least $22 billion in new factories and electricity projects have been canceled or scaled back this year, according to data tracked by advocacy group E2, including everything from offshore wind to battery factories. The Energy Department is slashing another nearly $24 billion of funding for early-stage climate projects.
Build First, Figure out the Need Later
Here’s my favorite quote from the article.
“We don’t know exactly where we’re going to use it, but we know we have a multigigawatt planned development for the coming handful of years,” said Raouf Abdel, executive vice president of global operations at Equinix. “We want as much flexibility in our power supply as we can get.”
Caterpillar Connection
“Customers are saying, ‘Hey, can you help us bridge the two to three years until we can get a utility connection?’” said Jason Kaiser, group president of energy and transportation at Caterpillar. “That’s a new and growing opportunity for us.”
The engines have traditionally been used for backup or emergency power, while the smaller turbines have been used at power plants, for pumps and compressors in the oil field and as jet, marine or train engines.
Mark McDougal, co-founder of Joule Capital Partners, plans to use Caterpillar equipment with battery storage at a huge data-center project in Utah located on part of a commercial farm that his family has owned for decades.
It’s designed so that it can connect to the grid later, McDougal said, “but we’re not relying on that.”
Does AI justify This Spending?
Color me skeptical.
On October 14, I addressed the question Is AI a Magic Bullet or a a Doomsday Machine?
But if the cost is totally borne by companies building the data centers, no one should care.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
As noted on September 7, Electricity Costs Are Soaring and AI Will Make Matters Worse
Electricity demand for AI data centers is soaring. The result won’t be pretty.
The data center companies are mostly acting like turbines and power plants are a temporary solution until the grid is ready.
But who is going to pay for the grid updates?
The answer is you and it’s happening already. Moreover, don’t think it will be over in two to three years, because it won’t.
Once again, we can have more and more data centers (for A.I. used to control us) or we can have affordable, quality food. WE CAN’T HAVE BOTH! Pick one.
This is an excellent idea it may generate a small profit selling the electricity to the grid in the next ten years as these AI companies realize they will never recover the cost or generate a sustainable profit from their AI efforts. As battery tech improves the range and reliability of electric cars, the additional power will be needed as we lose our range anxiety and start buying electric vehicles.
Range anxiety is mostly now a non-issue. Charging times and charger reliability has taken over as the main barriers to entry.
“Analysts, however, expect spending on wind and solar to drop and project cancellations to rise because they are set to lose key federal tax benefits under Trump’s tax-and-spending law.”
Not in the virtue signalling, increasingly leftist state of CO where electricity costs are set to rise by 5% per year for the next 5 years because of “green” energy…from snow covered solar panels from China and wind generators with magnets from China.
Electricity prices are rising because of rising demand in the face of limited new supply.
The US needs 40-80 GW of additional electricity generation each year going forward.
In 2024, the US added 30+ GW of solar, 5 GW of wind, 4 GW of natural gas generation, 1 GW of nuclear, 0 hydro, 0 coal.
The numbers for 2025 and 2026 will be similar. Expect 0 additions from nuclear, coal and hydro.
Where will we get another 40+ GW this year and next?
Natural gas will supply 4-5 GW. It can’t do more because of a 2-4 year wait for natural gas turbines.
So where do we get the remaining 35+ GW? Without a LOT of wind and solar there will be electricity shortages and prices will spike.
No matter what new generation we add, it will be more expensive than existing generation.
A new 1 GW natural gas generator costs $1 billion. It can be built in 2 years.
1 GW of solar or wind plus battery costs $1.5 -$2 billion. Also can be built in 2 years.
1 GW of nuclear costs $20 billion. Takes 10-15 years to build.
Is the natural gas distribution system ready for this kind of volume?
Is the diesel production and distribution system ready for this kind of volume?
Just asking for a friend.
No and no.
Diesel generates less than 0.5% of US electricity because diesel is too expensive and polluting compared to natural gas, which already generates 43% of US electricity.
We can only add about 4GW per year of natural gas generation in the next few years though due to various constraints; the biggest constraint being a 2-4 year wait list for gas turbines. Other constraints are pipeline and grid expansions.
However, most AI data centers are looking to bypass the grid and build near an available gas supply. They still need to find gas turbines though.
For comparison purposes, we added 4 GW of natural gas generation in 2024; 30 GW of solar; 5 GW of wind; 1GW of nuclear.
It is projected that the US needs as much as 80 GW of new electricity generation per year going forward, though 40-50 GW is probably enough. That cannot be accomplished with just 4GW of natural gas per year.
How about if crude drops low enough to sideline NG production in the USA? That would open a serious can of whupass on all of us. What’s Trump trying to do to crude prices right now? Mhmmm.
The energy equivalency ratio between crude oil and natural gas is roughly 6:1. Since natural gas is currently $3, oil would have to drop to $18 to have energy price parity and it is currently $57.50. So your scenario is unrealistic.
In addition, the breakeven for producing shale oil is around $65. If oil prices stay in the 50s, we will begin to see shale oil production begin to drop long before we see natural gas production drop. Natural gas breakevens are between $1.50 and $2.50.
It should be the law that every new Data Center must be energy self-sufficient. Watch how quickly micro reactors get approved.
Nope. That’s a fantasy. We have had micro reactors in submarines since 1955. In 70 years we have been unable to commercialize this technology because it is too expensive. And we aren’t the only ones. Russia, China, and 30 other countries are all attempting this as well. But no one can make them work for a reasonable price.
Russia and China each have a test unit or two. But they keep building conventional nuclear reactors instead because they are cheaper. China is currently building 30 conventional nuclear reactors; not smrs.
Problem is, conventional nuclear is not cheap either; in the US it costs $20 billion for 1 GW. In comparison, a 1 GW natural gas plant costs just $1 billion. 1GW of wind or solar plus battery costs $1.5 billion. Which is why almost all new generation in the US is wind, solar or gas.
Well, whichever form it takes, you will see the best most cost effective energy solutions spring to life if/when they obligate these animals to make their own power and not keep raising the cost for everyone else. I don’t see Trump doing it, but the next leader, probably a commie, will force them to.
The only suitable energy solutions are natural gas, wind and solar. Everything else is too expensive or unavailable.
You are wrong about costs to the consumer. There is only so much new generation available to be built. If most of it goes to data centers, there won’t be enough left for utilities and their customers. So a lack of supply will cause prices to go up.
Which is why they will eventually be stopped by lawmakers (due to public outrage) and AI will hit an energy bottleneck/wall imo.
If we cannot build AI data centers in the US, we will have to spend hundreds of billions to build them where power is available. Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. It’s either that or concede the AI race to China.
Do you have a preference?
Given that AI appears to be more self destructive than anything else, I’m not sure if I care that China “wins”.
Then you would be part of a very small group that doesn’t care if China wins the AI race.
China has already become the dominant country in so many areas that are important to national security. Rare earths, batteries, renewable energy, evs, drones, semi-conductors, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, steel, aluminum, etc
Apparently we didn’t care about those areas either.
And AI is probably more important than any of those other areas.
As long as he/she is a real communist not the commie wannbe we have now.
Great topic Mish.
We are in an AI and Electrification race with China. And we seem destined to lose this race. Because they plan for the long term and we do not.
They have carefully and successfully executed this long term plan over the last two decades. And have it planned out for the next 2 decades.
Massive investment in renewables.
Built a cross-country ultra high voltage UHV grid.
Massive investment in developing internal, self-sufficient supply chains.
Dominating the production (60%) and processing (90%) of rare earth minerals need to support this plan.
Electrifying their economy: building a 30,000 mile system of high speed electric trains; dominating the worldwide production of low cost solar panels, windmills, batteries, magnets, evs etc
In 2024 China added 277 Gw of solar. The US 30GW
In 2024 China added 80 GW of wind.
The US added 5 GW of wind.
In 2024 China added 4 GW of nuclear power. The US 1 GW.
In 2024 China added 95 GW of new coal generation while closing 45 GW. Net 50GW. The US added none, and closed 8GW.
In 2024 both countries added 4-5 GW of natural gas generation.
In 2024 China added 3 GW of hydro power. The US zero.
Almost all new US power generation is coming from solar and wind. And Trump is literally trying to stop it. He has cancelled several wind projects already. And he just cancelled the 6.2 GW solar project in Esmeralda County, Nevada, along with 5.2 GW of battery storage.
He is literally trying to run backwards in this race.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241113-will-chinas-ultra-high-voltage-grid-pay-off-for-renewable-power
China graduates more than 1.38 million engineers each year, about seven times more than does the U.S.
In 2024, there were 38,937 law school graduates in the United States. This number reflects a significant increase from previous years, contributing to a robust legal job market.
Just sayin’.
Yep.
I have read that research labs are looking at substituting lawyers for lab rats. They cite three reasons: 1., there are more of them. 2. there are some things a rat just won’t do. 3. some people actually are fond of rats.
But Trump declared an energy emergency, didn’t that fix things? LOL
Energy is the pin that pops the AI bubble. Waiting 2-3 years for the data center to start up is dead money.
Where’s PapaD? Get in here, dude, and throw down some America is doomed stats.
Remind us how far behind China we are in electricity capacity build out!
I do like hearing about data centers bringing their own power though. That’s a start.
So, does anyone know how much solar & wind the Stargate AI project is supposed to commit to building? And how much of the $500B is being allocated to BYOP?
Unlike some here, I have important things to do. Working on my health and fitness, spending time with my family and friends, a bit of consulting, and day trading in the markets. I typically have a few hours per week, and a few extra hours on weekends to check in here. I am also frequently travelling . My apologies for when I am absent.
To help you out, I have just posted about how China is winning this race. Hope that helps.
Stargate AI is estimated to need 25 GW of power. Solar 10–12 GW. Wind 5-7 GW. Battery Storage 5 GW. Grid/other 3-5 GW.
I have a dumb question. If I use an internet search using any search engine, that’s not using AI. If I run the same search using Grok or MS’ Copilot, that is AI and is much more energy intensive by comparison, yes?
I really don’t understand.
The short answer: AI search consumes more power because it doesn’t just retrieve information—it generates it. Let’s break that down with some hard numbers and system-level context:
⚙️ Standard Search (e.g., Google)
• Energy per query: ~0.0003 kWh
• CO₂ emissions per query: ~0.2 grams
• How it works: Google and similar engines index the web in advance. When you search, they retrieve and rank existing pages using relatively lightweight algorithms.
• Efficiency: Highly optimized over decades, with specialized hardware and efficient data centers.
🤖 AI Search (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot)
• Energy per query: ~0.0029 kWh (≈10× more than Google)
• CO₂ emissions per query: ~68 grams (≈340× more)
• Why it’s heavier:• Inference: Every prompt runs a large neural network (often billions of parameters) to generate a unique response.
• Memory & context: AI models often process multiple rounds of conversation, requiring more compute per interaction.
• Hardware: Runs on GPU clusters or specialized AI accelerators, which are power-hungry compared to traditional CPUs.
🌍 At Scale
• Google Search (daily): ~10.8 MWh
• ChatGPT (daily): ~621.4 MWh
That’s the difference between powering ~2,000 homes vs. ~21,600 homes per day.
🧠 Strategic Implication
For someone like you modeling infrastructure and energy tradeoffs, this shift is massive. AI’s rise could reshape data center design, grid demand, and even national energy policy. Some firms are already planning nuclear-powered AI data centers.
Thanks for this answer! Now of course I’m wondering if it was AI generated? And the doom loop begins.
Of course it was AI generated. AI saves a lot of time and aggregates the info for you. It provides links to all the sites it used so you can still go check it out for yourself.
I use AI as much as possible. Great time saver. Though if I doubt the info provided, I will go and check out the sources or ask a different AI tool, or ask the question a different way.
How would you know if AI responses are wrong if you don’t know enough about a topic you’re asking about?
Example: I don’t know enough about how to tune out bass bloat/mud on a recording mixing board to know if the advise ai would provide would be accurate.
Expert tip: Not everything on the internet is accurate. Be careful about relying on ai responses!
Yep. Lots of cult conspiracy sites promoting stupidity and lies that you can see from folks here who fall for that type of crap because it fits with their political views.
https://www.unz.com/runz/donald-trump-as-our-mad-emperor-of-the-bubble/
Literally the first comment of this article is BS:
“These days the Wall Street Journal probably ranks as America’s most influential and credible print outlet”
If not the WSJ, who do you propose is the most trusted & influential?
He won’t be back to answer that
They should build a paying customer base first.
The serfs are at the bottom of the capital structure, to eat the first losses. That is their place and function.
Michigan township sued by AI data center builder and disgruntled residents over opposition to the site — mounting concerns about rising power bills and water usage fuel growing skepticism
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/michigan-township-sued-by-ai-data-center-builder-and-disgruntled-residents-over-opposition-to-the-site-mounting-concerns-about-rising-power-bills-and-water-usage-fuel-growing-skepticism
during hey days of Google , about 15 years ago they run whole internet on off-shelf computers, AND NOBODY GAVE A SH11IT ABOUT ELECTRICITY, grid, etc.
====
are we in AI production or electricity production/ distribution???
outside some weird 3d porn I yet to see how AI is helpful or useful !!!!!
alx
15 years ago, electricity demand was barely growing in the US. The US internet required just 7.5 GW of power to run. Today it is 15 GW. Thanks to AI, in 2030 it will require 22 GW and in 2035, 35 GW.
Bear in mind that 1GW of power can be provided by a $20 billion nuclear plant, a $1 billion natgas plant, or $1.5 billion of renewables and batteries.
Also, 15 years ago, China was already 5 years into their plan to electrify their economy. They are now 20 years into their plan, while in the US, Trump is trying to stop electrifying ours.
don’t complain. the faux libertarian con man running argentina needs 20 billion bailout. the ukes need hundreds of billions. the MICC needs about 1 trillion per annum including VA. trying to take over the world is expensive. and our amerikan people keep voting for all this idiocracy. go visit southern europe and see the roman ruins. democracy works perfectly. amerikans are vile war mongers. only the libertarians and greens here seem peaceful.
this sums up Argentina https://youtu.be/etQeFJ2lbbo?si=tfHT4f-Ry24F4c-K
if gold RISE 1% EACH DAY up until New Year, what would be the price ?
friend asked!!
$9,286.07 based on its current price of: $4,302.80 & 77 days
1% per day when compounded is pretty intense!
Compounded daily that is… 😉
hourly is too much work to make it worth those marginal gains
In other energy news ~ India’s foreign ministry is reporting that it has no idea what Trump is talking about when he says they will stop buying Russian oil. They are not aware of any talks on the subject.
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Meanwhile, gold sits comfortably above $4,200 only five weeks from the settlement of the (delivery month) December futures/options contract on November 24th.
It is worth noting that these contracts were initially traded in 2020 and many holders will/may stand for delivery. All it takes is for a Central Bank or Sovereign Wealth Fund to “Stand For Delivery” and the game of musical chairs that has been going on in the paper market to experience a true “price discovery” event.
With the COMEX having paper contracts for a potential delivery demand of 37,028,700 ounces across the strip ~ and less than 1% of that gold in its warehouses, what could go wrong?
it is called projection! on trump side
trump is mor1on w/ memory time span of gold fish
he already forgot about india oil and Russia.
tomorrow will be new cycle!
look at lme and the nickel contract. when the tbtf loses they change the rules. many exchanges allow settlement in cash instead, so they can’t force delivery
It’s really gonna boom now because OpenAI boss Sam Altman said ChatGPT will soon be allowed to engage in erotic chats with adults — despite continuing concerns over child safety and the tech mogul’s recent boast that the artificial intelligence giant had not created a “sex bot”.
Learn to love your data center
And do try to remember that what your bot loves is not loved by others
By the time People catch on, there will be a Rotation away from MAGA to MASA (“stupid again”) and they will ramp up Solar and Wind and do a ton of mining with Diesel equipment to make that happen.
MAGA will retire on the Excess Lobby funding streaming into Congress and the Admin. That is exactly how America operates.
Pay as you go. Collect as you go. Do not be fooled by Politics.
p.s. Yes, I do not vote.
They have plenty of money already. They want power over others, so they can tell them how to dress, act and think.
These are not remotely rational people.
So the developers now needed to become very fast and efficient drillers, pipeline makers, purification plant maintainers, and power-plant operators.
So many complex operations to be mastered-under the immense pressure of gigantic money
“There will be blood”
….In the latest land grab of the AI infrastructure boom, a Nvidia-backed startup is joining forces with cloud computing heavyweight CoreWeave to build a sprawling, self-powered data center complex in West Texas.
Poolside, an AI company focused on next-gen code generation, plans to construct the 500-acre facility — dubbed Horizon — on a portion of the Mitchell family’s Longfellow Ranch, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The site sits atop the Permian Basin, America’s busiest oil field, and will use natural gas produced on-site to power the operation, a growing trend among AI firms seeking more control over their infrastructure amid soaring demand and constrained chip supply…
When Colossus built its power plant it actually purchased a shuttered Duke Power NG plant in Tennessee that had been stripped of its gas turbines but contained its permitting, grid connection, massive infrastructure and natural gas pipeline supply. Everything was there excepting the switchgear and gas turbines which it sourced from all over the world.
They advertise how quickly it was done, but it was a one off and is not repeatable.
Lotsa hot air and future pain out there in AI’s Lala land.
Since China is limiting the export of rare earth elements required to construct AI data centers, AI data centers in the US will not require any power plants.
China is determined to stop the US from building AI data centers. This is a national security threat to the US.
You can thank every president since Bill Clinton, with the exception of Trump, for putting us in this situation. Thanks to environmental laws and free trade agreements, the US is unable to produce rare earth elements.
The Democrats, of course, blame Trump for this, believing that China would remove its limits on the shipment of rare earth elements if Trump licked Xi’s feet.
Nope. You can thank Trump for putting us in this position. He should have prioritized the stockpiling and processing of rare earth minerals in his first term before taking on China. Since he did not do that in his first term, he should have prioritized it in his second term before starting an even bigger trade war with China. Now he has put us in a terrible situation.
He is threatening China with an empty gun, and asking China to send him some bullets.
Lol!
China is not that stupid. They would never tolerate Trump stockpling rare earth minerals.
Lol! China only mines 60% of the world’s rare earth minerals. There are other sources. But even if we purchased them from other sources, and stockpiled them, we still need to be able to process them. And Trump has done nothing about processing in his first or second term.
Plus, we would need to have good trading relations with whoever we were purchasing rare earths from in order to stockpile them. And Trump is doing his best to piss off everyone we trade with. That would also give those countries another bargaining chip to use against Trump if needed.
Malarkey. All of it.
Lol! Which part? Ignore the facts if you want to. Keep your head firmly up Trump’s ass. It’s probably warm and comfy there for you.
a slice of life for a former ally of the US…
Regarding ongoing trade negotiations with the US, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Monday that the US had come up with a new proposal that Korea was currently reviewing.
Cho said that the US has softened on its demand for an all-cash investment of US$350 billion and that the two sides were “slowly finding common ground.”
During an audit by the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, independent lawmaker Lee Choon-suak asked Cho about the impact that a direct investment of US$350 billion in the US would have on the Korean economy. Cho replied that the US had come forward with a new proposal.
When asked about the details of the new proposal, Cho responded, “If we invest US$350 billion [all in cash] as they’re currently asking, our foreign exchange market would not be able to withstand the shock. We made a proposal, and they offered an opinion, and that’s how the negotiations are going.”
The minister did not mention anything specific about the supposed new proposal made by the US, but when asked if the US had backed down in its demand for South Korea to invest US$350 directly in a single up-front cash payment, Cho responded, “Yes.”
Trump counts on headlines that yell “victory!” and short attention spans. This fits the model perfectly.
Utility stocks are up more than NASDAQ year-to-date.
Data centers (6 years) don’t last as long as fixed power stations (20-50 years).
BTW the WSJ article lacks historical perspective. It has never been the case that a major power-hungry industry just springs up with a power grid ready at hand. For instance, aluminum production gets built where cheap power is available… not the other way ‘round.
Also quite interesting that we never heard all this power-grid whining from the equally power-hungry digital “very special numbers” computing industry (which pretends that it’s “mining coins”). Those also worked out that it was better to set up where cheap power could be had.
I think the “AI is taxing the grid” whining is a deflection by certain political interests who have made extremely poor policy choices resulting in soaring retail electricity costs to regular folks. This is a huge political liability in half the country. Shifting blame from “we screwed up the grid by building the wrong mix of power sources” to “it’s all AIs fault” is very convenient for people who are otherwise about to lose their elected positions.
Unprepared schmucks is the correct answer. I warned about insurance, food (beef rib-eye now $30/lb), and I am now warning about utilities. Electricity will be worse but gas and water won’t be far behind.
If you don’t have an exit strategy then holding assets (real estate, bonds, dividend stocks, etc) that will help pay for these increased costs is the least you should do otherwise you’ll be here on Mishtalk whining about high utility bills. And no, your COLA won’t be enough for you fixed income folks and no the Trump cult master won’t save you either.
“It’s Trump turtles all the way down and inflation all the way up!”
Max pain coming around 2030, be prepared or have exit strategy.
The massive use of power & water (dwindling resources) by AI Data Centers are definitely concerns & must be addressed, as are the electronic waste disposal methods. And in the U.S. with renewable energy being given a lesser priority it aggravates the situation. I don’t have the answer on is it worth it, but am worried & i don’t think this current administration is capable of mitigating the issues nor does it care which makes it worse.
Mitigating? This administration is actively demolishing any solutions for these issues. All they have is quasi-religious faith in crony capital and the errant visions of tech oligarchs.