Solar booms in industrial US midwest as energy crisis persists

Electricity has become one of the most important commodities in the region thanks to demand from datacenters, Iran war and rising utility charges…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/02/solar-midwest-energy-crisis

 

I spoke to AI agent Claude — Senator Bernie Sanders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3AtWdeu_G0

 

‘Pay for your own power’: Shapiro digs in on data center energy costs - POLITICO

"Pay for your own power, so it's not saddling local businesses or homeowners with higher costs," Shapiro said in an interview with POLITICO earlier this month from a union hall in Philadelphia…https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/19/shapiro-tests-democrats-data-center-strategy-00767682 

Trump launches bid to tame electricity prices in the Northeast - POLITICO

The governors of Pennsylvania, Virginia and other states in that market have long feuded with the grid operator, called PJM Interconnection, over its handling of power supply and demand mismatches that have spiked prices across the region. Others in the market include all or part of Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/16/trump-tame-electricity-prices-00733422 

 

‘Just an unbelievable amount of pollution’: how big a threat is AI to the climate?

"It was jaw-dropping," said Wilson, a former oil and gas worker from Texas who has documented methane releases for more than a decade and estimates xAI's Colossus datacentre was spewing more of the planet-heating gas than a large power plant. "Just an unbelievable amount of pollution."… 

 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/03/just-an-unbelievable-amount-of-pollution-how-big-a-threat-is-ai-to-the-climate

Michigan residents fight against huge data center backed by tycoons

Saline Township, Michigan, residents fear the $7bn center would jack up energy bills, pollute groundwater, and destroy the area's rural character. The 1.4 gigawatt center would consume as much power as Detroit, and would help derail Michigan's nation-leading transition to renewable energy...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/michigan-data-center-fight

 

Democratic senators investigate data centers’ effects on electricity prices

Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Van Hollen demand answers from tech firms including Google and Amazon…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/16/data-centers-consumer-prices

 

Data center boom creates political conundrum for the GOP - POLITICO

"I think people have very legitimate concerns, and that is: Who is going to pay the bill for the additional energy that's demanded from this?" said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.). "They go, 'My power bill's gone up because somebody down the road is building a data center.'"…

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/14/data-center-boom-creates-political-conundrum-gop-00680635 

 

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US data centers

Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/us-data-centers

 

 

 

Here’s How the AI Crash Happens - The Atlantic

The people who are paying attention to this cycle are getting anxious. On a scale from one to 10, the AI-bubble concern is: people posting memes of Christian Bale's character from The Big Short, squinting in disbelief at his computer monitor. If tech stocks fall because of AI companies failing to deliver on their promises, the highly leveraged hedge funds that are invested in these companies could be forced into fire sales. This could create a vicious cycle, causing the financial damage to spread to pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, and everyday investors. As capital flees the market, non-tech stocks will also plummet: bad news for anyone who thought to play it safe and invest in, for instance, real estate. If the damage were to knock down private-equity firms (which are invested in these data centers) themselves—which manage trillions and trillions of dollars in assets and constitute what is basically a global shadow-banking system—that could produce another major crash.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/data-centers-ai-crash/684765/ 

 

The real reason electricity prices are rising, and it’s not data centers - The Washington Post

It's not AI. It's not even data centers...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/10/25/data-centers-electricity-prices-rise/

Electric Bills Are Rising in 13 States Due to Data Centers - Business Insider

"We are witnessing a massive transfer of wealth from residential utility customers to large corporations—data centers and large utilities and their corporate parents, which profit from building additional energy infrastructure," said Lapp. 

 "Utility regulation is failing to protect residential customers, contributing to an energy affordability crisis," he continued…

https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-bills-rise-13-states-because-big-tech-data-centers-2025-7

 

The great Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump rollbacks

Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new report…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/most-endangered-rivers-list-trump

 

Revealed: Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from data-center boom and green rollbacks | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centers…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/03/trump-fossil-fuel-donors-data-centers