AI and the electricity blackout America needs

“In the early 20th century, aside from (at times) rights-of-way themselves, private firms such as turnpikes and streetcars received little or no public support or subsidy. They negotiated franchises with city councils rather than receiving automatic grants that shut out competition. Later interventions, such as the Urban Mass Transit Act of 1964, displaced private transit with subsidies and public infrastructure.
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Mega-data centers are, in important ways, modern streetcars: privately owned enterprises seeking access to land, electricity, and connectivity. The challenge is to align those private incentives with landowner and community benefits.
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Current legislative and regulatory options include Consumer Regulated Electricity (CRE), as described by Travis Fisher and Paige Lambermont, which would allow large power users — such as AI data centers — to “work with power suppliers independent of the existing power grid.””

https://cei.org/blog/ai-and-the-electricity-blackout-america-needs/