Navigating Energy Demand

David M. Hart, senior fellow for climate and energy at CFR, discusses the increasing demand on energy from data centers to power artificial intelligence and implications for the future of climate policy, sustainable energy supply, and U.S. infrastructure resilience. Bennet Goldstein, investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch, speaks about his experience covering energy issues in Wisconsin, including the local impacts of competition over expanding data center sites. The host of the webinar is Carla Anne Robbins, senior fellow at CFR and former deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times. 

TRANSCRIPT

FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Local Journalists Webinar. I am Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.

CFR is an independent, nonpartisan national membership organization, think tank, educator, and publisher focused on U.S. foreign policy. CFR generates policy-relevant ideas and analysis, convenes experts and policymakers, and is the publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

This webinar is part of CFR’s Local Journalists Initiative, created to help you draw connections between the local issues you cover and national and international dynamics. Our programming puts you in touch with CFR resources and expertise on international issues and provides a forum for sharing best practices.

Thank you all for taking the time to join today’s discussion. As a reminder, the webinar is on the record, and the video and transcript will be posted on our website at CFR.org/localjournalists.

We are pleased to have David Hart, Bennet Goldstein, and host Carla Anne Robbins with us today. We’ve shared their bios with you, but I will give you a few highlights.

David Hart is senior fellow for climate and energy at CFR. His research focuses on policies that will accelerate clean energy and climate-tech innovation and diffusion worldwide. Dr. Hart is co-author of two books: Energizing America and Unlocking Energy Innovation.

Bennet Goldstein reports on water and agriculture as a Report for America representative for Wisconsin Watch. He covers the Mississippi Water (sic; River) Basin Agriculture and Water Desk. He has spent most of his career writing for daily papers in Iowa. And his work has garnered the Associated Press Media Editors Award and an Iowa Newspaper Association Award.

And Carla Anne Robbins is a senior fellow at CFR and host of the Local Journalists Webinar Series. She also serves as faculty director of the Master of International Affairs Program and clinical professor of national security studies at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. And previously she was deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times and chief diplomatic correspondent at the Wall Street Journal.

So thank you all for being with us for this discussion on “Navigating Energy Demand.” I’m going to turn it over to Carla to have a conversation amongst the three of you, and then we’ll go to all of you for your questions, comments, and again to share best practices. So, Carla, over to you.

ROBBINS: Irina, thank you so much. And, David and Bennet, thank you so much for joining us. And everybody who’s on the call, thank you so much for being here.

I have a lot of questions, and we’re going to start talking among ourselves for about twenty minutes or so and then we’re going to open it up to you. And I hope you guys have a lot of questions, too.

And I want to start with you, Bennet, with a story that you wrote. And the headline was something like, “Data center construction is booming, and it could affect utility rates.” That’s certainly a story that I, as a former editor, would be interested in reading. States tend to really want, you know, to have big companies move in, and I would think that citizens would want the potential for employment there. Are you telling us that it’s not good for citizens and their states to have these big companies move in? Is it going to drive up their electricity bills?

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, it certainly could. And you know, at least currently in Wisconsin, I mean, we already have some of the highest utility rates in the Midwest and the nation. And you know, certainly when these companies come in—you know, right now at least in Wisconsin we have eight datacenters in the works, and you know, one of which is Microsoft and also potentially Meta. And you know, the companies have promised tax revenue and jobs, but I think with a lot of the perks that states including Wisconsin are using to attract the datacenters, you know, it might be described as a race to the bottom. You know, we certainly are offering sales tax exemptions. And a lot of the—there aren’t necessarily requirements to hold companies accountable for job creation and in terms of disclosure. So I think, you know, it’s certainly a mixed bag.

ROBBINS: So you also have mentioned that in some of these contracts that they are not publicly available. Was there a public debate for these deals? Was there political resistance to it? Or was it just sort of touted as great deal, big nationally known company coming in, lots of jobs are going to come in? How much political debate was there about it? And could someone just go on a website, or a reporter just go on a website, and actually see what sort of deal there was and what sort of commitments were made by the companies and the states?

GOLDSTEIN: So, I mean, there are two, I guess, types of—so there’s the—you know, the confidential negotiations in terms of, you know, what, you know, benefits the state may be offering datacenters. But when it comes to at least the tariffs or the setting electric rates, then at that point utilities do have to follow a public process in Wisconsin. But you know, certainly the—you know, when these companies are in negotiations with state officials to come in, you know, all of those conversations are, you know, not subject to public disclosure, and you know, you could even submit FOIAs for daily schedules of public officials and any meeting with a developer is redacted so you don’t really know who’s coming.

And you know, you kind of have to rely on, you know, other forms of determining who may be looking at sites in—at least in Wisconsin, you know, whether it’s just, you know, property, you know, tax forms, land sales, and just—you know, also construction permits and rezoning permits. So it requires a bit of sleuthing and getting little tidbits here and there. And then when, you know, electric tariffs are being set, even the parts where projected energy demand is discussed oftentimes that is considered a trade secret.

ROBBINS: So in reporting on this—because none of these datacenters has opened yet in Wisconsin. Is that right? So you actually haven’t seen whether or not the rates have gone up for taxpayers, right?

GOLDSTEIN: Well, so we already have forty-seven, but then at least eight are in the works that we—you know, that have been at least reported in our press corps. And you know, at this point, you know, rates—one of our three major utilities at least this year and last year have all requested to set a rate increase in the coming two years. And you know, and then the last time that they just did this was two years ago, so, I mean, the burden from utilities bill—on people’s utility bills is certainly increasing. Whether or not, you know, some of the new construction we’re also seeing in terms of building two—or upgrading a current coal plant and—into a natural gas plant and then building an additional one, you know, that’s also projected to be increasing utility bills.

ROBBINS: But can you attribute that to the demand from the datacenters?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, sorry, we have a—there’s a jet flying overhead. But—

ROBBINS: Oh. (Laughs.)

GOLDSTEIN: Sorry about that.

ROBBINS: Can you attribute that to the demand from the datacenters, or is that just—I mean, prices are going up everywhere for everything.

GOLDSTEIN: Well, so these plants are being specifically built for the datacenters that are in that region that are being currently constructed. So the Microsoft will be fed by a—in part by a natural gas plant. And what’s the challenge, at least in Wisconsin, is that when these—ratepayers are already still paying off the bill from the construction of these coal plants, and now that they’re being—one of them is being converted into a natural gas plant you’re not only paying for, you know, a stranded asset in the—in the coal but now add to that the natural gas. So it does kind of call into question whether or not these types of facilities, the plants themselves, should be built as opposed to investing more into renewables that—solar or wind that, you know, may be more viable in the long term for customers.

ROBBINS: So I have just one final question and then I want to talk to David, which is in reporting on this are there specific lobbying groups that you talked to that were in favor and against these projects, and ones who were citizens who were saying, no, the price is too high for taxpayers, as well as groups with sort of very favorable names that are actually the ones that are arguing for big business and saying, no, no, no, it’s going to be great for—great for taxpayers as well? And do they actually, if I—you’re in Wisconsin, but if I’m in Nebraska or if I’m in New Jersey or someplace else that actually have national reach, particularly groups that if I’m reporting on this I should be tracking down?

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, I think especially when the sales tax exemptions were being proposed in the Wisconsin legislature a couple of years ago, you know, we saw a lot of utilities and some of the datacenter lobbying groups—I think, like, NetZero or NetChoice—came and, you know, were speaking quite favorably for, you know, why it would be prudent to invest in these. And you know, at the same time I think a lot of the more, you know, opposition is coming from the way that we’re going to power them. And there is growing concern also, you know, since we’re, you know, adjacent to Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, you know, the appeal for datacenters is of course the, you know, abundant supply of freshwater. And you know, you start getting into concerns of, you know, how will these—the demands for cooling these massive facilities impact, you know, these freshwater resources that are so valuable and are, you know, regulated by the Great Lakes Compact but at the same time, you know, we’re starting to see ways that some of these massive centers can get around some of the restrictions that those—that compact entails.

ROBBINS: Thanks.

So, David, you’ve written about how the demand on the grid has been flat for more than a decade but is now suddenly growing, not just because of AI but also crypto and other new tech. And you wrote that a recent projection by researchers affiliated with Columbia concluded that AI datacenters will quadruple their share of U.S. electricity sales from 1 percent in 2022 to 4 percent in ’27, and that datacenters as a whole could use three times that share, and many analysts expect such exponential growth to continue into the 2030s.

So the grid, as you have written, is a patchwork. There’s no federal control over the grid. Are there any plans—national plans, regional plans—to deal with this growing demand? Is everybody just making it up as they go along, or are we all going to just wake up one day and it’s all going to crash?

HART: Yeah, I certainly hope not. It’s a disaster for the country if it crashes. And one of the highest priorities of policymakers and of the companies that contribute to and run the grid is to avoid that blackout, right? Nobody wants that. And in fact, there are regulations and practices that try to build in a margin of error.

But we have over the summer as a nation hit new peaks, so demand has exceeded any in the past. But what’s really important is that it’s not a national grid, right? So all of these layers are regional or state or local, and there are players at each level who have plans.

And the Trump administration is very keen on adding supply, but they can’t just order it up. So it has to work, as Bennet was talking about, often through the state level. There are a number of regional actors. And when I say “region,” I mean multistate region. So that is a network that manages the transmission system, so that’s the really high-voltage stuff—so coming out of power plants, going off those big towers that you see sometimes if you’re driving down the road.

And that is managed—like, for instance, I am in Washington, D.C. We’re part of a system called PJM, which goes basically from the Mid-Atlantic all the way to Illinois. So there are several of those, but there are also some states that are essentially completely vertically regulated so they just have one utility. This is the way—those of us who are older will remember this is the way it used to be. The utility owned everything from the plug to the plant. And there are still some states like that. And then Texas is kind of its own unique thing. It has a—

ROBBINS: (Laughs.)

HART: It has its own grid, has its own authority. But it’s not vertically regulated like, let’s say, Georgia is.

So it is this incredible patchwork. A lot of players are worried about meeting the demand. It’s a new condition. We haven’t had demand for a long time. It’s complicated to add supply. There are also things you can do to moderate the demand which has to factor in here. But we need everything to balance, and this is what the utilities and grid operators do every second of the day. They have to balance supply and demand, and that’s what makes it such a hard system to run.

ROBBINS: So is there anybody who’s taking leadership on this? Is there one place if I wanted to look at that said, huh, that state, that regional group, they got a good idea and we should be looking at that, I should be writing a story about, because those people actually are not just sitting around, you know, whistling as doom comes down the road but they’re actually trying something?

HART: Yeah, I think there are really two centers of action.

One Bennet talked about, and that’s the state public utility commission typically. Even in states where the transmission is handled at the regional level, the states still play a role at the local level, and that could be quite important including in terms of determining prices.

And then the other are these entities called regional transmission organizations, RTOs. So these are the entities that handle the transmission grid. As I was saying, the one near me goes to Illinois. There’s one in California that’s now being built out to other states. There’s one in New York, one in Texas, and so on. And that’s really where the action takes place. But some of it is, again as Bennet talked about, somewhat opaque and very technical, so it can be challenging to get in.

ROBBINS: I think what I was asking is, are—because when I read about this—and I don’t read an enormous amount, but I got ready for this—(laughs)—by reading about it—it seems to me that the discussion about the sources for the electricity seems to be—is being driven as much or more by the tech companies—they’re talking about nuclear—than it is by the utilities or the states or the federal politicians as much as anything else. I think the question I was asking was, are there any particular—should I look at X regional organization because they got a good idea, they’re trying to manage this in a forward-looking way? Or are they just sitting back and leaving it to the Microsofts or the Apples or the Metas or the Googles to figure out the future of our entire energy demand system?

HART: Yeah, I don’t think the latter. I mean, I think actually one thing that’s unusual about this is you have—typically, let’s say a factory wants to get built, and they’re going to say, hey, we have this such-and-such a demand, and then it’s usually up to the utility and the system to provide that load and work out the pricing. In this case, actually, some of these companies are interested in where their supply is coming from, so that is one thing that makes it different. And in fact, some of these companies or some of their projects are getting off the grid altogether.

So the most famous instance is where Microsoft has a deal to fire up Three Mile Island reactor that was shut down again. And so in some cases they are just, you know, buying electricity directly from the plant and leaving the rest of the system out.

So I think what’s more unusual in this case is that the customers are interested in where their electricity is coming from, but what they’re mostly doing is just saying I want power. And the same for all the electric vehicles that might be added to the grid. The same for, as you said, crypto operations. And then the challenge is to the utility to provide that power.

ROBBINS: Bennet, in Wisconsin are there any politicians or any technical experts or anyone that you’ve run into who has an idea, or are they just sitting back and letting the tech companies decide how it’s going to work?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, yeah. So, I mean, I would echo, you know, what David was saying where it’s kind of the utilities to decide, you know, how they will, you know, meet these new loads. And you know, and at least what we’re—you know, Microsoft has pledged to, you know, offset any new emissions that come from the construction of this natural gas infrastructure system that is being constructed to serve its datacenter complex and others in the region. But you know, I would say that, you know, whether or not, you know, they actually follow through on that is, you know, certainly up to the company to, you know—whether it offsets these emissions.

But otherwise, yeah, I think it’s kind of at least in Wisconsin we have to—the utilities are obligated to find the least-expensive, least-burdensome options. But of course, their models are—you know, certainly can be disputed, and that’s usually what happens in our, you know, public hearings. So, I mean, it is ultimately up to our public utility commission to approve these new projects.

ROBBINS: Although, I mean, I could imagine a politician running on taking on this topic and saying, why are we sitting back and letting Microsoft decide this, you know? Shouldn’t we, you know, the people—particularly, as you say, it’s going to drive our rates up—we the people decide, you know, what the future of our grid is before it’s too late? I mean, we saw what happened in Texas when this was mismanaged, when we weren’t paying attention. But you haven’t seen any politicians who have decided that this is a topic that they—you know, that they want—that they want to take on?

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, there’s certainly been interest in looking at nuclear. I mean, there has been discussion of reactivating one of Wisconsin’s—we have—we have two nuclear plants, one of which is no longer in service. But you know, there has been discussion of turning it back on.

I would say that—because our public utility commission, they’re, you know, appointed by the governor, they’re somewhat—our legislature has historically been somewhat avoidant of getting involved in the utility system, you know, aside from this, you know, recent interest in looking at adding—you know, trying to attract datacenters and establish, you know, reliable power sources for them. So, you know, certainly nuclear’s been on the table in their minds.

ROBBINS: Before we turn it over to the group, David, I wanted to—

HART: Can I just add one comment? Sorry.

ROBBINS: Sure. I wanted to ask you about nuclear. But, yes, please.

HART: I just wanted to follow up on a point that Bennet’s making and that you alluded to, which is that the price increases that we’ve seen in the past are not primarily due to datacenters. Natural gas prices have gone up. As you mentioned, there’s general inflation. So I think we need to distinguish, like, past price increases and future price increases, which—it takes a while for these things to work through the system. So I would be, you know, cautious in attributing recent price increases to the datacenters. There’s, I think, a tendency to leap to that connection, but the timing doesn’t really quite match up. These utility commissions tend to be running behind. I mean, again, I think Bennet could probably comment on that. But they’re trying to solve last year’s problems as much as anything.

GOLDSTEIN: Right. We are seeing a lot of defrayed, you know, maintenance and upgrades to our utility system in Wisconsin for sure.

ROBBINS: So can we talk about nuclear briefly? And then I want to turn it over to the group for questions.

The tech companies are eager to invest in nuclear, which is basically reviving an industry that really was in the doghouse for a very long time. There are certainly advantages of nuclear. It’s more stable than wind and solar. It’s cleaner than the U.S. grid in many ways. But there’s also a lot to worry about with nuclear as well. You were talking about restarting part of—(laughs)—Three Mile Island. I’m old enough to remember that. But certainly a lot of people on this have got to be old enough to remember Fukushima; that wasn’t all that long ago. You know, is nuclear—has the technology changed that much that we can calm down about nuclear, or do people—have people just forgotten about it? David, although there is some new technology, these smaller plants, you know, where does this technology stand? Or is this yet one more thing that is driven more by demand than rationality?

HART: That’s a great question. And I think for the United States, I personally am still in the mode of prove it to me. What we’ve seen in the past is that nuclear plants tend to be expensive, and so to the extent that we have a market-based electricity system they’ve been losing out. And that’s one of the reasons why plants like Three Mile Island, the remaining reactors, and some of the others that we’re talking about closed, because they just couldn’t compete with less expensive, more reliable sources of power.

But there’s been a tremendous boom. There’s a lot of companies with new technologies. They should be safer. They should be cheaper. But until we actually see it, I don’t think we know. And I think we have a long ways to go. So as these tech companies are making deals, they’re making deals for ten years from now, fifteen years from now. Certainly, they don’t—these don’t figure into the price discussion yet. The hope is that over time they’ll become cheaper and better, but I don’t think the track record is great. So I do think we should continue to explore it as an option that’s exciting that there’s private interest in it now, but it does have some intrinsic challenges, one of which I used to work on.

My first job out of college was working on waste management. So high-level waste, which is fairly dangerous, comes out of these reactors, and we haven’t really done anything to solve that problem yet. And people just—they’re pushing it under the rug for now, but it’s going to come back. And if there is an accident, it could be anywhere and I think that will jump into people’s minds. And that—so that—I think there are quite a few barriers still for nuclear to really make an impact beyond what we already have built.

ROBBINS: And, Bennet, in Wisconsin you said there’s been some talk about, you know, reviving nuclear. Is there a political reaction to that, or are people just sort of—

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, yeah.

ROBBINS: —not taking it seriously? Are they responding fiercely, or is nuclear suddenly, well, it’s got not greenhouse gas emissions, maybe we should look at it?

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, the legislature has passed—you know, I mean, we’re kind of behind the times on that at the moment. I mean, right now we’ve commissioned a study. So whether it’s just lip service or, you know—it would be remarkable if, you know, more nuclear plants started, you know, sprouting up, just given the enormous costs that they have. But I do think there has been, you know, certainly serious discussion of reopening one of the closed plants.

ROBBINS: Well, there have been some plants that have been built in the last decade. I was surprised. I thought we hadn’t built any, but I went and looked it up yesterday.

HART: Just two. Yeah, just two, and they were really, really expensive.

ROBBINS: But I thought nothing had been built since Three Mile Island, but I gather after 2013 there was a couple built.

So we have—Hanna Merzbach from Wyoming Public Radio has written in three questions. So, Hanna, you want to start with your first question? Do you want to—do you want me to read it, or do you want to—do you want to give voice to it?

(Pause.)

Oh, I should go? (Laughs.) OK. Thanks. Hanna says go for it: How do you accountability journalism on, say, emissions or water use when these datacenters haven’t been built? That’s a question for Bennet.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, that—if they haven’t been built yet, I think that’s—it’s a bit harder. I mean, I would say the best records and sources that I’ve found so far are just the—you know, the dockets that are, you know, being filed with our utility commissions, especially if there’s going to be new power constructed to meet the projected demand of the center. Then, you know, I think that’s probably the, you know, primary way that I’ve, you know, been able to find details on what, you know, the plans are, you know, because otherwise you’re—you know, you don’t want to be at the mercy of the spokespeople because you’re going to be, you know, just receiving talking points about all the wonderful things it’s going to bring.

You know, the other issue, of course, is the water usage. And so then if you’re looking at your—you know, the annual reports of your water utility, you know, there may be information in those reports that would indicate, you know, what the usage is potentially going to be, or just talking to those, you know, city officials to see how they’re planning ahead for a potential, you know, influx of water demand.

ROBBINS: Thanks for that.

Neela Banerjee, who is the chief climate editor at NPR, has a raised hand. Neela, do you want to ask your question?

Q: Yes. Hi. Thanks very much. This is really interesting.

This is a question mostly for Bennet, but, David, if you have some ideas too that would be great. In looking at datacenters, you talked a little bit about this, Bennet, that there’s some secrecy in certain communities around it. Like, NDAs are signed or it’s hard to find out, you know, about who’s meeting with whom and over what topics. And I’m wondering how—you know, how prevalent is this in what you’re seeing in Wisconsin? And what are you finding that’s in public view—like, you were saying estimates of maybe, you know, emissions or water usage—and what’s out of public view? Like, what are the questions that journalists in the community are asking that are shrouded by, you know, secrecy or NDAs or anything like that?

GOLDSTEIN: Well, certainly the most basic questions is who is this datacenter serving, who—the companies. We oftentimes don’t find out, you know, until long after the construction permits, you know, have been, you know, issued and—you know, because they’re creating shell LLCs to mask the identities of the main company.

And then, I’m sorry, the other part of your question was, you know, the other—yeah, the other pieces of information that are often withheld, especially projected power demand. And really the best way that I’ve found to get at that is, you know, when utilities are discussing tariffs they still have to justify, at least in Wisconsin, you know, why they would want to increase rates. And sometimes they will indicate that a very large client is projected to come onto the grid and this is why we need to upgrade this line or, you know, add capacity to our current power infrastructure.

So I hope that answers your question.

ROBBINS: We have a lot of questions also. Neela, does that—does that answer your question?

Q: It does. Thank you.

I guess my follow up, you know, again for both our experts, is, why is that shrouded, right? Like, one of the things—a lot of these debates remind me about the debates around fracking, you know, and the community reaction to it, right? And at least then you knew, like, what company was going to be fracking in your town, right? Here, like, why do you think—you know, what do experts say about why the identity of the companies or the builders, or the clients, I guess, of the builders is shrouded—like, you know, companies that are building the datacenters?

ROBBINS: David, do you have a thought on that?

HART: I’ll take a try at this. I don’t want to present myself as an expert on this particular topic.

The first thing, I think, is that there’s a lot of competition among these big tech companies, and so they keep lots of things secret from the world because they’re keeping them secret from each other. You know, where—who are they going to serve? You know, what regions are they going to serve?

But the other thing, I think—and just to add to something that Bennet said—if we’re thinking about this at the national level, there’s a great deal of uncertainty about how many of these datacenters will really get built. And the challenge of getting the energy and getting it connected suggests that a lot of the proposals will never be, you know, acted on. So I think there’s a gaming process, and you know, companies that are at the—like, really providing the money are probably hedging their bets somewhat. They’re probably, you know, exploring a bunch of different locations, and seeing what kinds of deals they can get, and seeing what kind of connections they can get. And so that probably makes them want to hold back because some of these things are just—you know, just for show or just for bargaining.

And there’s a huge debate. I mean, at the highest level there’s an enormous range of estimates about how much demand these datacenters will actually create because we don’t know how many will actually get built. There’s a lot of efficiency as well coming into datacenters. They’re not going to use, probably, as much as we think they are based on this year’s model. So there’s just a huge range.

And so I just think some of them may never get built, and that’s one reason why they’re secret.

ROBBINS: And maybe they learned their lesson from fracking that they could—you know—(laughs)—if they hide who they are they get less pressure. So if they can do it, why not?

So Diego Lopez, who is from the—and I apologize if I mispronounce the name of your—Cibola, or is it the—Citizen, has a written question. And he says: When it comes to navigating energy demand, I think about power creation. What about the construction of small modular nuclear reactors? The community I cover in Cibola County, New Mexico, is very hopeful about the resurgence of nuclear power, if not weary about the impacts of uranium mining. Our community leaders are talking about uranium, not really energy, and are hoping that it will be beneficial in the future. I also want to mention that the chairwoman of our county commission wrote our newspaper a letter to the editor where she asked simply, quote, “Where will the water come from?” David, I think that’s a question for you.

HART: Yeah. I mean, I don’t—again, another one—I’m not conversant with the details of uranium mining. I think the growth—

ROBBINS: But you do know about these small reactors.

HART: Well, the growth of demand overall, if it translates into demand for nuclear power, should eventually feed through to the fuel for reactors, and there is increasing desire to try to make that a domestic resource. So I do think that is more promising for communities that have these resources than the past, you know, thirty years where we’ve basically been stagnant and we have imported a lot of fuel, and to some degree been dependent on Russia for fuel. So I think there’s a determination to break that dependence now, but it’s going to take a lot of money and some time.

So I would say take a few breaths. It’s promising, but it’s going to take a while to materialize. And the modular reactors could be part of the demand, but I think we also may see some large reactors get built. So I would be—if you’re thinking about uranium mining, you should be thinking about all of the demand. And until, as I said, the smaller reactors and newer technologies prove themselves—which is going to take, I think, at least a decade—they shouldn’t be providing a huge amount of demand.

ROBBINS: Isabel Cleary—and I apologize, I have to look at my list here on where you are from; Irina’s texting me all this—is an investigative reporter for WCMH in Columbus, Ohio: Where do you recommend starting with an investigation into the impact of electric costs in areas where datacenters, such as Intel, are being built? Any recommendations with data sources to use for energy costs surrounding current datacenters? Bennet.

GOLDSTEIN: That is a great question. I mean, I would—I guess I would—so the in the areas around datacenters, because—I mean, you know, the costs, at least in Wisconsin, are distributed among the entire customer base. So it wouldn’t necessarily be just a localized impact, except in the sense of whatever power source is going to be used to feed them. And then, of course, the water. You know, so at least they know that—you know, so community concerns generally, you know, what I’ve seen, are, you know, centered around health, and, you know, emissions impacts from these, you know, new natural gas plants, and, you know, the old coal plants that are being—one of which is being dismantled.

So but in terms of data that would look at—I mean, I’m not sure it is necessary, like David was saying, to parse the exact, you know, portion of one’s electric bill that is directly attributable to datacenters. But you can certainly look at, you know, rate increases that are projected when a new facility is being proposed to feed the datacenter and, you know, surrounding areas.

HART: The wholesale price of power is known. And that is set—at least in most of the country—is set to some degree in the market. So that you can track. But a lot of the big customers have special deals with the utilities. And those may not be necessarily disclosed. So the impact is pretty complicated to assess, if you really want to get to the bottom of it.

ROBBINS: You wrote about a study done by, I think, a researcher at Harvard that suggested the converse idea, that that companies that put big drag on the market should actually pay higher rates. Is there any place that’s considering that?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, yes. So, I mean, I know that, you know, with our—Microsoft and some of the other smaller facilities that are being proposed, with this new gas plant, you know, Microsoft is committed to a new tariff structure in which they will pay a percentage of the new gas plant, you know, and even pay even if the datacenter doesn’t meet anticipated power demand at present. So it’s especially—they’re calling it a very, let’s see, a VLC tariff, like very large customer tariff. And so, yeah, that that does remain to be seen kind of how that will work out. You know, our state commission is looking to—the decision is expected, you know, this year as to whether this kind of rate structure can be, you know, put into practice. Also, I mean, at least in Wisconsin what we haven’t done yet is to allow private power producers to come into our market, since we have, you know, a regulated monopoly on our utility system. And so—but if that were possible, then you would potentially just be, you know, feeding the datacenter directly with its own behind-the-grid power plant.

ROBBINS: So this notion of—oh sorry, David, go on.

HART: Just a couple of other places to look for similar examples. One is North Carolina and another is Nevada. They go by these different names, so it is confusing. Sometimes called the clean transition tariff. So—but it’s the same idea as what Bennet talked about, that the company will pick up the full cost of the additional power. Because one thing about these companies is they do have a lot of money. And they really want this power bad. So they are willing to pay more, in some cases. And that, I think, is what a lot of states are hoping for.

ROBBINS: And is that in response to public demand, because the public organized and made the demand? Or just really shrewd bargaining from politicians? Or—because it seems that in some places they’re so—politicians are so dazzled by the job creation potential that they’re just going to give them anything.

HART: I would guess that they want to head off that criticism. And their primary driver is speed. They want to get these things up. They need computing power. And to have computing power, they need electrical power. So I think they’re willing to pay more because they think they’re going to make more, if they’re the first.

ROBBINS: Debra Krol. Hi, Debra. How are you? I’m not sure anybody can answer your question, but please ask it.

Q: Oh, shoot. OK. Now I’m unmuted. Hi, Deb Kroll, Arizona Republic, indigenous affairs.

Thanks. I’m not—I too—I’m not sure if this can be really answered by this panel or not. But here in the southwest tribal and rural communities are still dealing with the with near-disastrous effects of past uranium mining, including exposure to tailings, contamination of water from how—you know, uranium is basically mined in these in these fractures called breccia pipes. And if you’re not very careful, you can actually contaminate groundwater. And so a lot of them, a lot of these communities, are expressing alarm over the—over the possibility of more mines. So does anyone know anything about how such future mining could be conducted in a way that’s not going to be so destructive? Because we know that, you know, as long as the nuclear power plant is operating, you know, optimally, that it is much cleaner than burning fossil fuels or, you know, blading over billions of acres for solar plants. You know, it’s one of the cleanest sources that there is, but the process of extracting the fuel to power them is very dirty, so.

HART: I’m glad you brought that up. It is one of those hidden factors, I think, that is being brushed under the rug to some extent in this big rush for the so-called nuclear renaissance. And I think it’s really important that voices of those communities get heard. And my sense in Washington is that there’s a kind of growing effort to work around the protections that have been created over the last, you know, thirty or forty years. And some of that, I think, is OK. But, you know, just rushing to build anything as fast as possible, which is, to some extent, what I think the administration wants to do, that is going to have repercussions for decades. As you said, we’re already feeling them. So I think it’s really important what you guys are doing to have those voices. But I don’t know about future mining technologies how it can be made cleaner. I’m not familiar with that.

ROBBINS: Well, if there are any reporters who’ve written about that with us today, please raise your hand and let us know so we can share the—or, email us and we can share the information among the group, because it’s a great question. Deb, it’s nice to hear from you.

Lee Howard, business editor for the Day in London, Connecticut. Probably my neighbor: Can someone address the question of noise at these datacenters? We’ve had two proposals here in Connecticut that were shut down due to neighborhood concerns over noise. Also, can you address the idea of modular nuclear power plants? (Laughs.) How far down the road are they likely to emerge? And what are the pros and cons? So, Bennet, has the notion of noise come up at all in your reporting?

GOLDSTEIN: Not as much. But I—yeah, it’s been more the, you know, potential for, you know, emissions and the taking of water that is otherwise protected under our public trust doctrine in Wisconsin.

HART: I guess it’s fans that cause the noise? I don’t know. It’s interesting. I guess the one thing I would point out is the proposed builds are really, really big. Some of them are just enormous. So I guess you would have a lot more fans in that case. But, you know, it’s—and the construction, of course, it’s noisy. But the operation of a datacenter intrinsically isn’t necessarily a noisy thing. So it’s an interesting way that those communities have pushed it—pushed it off. On modular reactors, I think that, you know, this is a work in progress. There are a lot of companies that are pursuing it. Some of them have been approved for the license, but that doesn’t mean they’ve built anything yet. So there’s some construction going on, but we actually haven’t seen them in action. So I think it’s a—it’s a ten-year project, it would be my guess, before we see a real impact.

ROBBINS: So Keith Steck, who is with the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. And he asks, what’s the largest existing or pending datacenter in Wisconsin by kilowatt size? See, David, someone did ask a question with the word “kilowatt” in it. (Laughs.) I’m in Delaware, a very small state that is now trying to determine the impact on electricity rates, et cetera, of a proposed project of 1.2 milliwatts, but the public service commission, others, have not models for—I suppose—have no models for assessing demands of this size and trying to figure out how. Are there models in Wisconsin or elsewhere to figure impact? FYI, the proposed demand is double the use of all existing houses in Delaware. And they’re trying to figure out how to assess the impact on utility rates. So largest existing or pending datacenter in Wisconsin by kilowatt size. Bennet, do you happen to know?

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, I know that the Microsoft one, which is our kind of biggie at the moment, is proposed at 450 megawatts. In terms of the anticipated power load that that is going to add, that information is almost—is always redacted from our commission hearings for the rate proposals and this new tariffs—this new rate structure that is being proposed for this datacenter complex that Microsoft is currently constructing.

ROBBINS: Have you asked, why is this redacted? That would seem like the most obvious question that one would want to ask as a reporter.

GOLDSTEIN: Well, and this isn’t unique to this project at all. It’s always redacted in our public hearings, or for our commission hearings. And I think it’s just—they love to, you know, cite trade secrets. We also have a balancing test provision in our public records law, so that if the risks—you know, so it’s kind of up to each agency to decide whether the risks of disclosure outweigh the public’s right to know. So there is a bit of subjectivity to it. And I’m not aware of any court cases. I mean, you could certainly argue that—if you wanted to initiate a lawsuit—to see what, you know, a judge thinks.

ROBBINS: So, in other words, they can—they can build something—they can get permission to build something without anybody knowing what the demand is going to be—ultimately the impact is going to be on the grid, right? Is that the—

GOLDSTEIN: There’s limited information on that. But, I mean, you know, in terms of what the exact, you know, range of power load over—you know, grid load over time, that’s always been—whenever a new facility is being constructed, is usually redacted.

ROBBINS: Just I would be shrieking. (Laughs.)

HART: Just to give a little sense of scale, I love that comparison to the—to all the houses’ need. That’s very helpful. But just, again, to give a little sense of this, like a 450-megawatt load would be, like, a full-scale power plant, basically. And a nuclear plant might be twice that big. So if the proposal is for 500 megawatts, then you’re talking about adding a new full-scale power plant to feed it, or finding that power somewhere.

GOLDSTEIN: Right. And the plant that’s being—the coal plant that’s going to be upgraded into a natural gas plant is going to be rated at 1,100 megawatts.

HART: OK. So that’s really big.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.

ROBBINS: Apologies if I didn’t say “megawatts.” You’d think someone who writes about nuclear weapons would know immediately that anything with an M was mega. (Laughs.) But, to good to go back to Hanna Merzbach’s second question, what about datacenters operating as an energy island, not connected to the grid? Is this a solution?

HART: So it is a possibility. They call that behind the meter sometimes. So, essentially, you have a dedicated power plant that just serves the datacenter, or dedicated set of energy resources. The problem for the datacenter is they’re going to have downtime. And if they’re off of the grid then they can’t sell that power. So the datacenter really needs to know that it needs all that power all the time to make that kind of investment worthwhile. But we do see that discussed. And I guess it’s also worth mentioning there are different kinds of datacenters that have different loads. So some of them are running all the time and some of them go up and down. And so that could have a big effect on whether you would want to own your own power plant. But I think a lot of the companies would rather have the utility take that risk than own that thing themselves.

ROBBINS: So I wanted to just ask a question of my own here, which is to go back to Washington for a minute. Which is the Trump administration has been issuing a series of executive orders, which is the impact—which is going to have an impact on states and rollbacks and clean energy investments, like new limits on wind and solar tax credit eligibilities. And also President Trump’s proposed FY ’26 budget for the Department of Energy, which would make significant cuts in research. And, David, you wrote about the cuts in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, would see its spending cut by 74 percent. With these changes, the limits on the wind and solar tax credit eligibility, the cutbacks on the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, what should reporters be looking for in their states, the potential impact on projects in their states, from these changes in Washington?

HART: Yeah. I think it’s still interesting to look at whether renewables projects are economical. A lot of them still are. The price of solar has come down so much that we’re still going to see a lot of solar get built. And so I think thinking through, you know, how much the administration’s sort of war on renewables is actually paying off is an interesting story. They have been very creative in going after all the different ways that renewables are dependent on federal support. So the latest thing in my area has been offshore wind. And they have taken steps I think that most people thought were impossible, essentially illegal, I think. So I think that’s an interesting story. There’s just still a huge amount of momentum behind these technologies.

And if—and this is where things get a little technical—you have to balance them with other resources, right? As we know, they don’t produce power all the time. But if your grid has only a little bit of renewables, it’s usually economical to add more, up to a certain point. And then you need some more so-called firm technologies, like nuclear or gas, to be able to generate all the time. Or batteries. We haven’t talked about batteries. That’s another piece I think that could be interesting. Batteries were basically spared in the tax credit cuts. So you can still build—for the grid, we typically call it energy storage. But it basically means batteries. That is also—a lot of that is going to be built. And it can serve that function of balancing out these renewables. And so pretty much all the solar facilities, and even rooftop solar, that gets built comes with batteries now. So that’s one story.

I think the other thing is, like, the policy is at war with itself, in my mind. The administration says it wants to power these AI datacenters. It’s going to unleash as much power as possible. And yet it’s taking one of the best options off the table, which seems like it would create tension with the companies that are building the centers and with utilities. So I think that’s another story to keep an eye on.

ROBBINS: Bennet, are you seeing impact in Wisconsin of the changes from the Trump administration? Any impact on?

GOLDSTEIN: Not—I mean, we’ve—I think the biggest challenges that we’ve had are more at the local level, where you’re having local pushback against renewables. And, I mean, you could arguably link that to a lot of the misinformation being pulled up—you know, pumped out by the Trump administration against renewables. But, you know, I would say that, you know, you’re having really small townships that just don’t want, you know, turbines in their, you know, area. And so they’re passing, you know, setback or height ordinances that would restrict these. And they’re essentially de facto bans, which in Wisconsin, you know, is—the state law would—you know, would prevent these ordinances from going into effect.

And yet, we’re seeing some success because there are these clauses that indicate, you know, in a home rule state like Wisconsin, that, you know, if the municipality can demonstrate, you know, a public health benefit or avoiding a public health harm, you know, to protect the safety of residents they can ban some of these projects. So, I mean, that has to play out in our, you know, circuit courts. But otherwise, I mean, I haven’t seen anything direct, or direct evidence of the trickle-down effect of these executive orders at the moment. I mean, because the cost—it’s the—you know, having a free energy source, you know, can certainly weigh the scales in your favor for building renewables.

ROBBINS: If any of you are seeing things in your state or county, please write to us about it. That would be great. We’d certainly like to hear about it, and we’ll share it with everyone else.

Katherine Ward, executive director of the Delaware Press Association: A company proposing building a hyperscale datacenter in Delaware wasn’t exactly forthcoming at the town hall meeting month ago, at which there were 400 citizens present. Delaware, the second-smallest state, has coastal problems. We already are experiencing sea level rise, but a double whammy here because at this part of the Atlantic coast there’s subsidence. So our land area, as small as it is, already is diminishing.

The datacenter would be close to our already fragile wetlands, so there’s concern about water, and what about releasing water used to cool the center’s machinery, most likely warmer when released, and the effects of that warming the ocean water, which can cause ever more violent storms. Our population exceeded a million just two years ago, so citizens are concerned about taxes. What are the pros and cons of resisting?

So, resisting building a hyperscale datacenter in Delaware. If you were leading the editorial board, Bennet—(laughs)—an editorial writer—what are the pros and cons?

GOLDSTEIN: Of—you mean pushing back against the construction? I mean, you know, they certainly—you certainly see promises of, you know, job creation. Whether or not employees are available in the rural areas that—you know, to staff these once they’re already constructed, and that construction boom goes away, you know, is questionable. I know that Microsoft has certainly, you know, implemented a workforce training program so that they can try to, you know, obtain or provide jobs for the local workforce. I mean, you know, so we’ve—yeah, we’ve talked about, you know, some of the concerns with water and power.

I think, you know, it really bears looking into whether the goodies that your state may be offering datacenters, you know, kind of where that kind of fits into the balance of the, you know, supposed property tax benefits that will come from them. Which are very real. And in a lot of the areas that datacenters have been proposed in Wisconsin, and some of them are bedroom communities that—where the tax burden already disproportionately falls on residential homeowners. And so, you know, municipalities that have limited resources to expand business, you know, may see these as kind of a windfall for their tax base. So, yeah. I mean, there certainly are—you know, but then at the same time we’re losing all that sales tax revenue in Wisconsin, you know, is a factor as well.

ROBBINS: Thank you for that.

I just wanted to thank Bennet Goldstein, David Hart, and everybody for their questions. But I think Diego Lopez, I’m going to read what he wrote as an ending. He said: I appreciate all of your expertise. I appreciate Debra’s question and comment. And then he said, in Cibola we have many superfund sites as results of former uranium mines. The need for energy is recognized, but respect for the land is demanded. So I think it’s probably a good way to end this.

Thank you so much David Hart, Bennet Goldstein. And I’m going to turn it back to Irina. And thank you all for joining us. And please write to us, let us know what you’re writing about this.

FASKIANOS: Exactly, yes. Please do send us your thoughts. We will email the link to the webinar recording and transcript. And we encourage you to visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for the latest developments and analysis on international trends, and how they are affecting the United States. And you can email us at [email protected]. So, again, thank you to Bennet Goldstein, David Hart, and, of course, Carla Ann Robbins.

ROBBINS: Thanks, guys.