Power Ain’t What It Needs to Be

In the past 15 years, the U.S. added ~285 terawatt-hours (TWh) to the grid.

In the next 15 years, we’ll need ~2,000 TWh more (driven mainly by AI data centers, industrial electrification, and EVs).

It makes no sense. Not all the Capex in the world can solve these issues in a timely fashion. The promises vs. the reality completely break down when it comes to future compute and capacity required.

As I’m sure you realize, Electrical infrastructure represents less than 10% of total data center cost, but it is as vital as compute hardware. A delay in any single element of the power chain can halt the entire project.

The result? The shift toward natural gas as a primary, on-site power source for AI data centers has accelerated significantly in early 2026….While natural gas is “cleaner” than coal, it is increasingly viewed as “dirty” relative to the net-zero targets that AI companies previously committed to. Hyperscalers are abandoning their pledges (as politically it becomes optimal to do so).

— “Mythos, BigAI, Datacenters and Bottlenecks,” AI Supremacy


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