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Why Is Big Tech Using the Energy of the Past to Power the Future?
As these companies invest billions in technology for AI, they must re-up investments in renewables to power our future and protect our communities.
Sep 06, 2025
AI is everywhere. But its powerful computing comes with a big cost to our planet, our neighborhoods, and our wallets.
AI servers are so power hungry that utilities are keeping coal-fired power plants that were slated for closure running to meet the needs of massive servers. And in the South alone, there are plans for 20 gigawatts of new natural-gas power plants over the next 15 years—enough to power millions of homes—just to feed AI’s energy needs.
Multibillion dollar companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta that previously committed to 100% renewable energy are going back to the Jurassic Age, using fossil fuels like coal and natural gas to meet their insatiable energy needs. Even nuclear power plants are being reactivated to meet the needs of power-hungry servers.
At a time when we need all corporations to reduce their climate footprint, carbon emissions from major tech companies in 2023 have skyrocketed to 150% of average 2020 values.
AI data centers also produce massive noise pollution and use huge amounts of water. Residents near data centers report that the sound keeps them awake at night and their taps are running dry.
Many of us live in communities that either have or will have a data center, and we’re already feeling the effects. Many of these plants further burden communities already struggling with a lack of economic investment, access to basic resources, and exposure to high levels of pollution.
To add insult to injury, amid stagnant wages and increasing costs for food, housing, utilities, and consumer goods, AI’s demand for power is also raising electric rates for customers nationwide. To meet the soaring demand for energy that AI data servers demand, utilities need to build new infrastructure, the cost of which is being passed onto all customers.
These companies have the know-how and the wealth to power AI with wind, solar, and batteries—which makes it all the more puzzling that they’re relying on fossil fuels to power the future.
A recent Carnegie Mellon study found that AI data centers could increase electric rates by 25% in Northern Virginia by 2030. And NPR recently reported that AI data centers were a key driver in electric rates increasing twice as fast as the cost of living nationwide—at a time when 1 in 6 households are struggling to pay their energy bills.
All of these impacts are only projected to grow. AI already consumes enough electricity to power 7 million American homes. By 2028, that could jump to the amount of power needed for 22% of all US households.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
AI could be powered by renewable energy that is nonpolluting and works to reduce energy costs for us all. The leading AI companies, who have made significant climate pledges, must lead the way.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have all made promises to the communities they serve to tackle climate and pollution. They all have climate pledges. And they have made significant investments in renewable energy in the past.
Those investments make sense, since renewables are the most affordable form of electricity. These companies have the know-how and the wealth to power AI with wind, solar, and batteries—which makes it all the more puzzling that they’re relying on fossil fuels to power the future.
If these corporate giants are to be good neighbors, they first need to be open and honest about the scope and scale of the problem and the solutions needed.
As these companies invest billions in technology for AI, they must re-up investments in renewables to power our future and protect our communities. They must ensure that communities have a real voice in how and where AI data centers are built—and that our communities aren’t sacrificed in the name of profits.
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History is the Front Line in the Struggle for Democracy
As the accumulation of executive orders since Trump’s inauguration manifestly shows, the fate of history in America is a bellwether for the future of democracy itself.
Aug 25, 2025
If you are looking for the front lines in the struggle over our democracy, you can find them in the executive orders which brazenly seize control of history, among other things, in the name of American greatness.
If you haven’t read those EOs, it’s your civic duty to do so. Because if you want to grasp how high the stakes are and ready yourself for the battles ahead, you have to acknowledge how utterly entwined the future of our democratic polity is with the fate of history in the US today.
During the period between March and August of this year, the current administration issued a number of EOs that take direct aim at the teaching, content, and memorializing of the American past, with particular attention to those subjects which are now deemed “NSFW” in classrooms from elementary school through university.
There are also EOs which indirectly disqualify or ignore longstanding histories of climate change, inequality, racial injustice, and sexual freedom in order to make way for MAGA policies which turn the clock back decades or more, eroding the cultural, economic, social, and political foundations of American democracy.
Will we come to see an executive order that declares a crime emergency for History capital H for failing to promote narratives of America the Beautiful not just as absolute truth and sanity but as the highest form of muscular Christian patriotism?
Take for example, the March 27, 2025 EO, which declared that an insane, untruthful version of the past has beset narratives of American history through the promotion of race as something other than a biological fact in sculptures at the Smithsonian and through the public memorials which decry white supremacy rather than celebrating it.
Or the April 8, 2025 EO, which effectively sidelines three decades and more of historical research on the environmental and human costs of American fossil fuel production in order to champion US coal as “beautiful,” “abundant,” useable “in any weather condition,” and worth a trillion dollars.
Or the EO issued two weeks later which rewrites history and declares that accreditation agencies in the higher education space are nothing more or less than fruit from the poisoned diversity, equity, and inclusion tree and hence constitute abuse of governance standards in violation of federal law.
Issued on that same day is the EO which conveniently ignores histories of racial discrimination at the site of education, housing, employment, and other civic opportunities, declaring that all policies that flow therefrom are rendered null and void in the interests of restoring meritocracy.
Of particular note, as debates about AI rage their way across the globe, is the EO of July 23, 2025, which suggests that historical knowledge of and teaching about American racism and the oppression of people of color have infiltrated AI to such a degree that “one major AI model changed the race or sex of historical figures—including the Pope, the Founding Fathers, and Vikings—when prompted for images because it was trained to prioritize DEI requirements at the cost of accuracy [and] another AI model refused to produce images celebrating the achievements of white people, even while complying with the same request for people of other races.”
As is evident from that quote, these EOs have to be read to be believed.
Yet we cannot afford to look away.
As recently as August 7, the administration issued an EO that deemed activities (like history) that address racism, challenge the sex binary in humans, or debate the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic promote “anti-American values.”
Ominously for colleges and universities, the EO in which that declaration is embedded is entitled “Improving Oversight of Federal Grant Making.” Which means that knowledge of the kind produced by historians that is deemed a form of anti-Americanism may be part of a litmus test for the flow of federal grant dollars to STEM and other fields.
To be sure, histories of the African American experience, gender difference and equity, and social justice politics or movements have been under threat at the state level for years.
The promulgation of bills outlawing the teaching of everything from slavery to socialism in over half the states since 2022 has put history under a metaphorical house arrest.
But the EOs of 2025 so far are heading toward the quasi-legal equivalent of suspending habeas corpus for the practice of professional history--i.e., taking it into federal custody with no credible explanation of the arbitrary detention of its research and teaching in anything like a court of law.
And although it may not appear to be related, the declaration of “a crime emergency” authorizing the executive authority to militarize the DC police force should prompt us to think about the relationship between “history detained” and the specter of martial law.
And it looks like Chicago is next.
Will we come to see an executive order that declares a crime emergency for History capital H for failing to promote narratives of America the Beautiful not just as absolute truth and sanity but as the highest form of muscular Christian patriotism?
One that will subject history in America to the will and whim of the Department of Justice and Homeland Security?
Surely this metaphor can only work in the theater of the absurd. Or in the political theater of authoritarianism.
Meanwhile, the content and teaching of history are being caught up in the current logics of what warrants a declaration of emergency.
As the accumulation of executive orders since the inauguration manifestly shows, the fate of history in America is a bellwether for the future of democracy itself. The writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin said it best:
...all that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history... Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself and save yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history.
If Baldwin is right, it’s because history is neither red or blue; nor is it only about the past itself. History at its most democratizing is a provocation to reckon with the relationship between the past we’ve lived and the futures we want.
Sound the alarm: Martial law may well be next for history. And if it comes, it won’t stop at metaphor.
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Trump's War on Clean Energy Could Be His Downfall... If the Dems Exploit It
Team Trump has mishandled American energy policy in every possible way literally since day one, setting the stage for higher electric bills.
Aug 20, 2025
The next two elections should be decided on the great questions of democracy versus authoritarianism, openness versus racism, science versus ignorance. But my guess is that electric bills may play at least as large a role.
And that should be a good thing for the forces of virtue, because team Trump has mishandled American energy policy in every possible way literally since day one—they’re setting up a debacle. But as we should know by now, Democrats are particularly good at turning debacles into nothingburgers. So let me try and lay out the script right now.
Let’s go back to US President Donald Trump’s first day in office. He declared an “energy emergency” because the production and “generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs. We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness.” If we didn’t get more electricity in particular, the White House said, we would fall behind China in the AI race, with disastrous consequences.
You can debate whether or not we need new AI data centers (My guess is that the technology has been oversold, and that we’re actually going to see fewer of them developed than people think). But you can’t debate two things.
Trump’s crusade against clean energy is obviously idiotic—windmills don’t cause cancer. But it’s more than idiotic—it’s the reason you’re paying more for electricity.
One, the obvious way forward for this country was to develop more sun, wind, and batteries. We know this because it’s what this country, and every other country around the world, had been doing for the last two years. More than 90% of new electric generation around the world last year came from clean energy, momentum that continued through the first quarter of the year. This was not because everyone in the energy business had “gone woke.” Texas, after all, installed more renewable capacity than any other state last year. It was because you could do it cheaply and quickly—we live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun.
But, two, the Trump administration immediately began to do absolutely everything in in its power to stop this trend and to replace it with old-fashioned energy—gas, and coal. They have rescinded environmental regulations trying to control fossil fuel pollution, ended sun and wind projects on federal land, cancelled wind projects wherever they could, ended the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for clean energy construction and instead added subsidies for the coal industry. Again—short of tasking Elon Musk to erect a large space-based shield to blot out the sun, they’ve done literally everything possible to derail the transition to cheap clean energy.
And as a result, electricity prices are starting to skyrocket. If you don’t believe me, listen to this excellent recitation of a power bill in the style of Faulkner from a fellow with an excellent beard. And they are skyrocketing because our power systems are not moving into the new world.
For example: Trump issued an executive order designed to “reinvigorate America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry,” which explained that:
Our Nation’s beautiful clean coal resources will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to the resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers. We must encourage and support our Nation’s coal industry to increase our energy supply, lower electricity costs, stabilize our grid, create high-paying jobs, support burgeoning industries, and assist our allies.
This is nonsense on a cracker, of course, and a new independent report last week found that consumers will be paying an extra $3-$6 billion dollars a year for the privilege of keeping coal-fired power plants open past their expiration dates:
Forcing utilities to continue to operate unneeded and costly coal-fired power plants past their planned retirement increases the electric bills paid by homeowners and businesses. It also undermines the competitiveness of US businesses such as manufacturing by raising electric rates.
Anyone who pays an electricity bill in any region outside the Northeastern US could be footing the bill. Electricity costs could increase by tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars per year in most states.
If you want more detail on this topic, by the way, David Roberts has a very fine interview with the (very fine name) Frank Rambo, who also points out that the coal-fired power plants they’re trying to keep open are not just the most expensive possible source of electric but among the least reliable:
Now, the thing about coal, as it’s been circling the drain, the coal plants that are left are running much less. They’re not running as these baseload where you run it, you might dial it down at night when demand for electricity is lower, but you’re basically always running it.
They are now running much less. They’re running more where they’re having to cycle through, to cycle on and off. And a coal-fired boiler is not built to operate that way. Again, it’s a 20th-century resource for a 21st-century grid, and that causes a lot of maintenance issues. So that they have to—all of a sudden it’s called a "forced outage."
They have to take it offline. So it’s somewhat ironic they are relying on—the DOE is relying on —the one, one of the resources that’s becoming less and less reliable.
Anyway, this level of corruption and incompetence—remember, all this is happening because candidate Trump literally told the fossil fuel industry they could have anything they want if they gave massive contributions to his campaign, and then they did—should open up his party to scrutiny and to scorn. At some level Democrats are figuring this out—as the Washington Post said last week, they have lots to work with, beginning with Trump’s promises that electric bills would fall:
“Under my administration, we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months,” he told an audience in North Carolina in August 2024.
Trump’s first 12 months aren’t over yet. But so far, the data show prices trending in the wrong direction. And Democrats are keen to make Trump pay for that.
They are crafting an argument that not only have prices not come down but the sweeping tax and spending law Trump signed into law in July will make energy costs worse.
In fact, as NPR reported recently, electricity costs are now climbing twice as fast as inflation, which should give the Dems a huge opening. And indeed the Senate Dems have put together a bill that would cut those costs. But take a look at the press release from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—really, just look at the headline—and ask yourself if the Dems have really figured out the snappy rhetoric they need to take advantage of the situation.
I’d say the real danger is the GOP will go on the attack instead, blaming electricity price hikes on their favorite target, Joe Biden. You can already see it happening—here’s Murdoch’s New York Post trying to blame Biden (and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy) for being Green New Dealers. (Ironic, since they’ve actually done much to disappoint enviros in their states). And here’sTrump’s Energy Secretary (and former fracking exec) Christ Wright yesterday moaning that it’s all Joe Biden’s fault:
“The momentum of the Obama-Biden policies, for sure that destruction is going to continue in the coming years,” Wright told Politico during a visit to wind- and cornrich Iowa. Still, he said: “That momentum is pushing prices up right now. And who's going to get blamed for it? We're going to get blamed because we're in office.”
This is all inane. Wright was standing in Iowa, which has some of the lowest electric rates in the country—the average Iowan will spend 39% less on electricity than the average American. Why? Because it produces 57% of its electricity from the wind, the second-biggest wind state in the country. The same thing is true across the country. Here’s Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, explaining the math in the Wall Street Journal:
How do the 12 highly renewable states rank in terms of electricity prices? Ten of them are among the 19 states with the lowest electricity prices. Seven are among the 10 states with the lowest prices. South Dakota, with renewables supplying 95% of demand, has the ninth-lowest electricity price. North Dakota (52% renewables) has the lowest. More renewables mean lower prices.
Only California and Maine have high renewables and high prices. Why? California’s industrial price of natural gas, needed for electricity backup, is routinely the third highest in the US and twice the US average. Plus, utilities have passed to customers the costs of wildfires from transmission-line sparks, undergrounding transmission lines, the San Bruno and Aliso Canyon gas disasters, retrofitting gas pipes following San Bruno, and keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear-power plant open.
California’s use of more renewables and batteries in 2024 than in 2023 increased grid reliability, however, as evidenced by 52% lower spot electricity prices this March to June, versus the same period in 2023. This slowed retail electricity-price rises.
More renewable electricity generators and batteries reduce energy prices. Even in states with high electricity prices caused by other factors, renewables and battery storage keep prices lower than they otherwise would be.
So Democrats need to get good at saying this. They need props—solar panels, batteries. They need sound bites. They need lots and lots of solar installers speaking up, and lots of people with solar on their roofs holding up their teeny tiny bills for the camera. The Dems need to be on the offensive, and sometimes they need to be offensive. The basic line: Trump’s crusade against clean energy is obviously idiotic—windmills don’t cause cancer. But it’s more than idiotic—it’s the reason you’re paying more for electricity.
The Department of Energy literally put out a tweet last month with a picture of a hunk of a coal and the legend “She is the moment.” But in fact coal is 18th-century technology, and gas is 19th-century technology, and now we’re in the 21st century where people know how to intercept the rays of the sun and the breeze in the air and turn them into the cheapest electricity the world has ever seen. And Trump’s getting in the way of that.
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