SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
energy
Trump Commerce Secretary Once Said Data Centers ‘Suck Water,’ Now Scoffs That Such Concerns Are Just ‘Propaganda’
"Data centers don't use water," laughed Howard Lutnick during an interview. In fact, across seven states, they rely on about 3.4 trillion gallons of it per year.
Sep 02, 2026
President Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told a brazen lie on Wednesday while trying to defend the administration's support for rapid data center expansion amid growing public backlash from voters concerned about their extreme electricity and water use.
Asked on CNBC's "SquawkBox" about how politicians in both parties were responding to voter outrage, Lutnick laughed the concerns off.
"One of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water," Lutnick chuckled. "The number one product in America that uses water is cattle."
"I mean, data centers don't use water," Lutnick continued. "This is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down."
Lutnick is correct that beef cattle production—which uses about 6 trillion gallons per year, according to the US Department of Agriculture—involves much greater amounts of water consumption than data centers.
But the contention that data centers "don't use water" is egregiously false. A report out Tuesday from the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit water policy research organization, found that data centers in the US directly use anywhere from 270 to 3.9 million gallons of water per day.
About 74% of that water, which is withdrawn from local sources near the data center, is consumed rather than returned to the same watershed, the report found.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that in 2023, US data centers directly consumed about 17 billion gallons of water. Since then, data center capacity in the US has more than doubled, according to the commercial real estate firm CBRE.
Water directly consumed by data centers also only represents a fraction of their overall demand. Most of the water being used is not directly pumped into the centers to cool servers, but is used for the power generation that supplies the centers.
A report out last month from the corporate sustainability organization Ceres found that across the seven US states that host about half of all US data centers—Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona—the facilities depend on 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater for electricity generation per year.
Lutnick's comparison of national water use between data centers and cattle farming also overlooks that the effects are often concentrated heavily in the areas where data centers are located.
In Newton County, Georgia, for instance, families told The New York Times that shortly after Meta broke ground on a $750 million data center project in 2018, their taps began to run dry, and water rates soared. According to Meta's environmental data, the center withdrew about 146 megaliters, or 38.6 million gallons, of water in 2024.
In Fayette County, Georgia, residents complained of low water pressure only to find that a QTS data center had covertly used about 29 million gallons of water without paying for it, far exceeding the amount agreed upon during the planning process. The company was ultimately required to pay back nearly $150,000.
In New Carlisle, Indiana, about a dozen residents reported that their wells had gone dry during the construction of Amazon Web Services' massive data center campus. One resident told the Indy Star that she'd gone 18 months without running water and had to bathe using bottled water from the store.
Lutnick's claim doesn't just contradict the facts, but his own statements from just over a year ago on Fox News, as MeidasTouch senior digital editor Acyn Torabi noted.
Attempting to promote data centers as a vehicle for job growth, the secretary emphasized that "these AI things suck water" and that they will "need a plumber."
The Trump administration has made the rapid expansion of data centers central to its "AI Action Plan." But Trump and his team have struggled to sell the vision to voters, including in their own party.
A national survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center last month found that 61% of voters oppose the construction of new data centers in their area. That included 69% of Democrats, but also 54% of Republicans, and 53% of independents.
Critics described Lutnick's dismissive remarks about voters' concerns as a sign of how out of touch the administration was with the public on this issue and how much their data center PR push is failing.
Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) said it showed that "our government is being run by morons."
Keep ReadingShow Less
If Big Tech Needs a New Power Plant, It Should Pay for the Whole Damn Thing
Pennsylvania's new data-center rules get one principle exactly right: Innovation doesn't include sending your infrastructure bill to everyone else.
Aug 25, 2026
There is a remarkably simple test for whether the AI boom is actually as economically transformative as its boosters say it is: Make the companies building it pay their own damn electricity bill.
Not just the meter at the server warehouse. The whole bill.
If a hyperscale data center requires a new power plant, transmission line, substation, distribution upgrade, water system, or grid-reliability backstop, put that cost on the project that caused it. If the economics still work, excellent. Build it. If they don't, then the public has just learned something extremely important about the business model.
Pennsylvania moved sharply in that direction on August 18. Gov. Josh Shapiro's new executive order requires data-center developers seeking state permits to meet Responsible Infrastructure Development standards. Among them: Developers must cover the cost of new generation, transmission, distribution, and related infrastructure needed for their projects without shifting those costs to households and businesses.
If the AI boom is real, it can survive a full-cost test.
The order also requires local approval, ends the use of nondisclosure agreements for data-center projects, demands energy and water reporting, and ties state tax benefits to compliance. Pennsylvania's special counsel for energy affordability is also supposed to work with utility regulators so data centers, rather than ordinary customers, absorb the cost of reliability measures created by their demand.
This shouldn't be treated as an anti-AI policy. It's a pro-accounting policy.
The AI industry has been allowed to narrate electricity as though it were weather: Demand is "surging," capacity is "tight," the grid is "strained," and somehow billions of dollars of wires, turbines, transformers, and land just need to appear around the technology.
But demand isn't weather. Somebody made a decision.
And there is another reason to force the accounting now: A lot of the supposed demand isn't load yet. It's proposals. Pennsylvania says more than 100 data-center projects have approached the state, while the governor says only a handful currently look viable enough to have the necessary permits. Across the country, regulators have worried about speculative projects showing up in multiple interconnection queues and inflating forecasts before anybody has proved the customer, financing, or power plan is real.
That matters because utilities build decades-long assets against forecasts. If a speculative 500-megawatt project gets counted as inevitable, everybody can end up paying for infrastructure long after the spreadsheet that justified it has disappeared.
So add another rule: Prove you're real before the public builds around you. Put down financial security. Identify the end user. Show the power source. Accept a minimum bill that covers infrastructure reserved for you. And if you walk away, you don't get to leave a transformer-shaped hole in everybody else's rates.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in April that electricity consumption by data centers jumped 17% in 2025, while electricity use at AI-focused facilities rose even faster. Its 2026 outlook still sees total data-center consumption roughly doubling by 2030 and AI-focused consumption tripling.
In the United States, data centers accounted for roughly half of total electricity-demand growth in 2025, according to the IEA. The Department of Energy had already estimated that data centers consumed about 4.4% of US electricity in 2023 and could reach 6.7-12% by 2028.
There is nothing inherently illegitimate about using that much power. Aluminum smelters use enormous amounts of electricity. Steel mills use enormous amounts of electricity. Electrifying transportation and heating will use enormous amounts of electricity too. A serious industrial society needs to know how to build power.
The illegitimate part begins when one customer's expansion becomes everyone else's compulsory investment.
That risk isn't theoretical. In Virginia, the world's largest data-center market, Reuters reported this month that Dominion's fuel costs have risen nearly 90% in five years as data-center growth leaves the utility more exposed to expensive wholesale electricity. Across PJM, which serves 67 million people, the grid operator is now proposing rules that would put some new data centers first in line for curtailment during shortages unless they bring adequate power with them.
Good.
If an AI company wants the upside of scale, it can own the downside of scale too.
That means at least five things.
Make large-load customers pay for the incremental grid infrastructure they cause. Require financial security so households aren't stuck with stranded assets if a project disappears. Make large-load forecasts public enough to detect speculative projects being counted multiple times. Give communities access to energy, water, and ownership information before approvals. And establish emergency curtailment rules before the emergency arrives.
This is what mature industrial policy looks like. It doesn't worship growth, and it doesn't panic about growth. It prices the actual machine.
The alternative is a familiar political trick: Call the upside private innovation and the downside public infrastructure.
No.
If the AI boom is real, it can survive a full-cost test.
If a company needs a new power plant, let it pay for the whole damn thing.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Gas Prices Set Mid-August Record After Trump Vows to 'Never Apologize' for Prolonged Iran War
Trump campaigned on fixing the affordability crisis but defends high gas prices as the cost of preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons that his own administration said Tehran is not trying to build.
Aug 17, 2026
The American Automobile Association reported Monday that drivers are paying more at the pump than ever before for this point in August as President Donald Trump's war on Iran continues to disrupt global energy supplies—and he says he won't apologize for the pain his illegal war of choice is inflicting upon consumers.
AAA said the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.06 on Monday, more than 92 cents higher than a year ago and double the $1.85 recently promised by Trump. The price is the highest ever recorded for mid-August, according to GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan. In California and Hawaii, average prices are approaching—or exceeding—$5.40 per gallon.
The record gas prices come amid the protracted US-Israeli war on Iran that has killed thousands of people and severely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial global energy artery through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally pass. According to Reuters, only five vessels traversed the strait Saturday, and none did so Sunday. Brent crude was trading near $89 per barrel on Monday, while West Texas Intermediate was above $82.
While Trump has said the war is "over" or nearly over dozens of times—The Guardian's Robert Tait recently called the recurrent spectacle his "own Groundhog Day"—Iran currently appears to have the upper hand, as shipping has overwhelmingly avoided the US-supported route through the Strait of Hormuz, with most vessels using a course set by Tehran or eschewing the waterway altogether.
The Guardian reported Monday that US households have collectively spent an additional $56.4 billion on gasoline over the past six months—an average of roughly $477 per home. Meanwhile, major oil companies raked in a combined $90 billion in profits during the second quarter.
Trump, who campaigned on promises to tackle the affordability crisis, has repeatedly defended high gas prices as the cost of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons that every administration since George W. Bush's—including his own—has said Tehran is not seeking to build.
"For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have... a nuclear weapon," Trump said Friday during a speech to law enforcement officers in Garden City, New York.
"So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4; it's OK... I'll never apologize, I did the right thing," the president added to raucous applause.
Critics slammed Trump's remarks, with Congresswoman Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) noting on Monday that, while "Trump’s family got rich off of his failed war," the American people—including his own supporters—"got screwed."
"Now he wants to us to smile and accept the higher prices he caused," she added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Renewables Surge Despite Trump Cuts, With Solar as Top May Power Source in 2 States
"Wind plus solar is on a tear right now," said one expert.
Aug 07, 2026
Despite the Trump administration's staunch support for the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry and equally aggressive attacks on renewable energy, the US is generating more power from the sun and wind than ever, according to the latest figures on the matter.
Updated state-level data confirmed this week that solar generation eclipsed every other source of electricity in Utah for the first time in its history, with photovoltaic panels producing nearly 1 terawatt-hour in May. That's enough to power roughly 90,000 homes for an entire year, according to the US Department of Energy.
That amount represented nearly one-third of all electricity generated in Utah that month, according to data from the global energy think tank Ember. Natural gas generated 32% of Utah's electricity in May, while coal produced 28%, and wind 2%.
“The trend of more and more solar in Utah is wonderful news for air quality, it’s wonderful news for the climate, and it’s wonderful news for jobs and the economy,” Dan Schroeder, a physics professor at Weber State University in Ogden, told Grist in an article published on Thursday.
Meanwhile, California achieved an even more significant milestone. Solar was already the largest source of electricity generation in the Golden State. In May, solar produced 51% of California's electricity, the first time a renewable energy source generated more than half of a state's power for an entire month. Solar also outproduced natural gas in every month of 2026 through May, the last month confirmed.
Also in May, solar supplied more of the nation's electricity than coal for the first time, and solar and wind combined generated the majority of electricity in seven states and more than 30% of power in 20 states.
Good morning with good news: Solar & wind generated more than 50% of electricity in 7 US states & more than 30% in 20 states in May 2026! Top 10 S&W states:IA 67%SD 64%NM 63%CA 58.9%KS 58.3%MA 56.9%CO 51.8%VT 49%OK 48.6%ME 45.7%S&W generated 24.2% of US power in May.#energysky
[image or embed]
— John Hanger (@jrfhanger.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 4:42 AM
“We’re going to see milestones like this increasingly happen,” Logan Mitchell, a climate scientist and energy analyst with Utah Clean Energy, told Grist.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, approximately 51% of new utility-scale electricity generation in the United States is projected to come from the sun this year, as the nation is expected to add another 43.4 gigawatts of solar, compared to 6.3 gigawatts of natural gas generation and no new coal.
More broadly, the US produced nearly three times as much solar, wind, and geothermal power in 2025 than it did in 2016, with renewables accounting for more than 20% of the nation's power production, as shown by the recently launched State of Renewable Energy online dashboard published by Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group.
Renewables accounted for 21.4% of national retail electricity sales in 2025, up from just 8% in 2016. South Dakota led the nation by generating the equivalent of 95% of its retail electricity from wind, solar, or geothermal.
“In 2026, America is getting more power from the sun and wind than ever,” Wendy Wendlandt, president and chairwoman of Environment America Research & Policy Center, said in May. “Renewable energy is reliable, resilient, and shows up for free every day. When we replace polluting energy sources with solar and wind, it delivers a cleaner, healthier future for all Americans.”
The surge in renewables comes amid efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump—who ran on a "drill, baby, drill" energy platform during a 2024 presidential campaign generously supported by the fossil fuel industry—to boost oil, gas, and coal and roll back clean power initiatives.
At times, the Trump administration's animus toward renewables has been downright inane, like when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—a billionaire who has personally profited from an oil lease on family land—infamously trashed solar by saying that "when the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there’s no solar energy produced," prompting some observers to question whether he's aware of batteries or how they work.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump last year includes billions of dollars in handouts for the fossil fuel industry, boosts drilling on millions of acres of public lands, mandates oil and gas lease sales, and imposes new fees on renewable development. A report published last month by BlueGreen Alliance revealed that "23 manufacturing, clean energy, and industrial projects are already facing cancellations and delays representing at least $82.8 billion in capital investment, which could cost 111,765 jobs."
Last month, Common Dreams reported that Trump's rollback of clean energy policies will cost American consumers $650 billion in additional energy bills by 2040, based on figures from the San Francisco-based energy and climate policy think tank Energy Innovations.
Trump has also twice withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, rolled back Environmental Protection Agency rules, signed pro-fossil fuel executive orders—including one declaring what critics say is a "phony" energy emergency—resumed and accelerated approvals for new natural gas export terminals following a moratorium enacted during the Biden administration, and paid billions of taxpayer dollars to kill clean energy projects around the world.
The “energy emergency” has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands. This, despite overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels is the leading driver of the climate emergency.
Still, clean energy advocates are buoyed by recent reports of rising renewables.
"Wind plus solar is on a tear right now," said Mitchell. "We may have achieved liftoff."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Report Shows How Trump's Fossil Fuel Agenda Is 'Making Everyone's Lives More Expensive'
Between 2026-40, the average wholesale price of liquefied natural gas could be 80% higher than during the past decade, thanks to Trump's acceleration of exports and the construction of AI data centers.
Jul 28, 2026
As President Donald Trump's push for artificial intelligence data centers sends demand for natural gas soaring, a report released Tuesday projects that wholesale prices will likely double by the late 2030s if his energy and AI policies continue, driving up household energy bills.
The report from the climate activist group Oil Change International, which argues for an end to reliance on fossil fuels, found that recent surges in wholesale natural gas prices are being driven by Trump's so-called "energy dominance" agenda, which has cranked up natural gas exports.
In his second term, Trump has resumed and accelerated approvals for new natural gas export terminals following a pause on permits under the Biden administration.
Nearly 90 million metric tons of new annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity reached a final investment decision as of June, on top of 60 million that had already been under construction, the report found. Combined, the researchers predicted that these projects could double US LNG exports by the early 2030s.
While pursuing energy dominance, Trump is also pursuing "AI dominance," which has included the breakneck development of data centers specifically built to run on fossil fuels, including natural gas.
His administration has fast-tracked federal permits for data center developers, loosened environmental review processes, and directed his agencies to provide incentives to finance the data center boom.
Gas is expected to power much of the near-term energy use from these data centers. The facilities, which operate 24/7, are being constructed faster than transmission lines can keep up, meaning that new gas plants are being proposed as an alternative.
The report finds that the demands of the AI data center boom could increase gas consumption by 17% by the early 2030s. With the cheapest gas being rapidly depleted, more demand will require producers to expand drilling in parts of the country where it's significantly more expensive to operate, like the Haynesville shale region of Louisiana and East Texas.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have gutted federal support for wind power construction and other renewable energy sources, which will further increase dependency on gas.
In addition to pumping more planet-heating greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the report finds that this increased demand will likely cause prices to soar for consumers.
Citing fluctuations in the Henry Hub gas price benchmark, the report projected that between 2026-40, the average wholesale price of gas could be 80% higher than during the past decade of US LNG exports, which it notes was "a decade when energy price volatility was already causing hardship in the US and LNG-importing countries."
"Trump's policies are making everyone's lives more expensive while Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry cash in. Our research shows that the cost-of-living crisis will only escalate in the coming years if Congress and government agencies don’t intervene," said Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International.
"Our leaders must stand up to Trump, phase out LNG exports, stop the reckless data center build-out, and transition the US economy off of fossil fuels to make energy affordable again," he added.
Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org, argued in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Tuesday that Oil Change's report, as well as another recent report demonstrating how the fossil fuel industry had hidden the climate damage caused by natural gas from the public for more than half a century, showed that it's long past time to "make gas a dirty word" in a similar fashion to oil.
"Politicians locking us into natural gas are guaranteeing that our kids will spend much of their lives paying far more for energy than they should—and far more than people in the rest of the world will be spending," he wrote.
McKibben noted recent reporting in The New York Times detailing how, in the wake of Trump's war in Iran, which has caused LNG prices to soar across Europe and Asia, nations are beginning to "unshackle" themselves from it as an alternative fuel source. Not so in the US.
"The natural gas industry," he wrote, "is destroying the climate, and destroying people’s lungs, and it’s trying to lock us into this expensive practice for decades to come."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Contrary to Evidence, Trump Energy Secretary Says Data Centers Are Best Tool to 'Stop the Rise of Electricity Prices’
His comments came one day after the largest power grid in the US announced massive rate hikes and said the "primary driver of that growth is data centers."
Jul 15, 2026
After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of "hyperscale" data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion "threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers."
New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.
But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.
On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul's block on data center development.
"Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward," he said. "Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down."
Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.
"Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies," he said. "Nothing to do with data centers."
Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a "tool" to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.
His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation's largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers' energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.
"The primary driver of that growth is data centers," the company said in a press release. "New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect."
That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company's regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.
The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright's claim "one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard."
"Data centers are pushing energy prices up," the outlet said. "That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's Anti-Clean Energy Policies Set to Cost US Consumers $650 Billion by 2040
"The fossil fuel industry and this administration's policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned," said one campaigner.
Jul 08, 2026
The Trump administration's rollback of clean energy policies will cost American consumers $650 billion in additional energy bills by 2040, according to an analysis published Wednesday by a nonpartisan think tank.
Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based energy and climate policy think tank, said in its report that "federal policy changes since January 2025 will increase energy prices, slow economic growth and job creation, increase air pollution and healthcare costs, and worsen grid reliability."
The analysis examines seven major policy shifts during the second term of President Donald Trump, who—for the third time—ran on an aggressively pro-fossil fuel and anti-clean energy platform:
- Passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA);
- The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) reconsideration and repeal of Clean Air Act Greenhouse Gas Standards, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines for electric power plants;
- EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding and federal tailpipe emissions standards;
- Passage of Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning approvals for state-level tailpipe emissions standards;
- Actions to limit renewable energy development—especially onshore and offshore wind plants—including limitations on issuance of new permits;
- Department of Energy cancellations of hydrogen hub funding and easing of 45V tax credit qualification for natural gas-based hydrogen; and
- EPA's cancellation of the $7 billion Solar for All grant program.
According to the analysis, "Households will pay an additional $650 billion for energy—an average of $460 per household in 2035 and $490 in 2040."
Additionally, the report states that "cutting policies that drive innovation and efficiency in the transportation sector will inflate gasoline prices 14% in 2035 and 26% in 2040, atop near-term upward pressure from the Iran War and other market forces."
"OBBBA and reduced federal support for domestic manufacturing and innovation will cost the US economy 820,000 jobs per year on average over the next decade, in addition to the 144,000 clean energy jobs lost within the past 18 months," the publication forecasts.
"Slowing down electrification and domestic energy manufacturing will lower [gross domestic product] in all years, totaling $2.3 trillion cumulative lost GDP, with effects flowing into other economic sectors," the study warns. "The US economy will lose $150 billion in GDP in 2030, peaking at a $250 billion net loss in 2032, then reverting to losses of $200 billion in 2035 and $120 billion in 2040."
Furthermore, "worsening local air pollution will raise healthcare costs by $43 billion, with annual increases of $4 billion in 2035 and $4.5 billion in 2040, contributing to rising household costs alongside rising energy prices and goods inflation."
Energy Innovation stressed that states must act to mitigate the costs and harms of federal inaction. The report recommends helping wind and solar projects qualify for expiring tax credits under safe harbor rules, removing barriers to additional clean energy development, boosting electric vehicles, supporting energy efficient electrification, and stimulating investment in new clean industries.
The new analysis—whose findings are disputed by the Trump administration—comes amid an unabated affordability crisis that Trump vowed to tackle, and as electricity prices soar in much of the nation as a heat dome, fueled by human burning of fossil fuels, broils large swaths of the country in what many experts warn is the new normal in a worsening climate emergency.
Responding to the analysis, Candice Fortin, US campaigns manager at the climate action group 350.org, said: "This report puts numbers on something households are already feeling in their bills and their blackouts. We were told cutting clean energy would lower costs. Instead, we’re seeing the opposite: rates spiking, grids failing under record heat, and households paying more while data centers’ electricity use explodes."
"You can’t fix an affordability crisis by blocking the cheapest, fastest power we have to build," Fortin added. "The fossil fuel industry and this administration’s policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Will Climate-Driven Heatwave Help Make the Case Against Big Tech Data Centers?
As power grids become strained amid the latest US heatwave, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
Jul 02, 2026
The rise of global temperatures has made oppressive summer heatwaves an annual occurrence, and for many Americans, air conditioning is no longer optional.
But as scorching temperatures bear down on the US once again this week, affecting more than 250 million people across the country, some are suddenly being forced to share the precious cool air with data centers that have popped up in their towns to power the breakneck build-out of artificial intelligence technology.
To keep their massive arrays of computer servers cool, these complexes require large amounts of energy even in normal times. But during a heatwave, the demand becomes even greater.
As power grids become strained, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
In Henrico County, Virginia, which has 37 data centers, thousands of county employees received an email last week from County Manager John Vithoulkas warning them that beginning on July 1, the rate paid by "government and school facilities will increase dramatically—by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year."
"To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces,” he said in the email, which was obtained by 404 Media. “Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day,” he continued. “Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight.”
He also informed them of the high cost of running "space heaters," which Frank Landymore of Futurism.com suggested was a thinly veiled way of telling residents to turn down the AC, since nobody would be using space heaters in 100-degree heat.
It was a signifier of what's happened across the entire mid-Atlantic grid, whose largest operator, PJM Interconnection, is experiencing record energy demand.
According to Reuters, the grid that supplies power to 67 million people has seen a roughly 1,000% increase in capacity prices since 2024 as a result of the AI boom, which is already being passed onto consumers in the form of higher bills.
To reduce the risk of outages caused by an overburdened grid, the US Department of Energy granted PJM the authority to require data centers to operate backup diesel generators.
Under the emergency order, Politico reported, data centers are allowed to produce enough diesel emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would categorize it as a "possible human carcinogen."
The result has been what Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, told The Associated Press could be “a disaster for the local air quality" in communities with data centers.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, where a Markley Group data center sits in the working-class Sacred Heart neighborhood, residents told the AP that they were staying inside to avoid smelling the diesel fumes being belched up near their homes.
Public backlash led the Lowell City Council to vote unanimously for a moratorium on data center building in February. But many residents feel the damage has already been done, with the Markley center gobbling up their town's electric and water resources.
One resident told The Harvard Crimson in May that since the center came to town, his winter electric bill has shot up from $40 to $177.
As temperatures spiked this week, more than 200 protesters flooded a local zoning meeting to voice their anger about the noise, pollution, and surveillance equipment bearing down on their homes. One 14-year-old girl was dragged out of the meeting by police officers.
"I'm not hurting anyone," she shouted as cops escorted her through the exit. "We just don't want data centers!"
Within roughly three years, data centers have come to consume about 4.5% of all electricity in the US, a number that is expected to keep ballooning in the coming years.
Even before the data center boom began, scientists had long warned that the climate crisis caused by human carbon emissions would make US heatwaves more frequent, longer, and more intense.
Heatwaves in major US cities are already three times as common as they were in the 1960s, according to an EPA report from 2024, and the average heatwave season is now 46 days longer.
The number of heat-related deaths in the US more than doubled from 1,069 in 1999 to 2,325 in 2023, according to a JAMA Network study analyzing mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With more than 1,500 data center projects currently underway across the US, a vicious cycle appears poised to accelerate.
The rapid buildout of data centers has already culminated in massive emission spikes. Amazon, which once pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, saw its carbon output increase by 16% in 2025 in large part due to its multi-billion dollar data center buildout.
According to a report out Wednesday from the Environmental Integrity Project, at least 74 natural gas-fired power plants are being planned to power the industry's expansion, which are expected to release 662 million tons of greenhouse gas—equivalent to the entire nation of Australia—per year.
Many of the plants are being built in low-income areas that already have poorer health outcomes and could produce nearly 160,000 tons of health-damaging pollutants that can cause lung damage, asthma, and heart attacks.
“In their wholehearted embrace of dirty and outdated gas power, data center developers are announcing to the public that they don’t care about us," said Alex Bomstein, the executive director at Clean Air Council. "We deserve better than decades of toxic pollution, parched streambeds, and climate chaos.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's Iran War Slowing Global Economic Growth to Lowest Level Since Pandemic: World Bank
"For light at the end of the tunnel, you’d have to look to the 2030s," says the World Bank's chief economist.
Jun 11, 2026
The World Bank on Thursday lowered its global growth forecast for the remainder of 2026 as the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran drives up energy prices, inflation, and the cost of debt.
"The global economy is facing another major shock," the World Bank's latest biannual Global Economic Prospects report states. "The conflict in the Middle East has triggered sharp increases in energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures, and fueled expectations of tighter monetary policy."
"Global growth is projected to slow to 2.5% in 2026, from 2.9% in 2025—the lowest rate since the Covid-19 pandemic—amid weaker prospects for economies dependent on energy imports and those directly affected by hostilities," the report continues. "Activity is expected to firm in 2027-28 as energy supplies recover, monetary easing resumes, and trade strengthens."
The Iran War has resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 30% of the world’s fertilizer and 20% of its oil previously passed. In addition to increasing the risk of a global food crisis, the strait’s closure has sent fuel and fertilizer prices soaring, with US farm diesel costing nearly 50% more than it did on the war’s eve in February and various fertilizer products spiking by between one-quarter and one-half.
The war has affected the economies of countries far removed from Iran, as the World Bank reports forecasts that "growth in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is expected to slow to 3.6% this year."
"The level of per capita income across EMDEs excluding China and India, relative to advanced economies, is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic level until after 2028, implying nearly a decade of lost income convergence," the international financial institution predicted.
World Bank Group president Ajay Banga said in a statement Thursday that "developing countries have faced a series of challenges over the last decade."
“The impact differs by country, but the basic test is the same: Protect people and preserve stability today, without giving up on growth and jobs tomorrow," Banga added. "In response to the current shock, we are providing liquidity where it is needed now—and we are ready with additional financing, guarantees, and private-sector solutions if pressures deepen. Our job is to help countries steady the ship, keep reforms moving, and emerge stronger on the other side.”
The bank said in April that up to $100 billion would be made available over the next 15 months for nations suffering the most acute economic shocks caused by the war.
As US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly undermine efforts to end the war, the World Bank cautions that the global economic outlook "remains skewed to the downside."
“A renewed escalation of hostilities or more prolonged disruptions to commodity flows could further raise commodity prices, intensify inflationary pressures and food insecurity, trigger financial stress, and lower growth,” the bank's report warns.
In his foreword to the new Global Economic Prospects report, World Bank Group chief economist Indermit Gill warned that "barring a miracle, the 2020s will prove to be what their ominous opening foreshadowed: a lost decade—not just for a couple of outliers, but for dozens of developing economies.'"
"Amid one of the densest clusters of global shocks since the 1970s, nearly 1 out of every 2 developing economies has failed since 2019 to advance on the most rudimentary promise of development: narrowing the income gap with the world’s most prosperous economies," Gill added. "For light at the end of the tunnel, you’d have to look to the 2030s."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Amid Fury Over AI Data Centers, Watchdogs Denounce ‘Absurd’ $67 Billion NextEra-Dominion Merger
"These megautilities are merely using rising concern about data centers as an excuse to concentrate political and economic power of two giant utilities to maximize financial returns to shareholders," one advocate said.
May 18, 2026
Seeking to cash in on spiking energy demand from the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers across the US, the Florida energy giant NextEra announced a $67 billion deal on Monday to acquire Virginia's Dominion Energy.
But while the deal is expected to be lucrative for the massive new entity, with national power demands projected to spike perhaps by as much as 25% over the next five years, consumer advocates fear that the proposed merger will be bad for consumers, creating an unaccountable corporate behemoth that will raise costs on ratepayers.
According to Utility Dive, the new entity created by the merger will serve a combined 10 million customers across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
With a market cap of $250 billion, the companies said they'd be the “world’s largest regulated electric utility business by market capitalization and one of the world’s largest energy infrastructure companies.”
But the deal still needs to be approved by federal regulators, a process that will likely pose minimal difficulty given the Trump administration's friendliness toward other corporate megamergers across industries, from media to railroads.
It will also be required to obtain local approvals, including in Virginia, where the recently elected Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger has made lowering utility costs and requiring data centers to "pay their fair share" central campaign promises, as massive new projects have been met with furious local backlash around the country.
Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, said that "this absurd proposal to merge two massive, well-capitalized utilities should be dead on arrival for state and federal regulators." He added that "household customers have everything to lose and nothing to gain by allowing two behemoths, NextEra and Dominion, to merge."
The company’s combined rate base—the value of assets recognized by regulators when setting rates—are valued at about $138 billion, according to the deal announcement. It said they plan to expand that value by 11% by 2032 with major infrastructure expansions.
Though the company has proposed offering $2.25 billion in credits to customers for two years after the deal closes, consumer advocates fear it is simply meant to ease upfront investment costs, leaving the real rate hikes to show up later once the credits expire.
The group Clean Virginia argued that the proposal needed to be subject “to the most rigorous scrutiny possible," given NextEra's "deeply troubling track record" in Florida.
The company and its subsidiaries in Florida have faced criticism for profiting from a $1.5 billion rate hike on Floridians and for pocketing $1 billion in tax savings without passing it on to consumers.
The company is also renowned for its extensive use of dark money to influence legislators in both parties, as well as Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to kill clean energy and other policies that disfavor its business.
David Pomerantz, the executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, told The New York Times that "a megamonopoly of this size, with the kind of money to buy political influence that NextEra will have, will be nearly impossible to regulate.”
NextEra CEO John Ketchum has said the deal is necessary to accommodate “America’s golden age of power demand.”
“Electricity demand is rising faster than it has in decades,” Ketchum said. “We are bringing NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy together because scale matters more than ever.”
But Slocum called this "a false narrative."
"The merger will do nothing to increase generating capacity, let alone desperately needed renewable generating capacity," he said. "These megautilities are merely using rising concern about data centers as an excuse to concentrate political and economic power of two giant utilities to maximize financial returns to shareholders."
He said federal and state regulators "should reject this outlandish, unnecessary merger as completely contrary to the public interest.“
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy