Already, permitting changes and federal funding withdrawals have led to the cancellation of 7 gigawatts of generating capacity on federal land in 2025, according to a new study from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. The additional scrutiny could cancel another 12 gigawatts on federal land and 80 gigawatts on private property. Demand for electricity has been climbing in recent years after two decades of zero growth, driven in part by the expansion of data centers to feed the AI boom. Data centers are expected to grow in number and scale in the coming decade, according to market forecasters at BloombergNEF, which in turn pushes up their electricity use nearly threefold by 2035. Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is requiring grid operators to offer a fast lane for grid connections, though it has done little to address the bottleneck in new generating capacity, which is close to crisis proportions in some regions. In the largest grid in the U.S., which also hosts the...
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