THE DAILY MINE ⛏️

Good morning. PJM is telling data centers to bring their own power, an Indiana utility wants customers to pay for coal that never ran, and lenders are pricing local opposition into their deals. Three different answers to the same question: who carries the risk.

Top Stories

PJM BRACES FOR 70 GW OF NEW DATA-CENTER DEMAND
Capitol News Illinois / Canary Media
PJM's proposed plan would let large loads secure their own capacity while exposing unsupported demand to curtailment beginning in June 2027, as the grid operator braces for as much as 70 GW of new large-load demand by 2038.

CUSTOMERS MAY FOOT A $116.7 MILLION FORCED COAL BILL
WFYI / Indiana Capital Chronicle
NIPSCO wants MISO customers to cover $38 million from the first three months of a federal order keeping two Indiana coal units on standby.

LENDERS START PRICING DATA-CENTER BACKLASH INTO THE DEAL
Reuters
Community resistance is moving beyond permitting fights and into financing reviews, forcing lenders to treat local opposition as a risk that can delay, shrink or derail data-center projects.

TRUMP TO ABBOTT: TEXAS DATA-CENTER CRACKDOWN IS A 'MISTAKE'
Newsweek
Trump broke publicly with the Texas governor over his pause and audit of data-center grid connections, while Abbott says fewer than 10% of proposed projects supplied required power-and-water disclosures.

GATES-BACKED REACTOR DIVIDES A WYOMING COAL TOWN
USA Today
TerraPower's first-of-a-kind Natrium reactor promises Kemmerer a new economic anchor as coal jobs fade, but the Bill Gates-backed project has also reopened old arguments over nuclear safety and waste.

Power & Grid

GAS TAKES OVER PJM'S NEW GRID QUEUE
Inside Climate News
Natural gas accounts for nearly half of more than 200 GW qualified for study in the first round of PJM's reformed queue, a sharp reversal from the renewable-heavy pipeline of only a few years ago.

OKLAHOMA APPROVES $394 MILLION BATTERY AS DEMAND JUMPS 25%
Oklahoma Energy Today
OG&E's 302 MW Frontier battery won approval on a 2-1 vote and is expected online in late 2027, with an estimated residential impact of $2.21 a month before any large-load tariff relief.

TEXAS REPUBLICANS EYE A GAS FLOOR AS SOLAR SURGES
San Antonio Current / Inside Climate News
Lawmakers are considering minimum natural-gas requirements even as solar and battery projects increasingly dominate ERCOT's new capacity, setting up another Texas fight between market economics and reliability policy.

ATOMIC CITY WAITS FOR THE NEXT NUCLEAR GENERATION
NPR
Communities around Idaho National Laboratory are preparing for a new crop of small reactors expected to come online over the next few years, even as public opinion remains split.

MICHIGAN WEIGHS BONUSES AND PENALTIES FOR UTILITY PERFORMANCE
Michigan Public
Regulators are considering incentives tied to reliability, affordability, efficiency and virtual power plants, while Consumers Energy and DTE already face up to $10 million in reliability bonuses or penalties.

Data Centers

DATA-CENTER BACKLASH SENDS A NEW LAND RUSH INTO THE TEXAS OIL PATCH
The Wall Street Journal
Developers are shifting toward oil-and-gas country for cheap land, fewer local restrictions and direct access to natural-gas generation as resistance hardens elsewhere.

DATA-CENTER FOES TRY A NEW COURT STRATEGY: SUE LOCAL OFFICIALS
Bloomberg Law
Opponents are moving from public-comment fights into litigation aimed at local officials and the approval process itself, adding legal exposure to developers' growing list of project risks.

DATA CENTERS BECOME A BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN WEAPON
NPR
Candidates from Wisconsin to Ohio and Michigan are turning anger over power bills, noise, pollution and unclear economic benefits into moratorium pledges and campaign platforms.

NEARLY 40 ARRESTED AS DATA-CENTER OPPOSITION HARDENS
Tom's Hardware
More than 70% oppose a nearby AI data center, while organizers staged 142 protests across 42 states during one July weekend and at least 37 protesters have been arrested this year.

MICROSOFT POWER DEAL CONTAINS TERMS REGULATORS ALREADY REJECTED
Wisconsin Watch
Microsoft's signed 15-year We Energies contract retained a geographic restriction that state regulators struck from the approved tariff, leaving consumer advocates asking why the stale language survived.

Stat of the Day

$2.8 MILLION

Utility profit on an Indiana coal unit that produced no power
The unit sat idle under a federal emergency order, but NIPSCO still books a return for keeping it available.
WFYI / Indiana Capital Chronicle ↗