THE DAILY MINE ⛏️

Good morning. Texas has more large loads waiting than generation to serve them, FERC found PJM is blocking 4.9 GW of flexible demand, and America's only conventional uranium mill plans to double output. The power crunch is moving from forecasts into rules, mines and hardware.

Top Stories

ERCOT MAY LACK GENERATION FOR 80% OF NEW LARGE LOADS
Utility Dive
Ascend Analytics projects 120 GW of peak demand by 2030, well under ERCOT's own 138 GW forecast, as turbine shortages, construction limits and interconnection delays keep most queued loads from finding matching supply.

FERC OPENS PJM TO 4.9 GW OF VIRTUAL POWER PLANTS
Canary Media
Federal regulators ordered PJM to accept statistical sampling when smart-meter data is unavailable, removing a rule that has blocked demand response equal to several large power plants.

URANIUM REVIVAL REOPENS TRIBAL HEALTH FEARS
NPR / KFF Health News
The nation's only conventional uranium mill plans to more than double last year's 1 million pounds of yellowcake, while the nearby Ute Mountain Ute community fights expansion over water, air and radioactive waste.

BESHEAR SAYS WHITE HOUSE SIDELINED HIM ON $100 BILLION CAMPUS
E&E News
Kentucky's governor says the administration did not brief him before announcing the Paducah campus on the shuttered DOE enrichment site, pulling a potential presidential contender into the industry's political backlash.

LINE 5 TUNNEL WINS FEDERAL PERMIT BUT REMAINS BLOCKED
MLive
The Army Corps approved Enbridge's four-mile tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, but construction still lacks the state approval Michigan's Supreme Court vacated July 31.

Power & Grid

JAPANESE FUSION COMPANY PUTS $46.9 MILLION INTO OAK RIDGE
Knoxville News Sentinel
Kyoto Fusioneering is moving its U.S. headquarters to Tennessee and creating 51 jobs around UNITY-3, a test facility for tritium breeding and fusion-relevant neutron conditions.

COMSTOCK TESTS A 100,000-TON SOLAR RECYCLING LINE
PV Tech
The company is commissioning an industry-scale panel recycling facility while OnePlanet reports high-purity recovery of glass, silicon, copper and aluminum in a separate automated process.

SOLAR TRADE FLOOR COULD ADD $4 TO $5 PER MWH
Forbes
The new 38-cent-per-watt floor and 15% tariff arrive as developers plan a record 43.4 GW of utility-scale solar, sharpening the fight between cheap power and domestic supply security.

FORMER COORS COAL MINE BECOMES A SOLAR FARM
CBS Colorado
Molson Coors is putting 16,000 panels on a former mine and fly-ash site; the 7-MW project is due online by year-end and will cover 7% of company electricity use.

WHAT FEELS 'NATURAL' WINS SUPPORT FOR CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY
Phys.org
A peer-reviewed study of 1,000 U.S. adults found perceived naturalness predicted support beyond risk, benefit and familiarity, while nature-based framing increased acceptance across political groups.

Data Centers

A 10,000-ACRE WEST VIRGINIA CAMPUS MEETS RURAL RESISTANCE
Roll Call
The proposal shows how local opposition is colliding with Washington's AI race, local-control concerns and warnings about higher utility bills.

TEXAS DATA-CENTER PAUSE LEAVES PRIVATE GAS GRIDS UNTOUCHED
Forbes
The state's ERCOT audit excludes behind-the-meter projects. Cleanview identified 59 planned private-power data centers totaling roughly 90 GW, though only about 2 GW is operating today.

GOLDMAN MEASURES WHAT THE AI BOOM CROWDS OUT
Axios
Capital, construction capacity, equipment and electricity committed to AI infrastructure cannot simultaneously support other investment, turning the buildout into an economy-wide allocation fight.

AGENT ENERGY RAISES $11 MILLION FOR GRID-BACKUP NETWORK
Axios
The startup plans to aggregate existing backup generators and dispatch them during grid emergencies, turning idle resilience equipment into a distributed power resource.

IOWANS WARN DATA-CENTER GROWTH COULD RAISE POWER BILLS
KCCI / KCRG
Residents and an Iowa State professor say existing allocation rules could push expansion costs onto households as regional generating capacity grows to serve new large loads.

Stat of the Day

208 GW

Texas 2030 demand as reported by transmission providers
ERCOT's own adjusted forecast is 138 GW, and Ascend Analytics puts the realistic figure at 120 GW, assuming barely half of proposed large loads ever energize.
Utility Dive ↗