The Daily Mine — Tuesday, February 24, 2026

TERROR PROBE: Man rams car into Nevada power substation — FBI seeks motive...
CNN / LA Times / ABC News / CBS News
Police and FBI are investigating a possible terrorism incident after a man drove through the fence of an LADWP substation near Boulder City, Nevada. Suspect Dawson Noah Maloney crashed into wire reels and shot himself. Counterterrorism investigation is active; motive unknown.

TRUMP TO BIG TECH: Pay your own power bills...
Fox Business
The White House is set to call on tech companies to pay for their own data center electricity — aligning with Shapiro, Sanders, and DeSantis. The "pay your own way" movement is now bipartisan at the highest level.

AMAZON BLINKS: $12B Louisiana deal — pays own power, limits water use...
CNBC / Louisiana Illuminator / GeekWire
Amazon announced $12 billion in Louisiana data center investment — and pledged to pay for its own power infrastructure and limit water use. GeekWire: "a new era of accountability." One week into the political revolt, the world's largest cloud company is responding.

VIRGINIA VOTES TODAY: $28 billion data center cost battle heads to the floor...
PECVA
SB619 and SB339 — bills that would protect Virginia ratepayers from billions in data center transmission costs — come to a vote today. The state has 70 GW contracted with Dominion, nearly triple peak grid load. Today's result will set the tone for every state still watching.

NYISO WARNS: NYC could face power reliability shortfalls as soon as next year...
Utility Dive
New York's grid operator flags near-term reliability concerns for New York City as data center and EV demand accelerates beyond new generation capacity. The first major RTO to issue a near-term metro reliability warning.

BLACKOUT RISK: Pacific Northwest in the 'crosshairs,' grid regulator warns...
OPB / The Center Square
The Pacific Northwest's grid reliability regulator says the region faces elevated winter blackout risk as renewable buildout lags demand growth. A new study finds clean energy alone won't be enough to avoid rolling outages.

CYBER SURGE: Threats to energy infrastructure rose worldwide in 2025 — Dragos...
RTO Insider
Industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos released its annual threat report: cyberattacks targeting energy infrastructure climbed globally last year. With the Nevada substation attack still under investigation, the physical and digital threat picture is converging.

EUROPE'S BLACKOUT: A warning shot for the US grid...
E&E News / Politico
E&E News examines what recent European grid failures mean for US operators. The same structural pressures — rising demand, slow transmission buildout, aging infrastructure — are present on both sides of the Atlantic.

STUDY: Colorado solar farms taking tiny slice of farmland — fear campaign overblown...
Colorado Sun
A new industry study finds solar development has consumed only a tiny fraction of Colorado agricultural land, directly countering claims that renewable energy is threatening farming at scale.

NUCLEAR RISK: Data centers next to reactors create new cybersecurity threat...
RTO Insider
A deep dive on the security implications of co-locating hyperscale data centers with nuclear power plants — the arrangement being pursued at Three Mile Island and elsewhere. Mixing critical national infrastructure with high-value corporate data targets creates a novel attack surface regulators haven't fully addressed.

UTAH: Data centers can't get clean power fast enough — turning to fossil fuels...
Grist
Grist investigation: Utah's booming data center market is increasingly powered by fossil fuels because renewables simply can't be built fast enough. The "AI runs on clean energy" promise is colliding with reality.

WHO PAYS? North Carolina enters the data center cost battle...
Wilmington Star-News
North Carolina is the latest state asking who should bear the infrastructure costs of data center growth. At least nine states are now pushing back in some form since the start of 2026.

AES DEAL: Signs power supply agreement for Google's Texas data center...
Reuters
AES Corp signed power supply agreements to serve a Google data center in Texas. Another major independent power producer locking in long-term data center contracts as the arms race for dedicated power intensifies.

STALLING: Why the global AI data center boom is hitting a wall...
Axios
A wave of announced AI data center projects are facing delays — power availability, permitting bottlenecks, supply chain constraints for transformers and cooling equipment. The boom is real, but slower than the headlines suggested.