The Daily Mine — Thursday, February 26, 2026

SIGNING DAY: Big Tech execs summoned to White House to formally commit on power costs...
CNBC
The Trump administration is escalating the Ratepayer Protection Pledge from a SOTU announcement to an actual White House signing ceremony, with tech executives called in to formally commit to shouldering their own electricity costs.

REALITY CHECK: Why power costs will keep rising — despite Trump's pledge...
Politico
Some utilities already require data centers to pay 80-85% of planned power use even if projects never materialize — structural limits the pledge can't easily override, Politico finds.

NYT: Trump's tech power deal is 'short on details' — experts say pledge 'difficult in practice'...
New York Times
The Times adds Tier 1 skepticism: voluntary commitments from tech companies face deep structural barriers in utility rate-making that no White House pledge can simply override.

FERC COMMISSIONER: 'We are focused on winning the AI race'...
RTO Insider
Commissioner LaCerte signals FERC is reframing its permitting, interconnection, and grid expansion work explicitly around AI competitiveness — a regulatory posture shift with major implications.

DOE BETS $26.5 BILLION on Southern Company — largest federal energy loan ever...
RTO Insider / AP
$22.4B to Georgia Power, $4.1B to Alabama Power for new gas plants, transmission, and upgrades driven by data center demand — Energy Sec. Wright says it saves customers $7B+ from the subsidized rate.

TEXAS HOLDS: Grid weathers winter storm — the 2021 nightmare isn't repeating...
Houston Public Media
ERCOT held steady through February's freeze, with solar and battery additions credited for reducing both winter and summer blackout risk — a meaningful milestone five years after the deadly 2021 collapse.

NYT: Grids are surviving the storm — but the next 5 years could be rough...
New York Times
A forward-looking reliability analysis warns that aging capacity retirements, surging AI demand, and transmission gaps will stress the grid well beyond what current winter performance suggests.

COLD SNAP: Frigid weather pushes US grids to high-demand alerts...
Reuters
Cold snap pushes grid operators across multiple regions to high-demand alerts, offering a live preview of the reliability challenges ahead as baseload capacity continues to retire.

LOUISIANA MODEL: How a 'determined approach' landed Amazon's $12B data center deal...
RTO Insider
Louisiana energy officials detail how proactive utility coordination, permitting speed, and accountability conditions in Amazon's deal became a replicable template for states competing for data center investment.

OHIO REVOLT: Towns pushing back on data centers — some winning, some not...
WVXU (Cincinnati)
Multiple Ohio communities are mounting data center opposition campaigns with mixed results — a ground-level look at how local resistance plays out when industry and federal backing push back.

CHEROKEE NATION forms task force to study data center impacts on reservation land...
Journal Record
Tribal sovereignty meets the data center boom: the Cherokee Nation is formally studying power, water, and economic impacts of proposed data centers on reservation land — a front nobody else is tracking.

MONTANA RESIDENTS PUSH BACK: Public forums on data center expansion turn contentious...
Fairfield Suntimes
Montana's governor's energy task force is holding public meetings across the state on data center proposals, with Butte residents surfacing concerns about power costs and water use.

SENATE GOES BIPARTISAN: Blumenthal teams with GOP colleague to rein in data centers...
Hartford Business Journal
Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT) is partnering with a Republican counterpart on federal data center legislation — the first significant bipartisan Senate action since the SOTU ratepayer pledge.

GARTNER: Global data center energy demand doubles to 980 TWh by 2030...
CFO Brew
Gartner projects global data center energy demand doubles by 2030, with 44% coming from AI-optimized servers — the investment risk framing that no pledge or loan can fully paper over.