Good morning. Texas is reconsidering the price of the data-center boom, five states raised their hands for nuclear waste, and New Orleans wants answers about clear-sky outages. States are auditing the deals they already made.
Top Stories
TEXAS GRID AGENCIES WANT MORE POWER OVER DATA CENTERS
The Texas Tribune
Regulators want direct authority to order emergency load cuts, mandatory registration for large users and broader safeguards against foreign-linked control of critical infrastructure.
TEXAS PUTS ITS DATA-CENTER TAX BREAK UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Texas Public Radio
Senators are reconsidering a sales-tax exemption that has outgrown its original cost estimate by orders of magnitude, while six of the first 20 audited projects failed or withdrew.
FIVE STATES STEP FORWARD FOR AMERICA'S NUCLEAR WASTE
E&E News
DOE is negotiating with Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho on nuclear lifecycle campuses that could span fuel production, reprocessing, storage and final disposal.
THE DATA-CENTER LOBBY DOUBLES IN A YEAR
POLITICO
More than 200 companies and groups reported federal lobbying on data centers from April through June, up from fewer than 100 in the same quarter last year.
CLEAN ENERGY HAS A FOUR-YEAR RUNWAY. THEN THE FOG ROLLS IN.
Canary Media
Rhodium sees roughly 50 GW of annual wind, solar and storage additions through 2030, but its 2030s outlook ranges from continued records to a collapse as low as 3 GW a year.
Power & Grid
NEW ORLEANS DEMANDS ANSWERS FOR CLEAR-SKY OUTAGES
The Lens
Equipment failures caused more than one-third of 716 first-quarter outages, prompting all seven council members to demand tougher reliability and spending disclosures from Entergy.
MARYLAND TRADES EFFICIENCY FOR BILL RELIEF
Inside Climate News
The state cut EmPOWER's annual savings target from 2.5% to 1.75% starting in 2027, lowering near-term charges while weakening a tool for reducing long-term grid demand.
MDU SEEKS A 14.5% RATE INCREASE IN NORTH DAKOTA
North Dakota Monitor
The utility wants $34.5 million more per year, or about $19.10 monthly for an average home, as regulators separately decide how data-center costs and benefits should flow to existing customers.
SHERCO'S SOLAR REPLACEMENT KEEPS GROWING
MPR News
Xcel is expanding the solar buildout around its retiring Minnesota coal plant, using the site's transmission access and energy workforce to anchor the replacement generation.
BP NEARS THE EXIT FROM LIGHTSOURCE
Reuters
Qualitas Energy and the Kuwait Investment Authority's infrastructure arm are in advanced talks to buy BP's solar developer, which anchored a major impairment charge earlier this year, as the oil major pursues $20 billion in divestments.
Data Centers
PALLONE PUSHES A NATIONAL AI DATA-CENTER MORATORIUM
E&E News
The top Democrat on House Energy and Commerce says new campuses should pause until Congress adopts protections for household power bills, water supplies and local air quality.
A DATA-CENTER VOTE TURNS INTO RECALLS AND DEATH THREATS
Nebraska Public Media
Three Lincoln County commissioners face recall petitions after rejecting a six-month moratorium, and one says threats reached him and his family over the procedural vote.
SEVEN IN TEN SAY BIG TECH HAS TOO MUCH POWER
Axios
An advocacy survey from the Little Tech Association finds broad concern about the influence of the largest technology companies and their CEOs as AI pushes their reach deeper into energy and infrastructure.
KANSAS DEVELOPERS REJECT THE SNEAK-IN CHARGE
Topeka Capital-Journal
Industry supporters say projects face public approvals and cannot quietly slip into communities, responding to complaints about tax incentives, opaque site negotiations and limited local input.
ENTERGY SAYS EMINENT DOMAIN IS THE LAST RESORT
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The utility says it is seeking voluntary landowner agreements for transmission routes to a Pulaski County data center, with condemnation reserved for parcels where talks fail.
Stat of the Day
$3.3B
Projected cost of Texas' data-center sales-tax exemption in 2028-29
The original estimate was $14.6 million for 2014-15, and state officials say the latest projection is already outdated.
Texas Public Radio ↗