Illinois’ Clinton Power Station has been a fixture of the American energy grid since the 1980s…

It’s one of only about 50 nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. today. And now, it’s being drafted into a new kind of arms race.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META) has locked in every megawatt of Clinton’s output starting in 2027… purely to power AI data centers.

It’s a logical answer to Microsoft’s (MSFT) challenge late last year. The software giant paid more than double the market rate for power from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant (when it’s up and running).

It’s also yet another warning sign. We’re running out of power…

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) recently fast-tracked six sites as “preapproved” for new reactors. Yet even these shovel-ready projects remain years – if not decades – from completion.

AI isn’t waiting decades. Its energy demands are surging now. And it needs a stable source of that energy.

And while nuclear might be the long-term answer, it’s nowhere near ready… so natural gas is set to step up in the interim.

When it comes to 24/7 power, nuclear has long been the holy grail…

It’s emissions-free. It’s reliable.

But even with precleared NRC sites, it often takes more than a decade to bring a new nuclear plant on line.

That’s because the real gatekeeper isn’t the NRC. It’s the lesser-known Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”).

FERC is an independent agency that governs how power projects plug into the grid. And its regulatory backlog has kept both nuclear and natural gas plants on ice for years.

Just last year, FERC denied Amazon‘s (AMZN) request to build a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania.

And even if it had been approved and built, FERC controls when the plant gets connected to the rest of the grid (called “interconnection”)… So it likely would’ve been met with more delays.

The agency has limited resources. And its process is full of red tape. In 2022, 68% of all interconnection studies were issued late, according to FERC.

FERC has long been the blockage in the AI bottleneck. But that bottleneck is finally about to clear…

The Trump Executive Order Reshaping America’s Power Grid
Back in April, the Trump administration issued Executive Order 14270. In essence, it says power regulators need to get out of the way. It takes a hatchet to the roadblocks propping up the AI bottleneck.

The order requires all federal agencies to review and justify every active energy-related rule. Any regulation not deemed essential must be rescinded within a year.

The goal is simple: Remove friction from America’s energy build-out.

Executive Order 14270 will take effect at midnight on September 30. By unlocking the U.S. power grid, this order will spark a historic wave of energy investment.

But as we know, nuclear energy isn’t ready to run the show right away. So natural gas will have to fill the gaps…

Unlike nuclear, natural gas plants can be approved, built, and connected in just a few years – sometimes even faster.

We already have the infrastructure to support this proven technology. We have plenty of domestic supply. And pretty soon, we’ll have far fewer permitting hurdles.

It’s also viewed as a cleaner option than coal and oil, making it a “bridge fuel” toward a decarbonized power grid.

In the long term, nuclear energy is a likely candidate to power much of the AI boom. But natural gas is ready now.

The commodity already supplies about 40% of data-center power demand… which is projected to grow from 11 gigawatts (“GW”) to 42 GW by 2030.

And natural gas is expected to power most of the new data-center projects through the same year.

This is a pivotal moment in the history of U.S. energy. And almost nobody is reporting the full details.

Big Tech giants are funneling billions of dollars toward reliable power. Trump’s new deregulation push could send us hurtling toward the next – and possibly last – big AI boom of our lifetimes.

Regards,

Rob Spivey

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Source: Daily Wealth