The Daily Mine — Monday, March 2, 2026

THE HIDDEN GRID THREAT: Data centers unplugging in sync could crash the system...
Wall Street Journal
AI data centers can go offline instantly during price spikes — and when enough do it at once, the grid has no answer. Grid operators are scrambling to model a risk nobody planned for.

MISSOURI: INDEPENDENCE CITY COUNCIL VOTES ON $6 BILLION DATA CENTER TAX BREAK THIS WEEK...
KCUR (Kansas City)
Independence, MO votes this week on a $6 billion tax break for an AI campus — the state capitol fight is now at the city council level. Jobs vs. power costs vs. what existing residents are left holding.

THE HILL: 'FLORIDA HAS IT RIGHT' — No handouts for AI robber barons...
The Hill
Big Tech wants trillions in public infrastructure support while posting record profits. Florida said no — unanimously. The case for making it the national model.

ALABAMA ON THE BOIL: Soaring power bills forcing biggest utility regulator overhaul since 1981...
AL.com
Electric bills are up and Alabama ratepayers are furious. Legislators may force the biggest overhaul of the state's utility regulator in 45 years — the link between industrial load growth and residential bills is no longer deniable.

NYC GRID WARNING: Power reliability issues possible as soon as next year, ISO says...
Utility Dive
New York's grid operator is raising the alarm: the city faces reliability problems as early as 2027 as demand growth outpaces planned capacity. One of the most densely loaded grids in the world is running out of runway.

BILL GATES' NUCLEAR PLANT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING — TerraPower breaks ground in Wyoming...
RTO Insider
TerraPower's sodium-cooled Natrium reactor breaks ground in Wyoming within weeks — the first advanced nuclear project to hit this milestone in a generation. Dispatchable, purpose-built for baseload. The AI era's kind of nuclear.

DOE DROPS $26.5 BILLION ON SOUTHERN COMPANY — One of the largest energy infrastructure loans ever...
RTO Insider
DOE committed $26.5 billion to Southern Company for grid upgrades across the Southeast — one of the largest energy loans in US history, as the region absorbs some of the fastest industrial load growth in the country.

STORM BEARS DOWN ON THE GRID — Midwest to Mid-Atlantic bracing for stress...
New York Times
A major winter storm is tracking across the US this week, straining transmission lines and reserve margins from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic — at a moment when data center loads are running at historic levels.

EUROPE'S BLACKOUT IS AMERICA'S WARNING SHOT — same vulnerabilities, same inaction...
E&E News
Spain and Portugal went dark — and the US grid shares the same structural gaps: inverter-heavy generation, inadequate inertia, weak interregional backup. We're not fixing any of them.

NORTHWEST ON THE EDGE: Rolling blackouts feared as renewables 'may not be enough'...
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Pacific Northwest faces potential rolling blackouts even as renewables expand — intermittent generation can't carry peak load alone. WECC has the region in the "crosshairs."

FORBES: THE AI ENERGY TAX — Data centers are driving up your electric bill, and the reckoning is here...
Forbes
Data centers are driving up electricity prices for everyone else — and the political backlash is arriving faster than the infrastructure plans meant to prevent it.

CATERPILLAR IS GETTING RICH OFF THE AI BOOM — 6 GW in engine plant deals, and counting...
POWER Magazine
Reciprocating engine plants are the unglamorous backbone of AI power — and Caterpillar is cleaning up: 2 GW for a campus in West Virginia, 4 GW in Utah. Industrial equipment is quietly winning the AI era.

THE AI BOOM'S UNGLAMOROUS BOTTLENECK: We don't have enough electricians to build it...
Fortune
Electrical work is 45-70% of data center construction costs — and we don't have enough electricians to do it. Hyperscalers have gigawatt-scale plans; the workforce pipeline was underfunded for 20 years.

THE NUMBER EVERY UTILITY NEEDS TO KNOW: Data centers doubling US electricity share by 2030...
E&E News
Data centers go from ~4% to ~8% of US electricity by 2030. Every utility is revising load forecasts up — some by 60% — for a buildout moving faster than any model predicted.