Donald Trump picked Chris Wright from Liberty Energy as his energy chief‚ but the real story isnt about oil: its about Americas power grid shake-up
The oil situation looks pretty good with weak Chinese growth and more e-cars on roads‚ However the power-grid problems are getting worse day-by-day (specially with data centers eating up more juice than ever)
Last yearʼs electricity costs jumped higher than any time since y2k‚ and some places got hit hard: Maryland folks might see their bills go up almost 1/4th soon. The power supply system – built way back when people used phone-books instead of Google – just cant keep up with todays tech-heavy world
AI is really changing the game: one AI video uses about 10k times more power than a regular web search. In Georgia they had to change their plans big-time; they now think theyll need 28x more power by early 30s than what they thought just couple years ago
Hereʼs whatʼs making things tough:
* Old power lines that break in bad weather
* Super-slow building permits
* People saying no to new power stuff
* Old plants closing before new ones open
Big tech companies like Amazon‚ Google‚ and Meta want more power‚ but the grid just isnt ready; Some places are even telling new data centers “sorry weʼre full“ The permit system is so slow it takes like 10+ years just to build one high-voltage line
A new law sitting in Congress could help fix things: it would make building easier and change how power companies work. It would also let power companies try new stuff like better wires that can move twice the juice‚ and give people smart tools to control their power use
The solution isnt just “drill more oil“ – its about fixing the whole power system. If Trump wants to keep his promise about cheaper energy and beating China in the AI race‚ he needs to focus on rebuilding Americas electric backbone