Based Underground is now a conservative news aggregator AND curated newsletter.
(The Center Square)—The average American’s energy bill could increase from 25% to 70% in the next 10 years without intervention from policymakers, according to a new study from Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Jack Kemp Foundation.
According to reports, America is facing an energy crisis, with demand for energy soaring due to the proliferation of AI and hyperscale data centers – which can use as much energy as almost 40,000 homes – the boom in advanced manufacturing, and the movement toward electrification.
Written by economist Ike Brannon, a senior fellow at the foundation, and economist Sam Wolf, the report explains partly why so many utilities and regional transmission organizations are having to get creative to meet demand.
“During the previous two decades, power demand in the United States scarcely grew as the U.S. shifted from a manufacturing to a services economy,” the authors wrote.
However, the sharp increase in demand is eating up the spare capacity in the U.S. power grid, which helps protect against brownouts and blackouts in the case of extreme weather and temporary outages by power plants. That increase contributed to a huge spike in capacity market prices at the most recent auction held by the Mid-Atlantic regional transmission organization PJM.
Prices jumped from $29 to $270 per megawatt-day “across the PJM region” and from $29 to $444 in parts of Virginia, home to more than half of the nation’s data centers, according to the study.
Aaron Ruby, a spokesperson for Dominion Energy, a major East Coast utility company and the primary utility in Virginia, vehemently disagreed with the study’s claim that prices could rise to 70% in the next decade, saying the number was “way off” for the commonwealth.
“We just released a 15-year plan forecasting residential electric bills through 2039, and they’re only projected to grow by about 2.5% a year, which is lower than normal inflation,” Ruby wrote in an email to The Center Square. “Our residential rates are among the most affordable in the country. They’re 14% below the national average.”
But the surge in power demand from data centers is projected to be so great the study’s authors argue the center cannot hold (while acknowledging that rate setting is “inherently political” and “difficult to forecast” and that it’s “unclear who will bear the cost of these price increases”).
“In Virginia, the high regulation of price and capacity has kept the increased demand from data centers from impacting prices paid by ordinary consumers, but such insulation cannot hold much longer without risking service interruptions or brownouts,” the report reads. “As data center growth expands, price increases may need to flow through to consumers more rapidly.”
In Maryland, electricity bills “are projected to increase by somewhere between two to 24% in 2025, depending on the region,” the authors added.
Other states like Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Illinois and Arizona may come to resemble Virginia in the years ahead, according to the study.
The report’s authors suggest that policymakers craft and implement policy that will make data centers part of the solution to the disproportionate demand they place on the grid, including charging them more for the energy they use.
“To ease the burden on households and small businesses, AI companies should be required to bear the additional costs of the energy they consume. This could include charging data centers higher fees to reflect their disproportionate impact on electricity markets,” the report reads.
Brannon and Wolf also recommend that states and local governments stop subsidizing data center construction, arguing that the economic benefits aren’t worth the cost to taxpayers and that utility providers start including minimum take clauses in their contracts with data centers.
“A minimum take clause guarantees a minimum payment from a utility user—such as a data center—regardless of how much energy it purchases, which provides the utility with a modicum of revenue certainty,” the authors wrote.
The study concludes with several other recommendations, saying that “paying for grid modernization… can be accommodated within existing rate structures, but only if the data centers bear their proportionate share of these costs.”
‘Merely Coincidental’: Secular Scientist Work Overtime to Explain Away the Miracles of Christ
by Harbingers Daily
Was the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish a little less than miraculous? Well, that’s what a group of scientists are claiming in a recent paper published in a scientific journal. Instead of a supernatural provision by the Lord, they claim the feeding…
Google Hosts Party for Democratic Operatives Plotting To ‘Resist the Republican Agenda’
by Free Beacon
The resistance’s bar tab is on Google. Priorities USA, a top Democratic super PAC with an affiliated dark money group, is convening a summit of left-wing digital activists on Wednesday afternoon to deliver a post-mortem on Vice President Kamala Harris’s election loss and strategize how to “resist the Republican agenda,”…
“The Correction Before the Surge”: Why Gold and Silver’s Future Is Brighter Than Ever
by Sponsored Post
It was long overdue by most estimates. Precious metals prices have been steadily rising for far longer than even the …
Ukraine Denies Reports From Think Tank That It Is Months Away From Developing a Nuclear Weapon
by Natural News
Ukraine has denied reports suggesting it could develop a nuclear weapon soon, following claims by a Ukrainian military think tank. The report, published by the Ukrainian think tank and nongovernmental organization the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, claimed that Kyiv could use spent nuclear fuel from its remaining…
Alex Jones Reveals Elon Musk Saved Infowars From Being Sold to The Onion
by End Times Headlines
Alex Jones has declared ‘the cavalry is here’ as attorneys for Elon Musk’s X jumped in to help put a temporary pause on the sale of his controversial Infowars to The Onion. The satirical news publication said the bid was sanctioned by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary victims who…
FBI Whistleblower Says FBI Intentionally Blocking Security Clearances for Trump Officials
by The Conservative Treehouse
It should not come as a surprise to see the same methods deployed against President Trump in 2024 that were used by the FBI in 2016. The difference is now that President Trump understands the full power of his office in the security clearance process and that he doesn’t need…
Pastor Greg Locke Burns Voodoo Doll He Claims Was Found on His Property
by End Times Headlines
Even amid ongoing warfare, we are called to stand firm on the Word of God. Pastor Greg Locke knows well the spiritual and physical attacks directed at him; he was recently targeted by a gunman. Now, he faces another spiritual assault, this time from someone attempting to place a curse…
Trump’s Incoming FCC Chief Already Putting Target on Big Tech ‘Censorship Cartel’
by WND
Social media companies have become a “cartel” for suppressing information with which they disagree, and that agenda now is going to be getting the attention of Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. It was social media companies who played a role…
Sabotage: Two Undersea Internet Cables Connecting Four NATO Nations Were Severed
by Publius
Many in the international community are claiming sabotage as the only viable explanation for two fiber optic internet cables in the Baltic Sea being severed less than 24-hours apart. Fingers are being pointed at Russia as one of the the cables connected NATO nations Germany and Finland. The latter was…
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Orders Democrats to Immediately End Counting of Illegal Ballots
by Infowars
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday ordered Democrats in several counties to immediately halt their unlawful counting of illegal ballots in the Senate race recount. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled before the election that mail-in ballots lacking formally required signatures or dates should not be included in official results….
22-Year-Old Woman With Depression Was Almost Euthanized, She Changed Her Mind Right Before She Was Killed
by Life News
Why do you oppose euthanasia, Wesley? If people want to die, we should help them die. No. And here’s an individual example explaining just one reason why. A deeply depressed woman was about to be lethally injected in the Netherlands — but changed her mind just in the nick of…
“Massive Breach”: T-Mobile Network Hacked by Chinese State Sponsored Intelligence
by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
(Zero Hedge)—Where’s John Legere in a pink t-shirt when you need him? Among the multiple stories over the last few weeks about Chinese intelligence and hackers either attempting to, or outright gaining access, to U.S. cell phone networks (with reports stating President Trump and his team were targeted), comes news…
Trump’s Idea to Shut Down Department of Education Gets High Five From Top Christian Evangelist
by WND
A priority for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is to tackle the Deep State, the bureaucracy in Washington that is a self-perpetuating industry, to find what American taxpayers don’t need or want. And get rid of it. One of the targets he’s already identified is the Department of…
Experts Sound Alarm Over ‘Shocking’ Spike in Strokes Among ‘Healthy’ Young People
by Slay News
Health experts have issued a chilling warning to the public over a “shocking” spike in strokes among “healthy” young people. The “alarming” surge was identified in official UK government data. The data shows that recorded cases of deadly strokes skyrocketed in 2023 and continued soaring this year. In 2023/24, the…