• THE GRID
A $20 Billion Data Center. Backed by a $1 Promise.
One dollar. That's the letter of credit behind the largest data center project in Illinois.
Last week, FERC ruled on a fight between ComEd and PowerHouse Hillwood. ComEd tried to cancel a transmission security agreement for a 1.8-gigawatt data center campus in Joliet. FERC rejected the cancellation. Whether the deal holds is now up to a federal judge.
But one detail in the ruling stood out.
PowerHouse posted just $1 as security for the entire project. One dollar to hold a spot on the grid for a campus that spans 795 acres and would draw enough power for more than a million homes.
Project Cost
$20B
| Grid Capacity
1.8 GW
|
Letter of Credit
$1
| Campus Size
795 acres
|
BofA: Digital Dollar Coming 2025-2030
Bank of America just revealed your expiration date.
In their Bloomberg interview, they didn't just predict the digital dollar. They gave us the timeline…
2025 to 2030.
We're in that window right now.
Their exact words: CBDCs are an "inevitable evolution of today's electronic currencies."
The Federal Reserve has already asked for public comment. The infrastructure is being built as you read this.
Once the digital dollar launches, every transaction you make will be tracked. Your spending could be controlled. Your accounts could be frozen.
China already did this. Nigeria already did this.
But there's still a legal backdoor.
I'm Tan Gera, ex-Wall Street banker and CFA Charterholder.
I left the system when I saw what was coming.
Over 4,500 investors have already used this legal backdoor to hold assets CBDCs can't freeze and generate yields the Federal Reserve can't touch.
Bank of America said 2025-2030. We're already in 2026.
The window is closing.
P.S. Bank of America called the digital dollar "inevitable." Discover the legal backdoor investors are using to escape →
FERC Commissioner David LaCerte didn't hold back.
"The idea that $1 may provide appropriate security to any such agreement strikes me as an embarrassing legal fiction: insulting to the underlying ratepayers, stakeholders, and the grid itself that bear the real risk of this project."
The Joliet campus would hold 24 buildings across four phases. The city council voted 8-to-1 to approve it in March. Three residents sued. And PowerHouse accused ComEd of using monopoly power to block it.
FERC rejected ComEd's cancellation but left the contract fight to federal court in northern Illinois. LaCerte's words linger. A $1 letter of credit to reserve 1.8 gigawatts? That's not even a rounding error. It's nothing.
This is the collateral gap I keep coming back to. ComEd's own parent, Exelon, saw its high-probability data center load fall 40% once it started demanding signed contracts and real collateral. And here sits the largest data center project in Illinois — held in place by a dollar bill.
The grid can't be a free option. If you want 1.8 gigawatts, you should have to prove you can pay for it. Until that changes, every ratepayer is subsidizing someone else's call option on the future.
Analyst Nicknamed "The Prophet" Issues New Warning For America
Whitney Tilson shocked the nation on 60 Minutes when he accused a major company of poisoning its customers. The investigation won an Emmy and the stock fell nearly 80%. (He also called the housing crisis and the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers). Now, he's releasing his next big story. He says the day after our upcoming midterm elections, America will enter a period of economic change unlike anything we've seen in decades. And most investors are unprepared for what's coming. For the full presentation, go here.
• BLACKOUT WATCH
The Pipeline That Isn't
The build data keeps pointing the same way. The numbers are ugly.
Up to half of 2026 data center capacity may slip. Market-intelligence firm Currence estimated in February that 30% to 50% of large-scale capacity slated for 2026 would slip past year-end. Only about 5 GW was under construction against 16 GW targeted. In 2025, 26% of expected capacity missed its deadline. Another 10% got pushed further. The trend is getting worse, not better.
Seven years from queue to power-on. Data Center Knowledge found that AI infrastructure projects entering service in PJM in 2025 took more than seven years on average: over three years to reach an interconnection agreement, then four more to come online. That's not a typo. Those last four years are permits, construction, and equipment lead times. Every new project announced today is really a bet on 2033.
11 GW of "announced" capacity shows no signs of life. Currence flags 11 gigawatts sitting in the announced stage with no visible construction progress. These are press releases, not power plants. Meanwhile, EIA expects record U.S. power generation in 2026, with electricity sales reaching 4,135 billion kWh. The demand is real. Much of the supply is not.
The market prices data center stocks like everything in the pipeline will get built. The grid says otherwise. That gap is where the risk lives.
• RESISTANCE
Governors Step In Where Councils Left Off
For two years, the data center fight was local. Town boards. County votes. Zoning hearings. That's changing.
In July, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 62. It pauses discretionary state environmental permits for any data center 50 megawatts or above. New York became the first state in the country with a statewide data center moratorium. Texas has since moved too, with Abbott's September order cutting off state permits for data center projects.
New York — Executive Order 62. Pause on discretionary DEC permits for data centers ≥ 50 MW until the state finishes its environmental review (about a year). First statewide moratorium in the U.S. The legislature also passed the Responsible Data Center Development Act, a broader framework Hochul has not signed.
Michigan is taking a different route. More than 60 municipalities there have passed local moratoriums, but Governor Whitmer has said a statewide one isn't on the table. In July she asked data center developers to sign a voluntary pledge to cover their full power, water, and grid costs, including collateral, and asked lawmakers to write it into law.
Even Mendocino County, California, got in on it. Supervisors voted 5-0 in early September for a 45-day emergency ban. On October 6, they decide whether to extend it for up to two years.
ElectricChoice's tracker now counts 482 active restrictions across 44 states.
The pattern is clear. Local bans were easy to dismiss. A governor's pen is not. New York paused permits statewide. Michigan is trying to put cost allocation in writing before a single shovel hits dirt.
The backlash just moved up the food chain. When governors start signing moratoriums, the permit risk isn't local. It's structural.
Nvidia's CEO calls this "the next biggest opportunity after AI." If you missed Apple before the iPhone... a run of 7,537% at its peak... this may be your second look at that kind of setup. Get the 3 ticker symbols here.
