• THE GRID
The Forecasters Can't Keep Up With Themselves
In December, BloombergNEF told the world that U.S. data centers would need 106 gigawatts of power by 2035.
Seven months later, they tore that number up.
On Monday, BNEF raised its forecast to 194 gigawatts. That's an 83% jump from its own estimate. Not from someone else's guess. From its own.
| DC Share of U.S. Power Today 5.9% | DC Share by 2035 20% | |
| BNEF 2035 Forecast (Dec '25) 106 GW | BNEF 2035 Forecast (Jul '26) 194 GW | |
Where should you invest $100 right now?
Elon Musk just invented and patented this new AI technology…
And he's predicting it will launch a NEW industry that will grow more than 7 million percent in the coming years.
Even if he's only 10% right, that would still be enough to grow $100 into more than $700,000.
"Every coal plant, every gas plant, every solar farm in the United States — one unit of energy out of five generated by them is going to data centers."
One-fifth. That's the share of all U.S. electricity that data centers will eat by 2035. Today it's about 6%. By 2030, it hits 12%.
And BNEF isn't alone. EPRI raised its 2024 forecast by about 60%. S&P raised its own by a third. Every expert model keeps breaking against the same wall: AI demand grows faster than the models can track.
Nearly half of that new capacity goes to AI training and inference. The U.S. will host 64% of the world's AI chips by power demand in 2033. And those new data centers, globally, will create 1,935 terawatt-hours of fresh demand. That's roughly what India uses in a year.
The pain won't land evenly. PJM — the grid from Virginia to Illinois — will see 34% of its power go to data centers. ERCOT in Texas will hit 22% of its generating capacity.
I keep a running list of forecast revisions on my desk. It's getting long. When every analyst in the room keeps raising the same number, and the number keeps beating the raise... the story isn't about data centers anymore.
It's about whether the U.S. power grid was built for a country that no longer exists.
3 Settings Your Broker Hopes You Ignore
Here's something most beginners never think about.
Every default setting in a brokerage account was chosen by somebody. And it wasn't necessarily chosen for your benefit.
Margin quietly enabled? The broker earns the interest.
Every order defaulting to "market"? The easiest kind for them to route and monetize.
One-tap trading and confetti animations? Built to make trading faster and more frequent — and most brokers earn money, one way or another, on every trade you place.
Inside Your First Trade Playbook, I show you the 3 default settings to change before your first trade — about 4 minutes of clicking that puts your account on your side.
That's one chapter. The rest walks you from "never traded" to ready for your first options trade, in one sitting.
Normally $29.97. Free today.
P.S. Your broker isn't evil — but their defaults work for them, not you. Four minutes fixes it. The settings are in the playbook.
• BLACKOUT WATCH
Three Strikes on PJM — and Summer Isn't Over
Over the July 4th weekend, the Department of Energy did something it used to do once a decade. It ordered PJM to force data centers onto backup diesel generators. Demand hit 168,158 megawatts — shattering a record that had stood since August 2006.
That was the third time this year DOE issued that order.
January cold snap: DOE issued a 202(c) emergency order. PJM received authorization to use diesel backups but didn't have to implement it. It held. Barely.
May heat wave: Same order. Same script. PJM got emergency approval to curtail large loads with backup generation before rolling blackouts hit.
July 4th weekend: DOE authorized PJM to waive power plant pollution limits through July 6 and curtail data centers through July 7. The grid held — but it took every tool in the kit.
Meanwhile, American Electric Power — one of the biggest utilities in the country — is threatening to leave PJM and SPP entirely. The reason? Interconnection is too slow. AEP can't connect new generation fast enough to serve the load that's already showing up.
And NERC's summer assessment flagged New England and the Pacific Northwest as elevated risk. Meaning: one bad heat stretch and those grids may not have enough power to keep the lights on.
Emergency orders aren't emergencies when they happen three times in six months. They're the new normal.
• RESISTANCE
142 Protests. 42 States. One Saturday.
Last Saturday — July 18 — opponents of data centers held 142 protests across 42 states. It was the first nationally coordinated day of action against AI infrastructure. Texas had 18 events. Georgia had 11. California had 8.
The group behind it, HumansFirst, was co-founded by Amy Kremer — a former Tea Party leader. She compared the movement to 2009. That's not a stretch. This crosses party lines in ways almost nothing else does right now.
On June 18, FERC issued show-cause orders to all six U.S. RTOs and ISOs — a unanimous vote. Each grid operator must justify or reform its rules for connecting large loads (50 MW+) to the grid. The orders target cost allocation, speed of connection, and ratepayer protection. Grid operators now face strict deadlines to respond.
The numbers tell the story. Active opposition groups more than doubled in three months — from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 by March, per Data Center Watch. State legislatures have introduced over 300 bills targeting data center regulation this year. Seattle banned new large data centers for a year. New York's governor signed a moratorium last week.
A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 14% of Americans would support a data center in their community.
And the cost pressure is real. Utilities asked for $18.6 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2026 — hitting more than 56 million customer accounts. Wholesale power prices near some data centers have spiked 267% over five years.
The buildout has a demand problem that money can't fix. The neighbors vote.
