• THE GRID
The Sixty Days Are Up
Sixty days. That's what FERC gave six grid operators on June 18.
One question. Are your rules ready for data centers?
That window closed yesterday. August 17.
PJM. MISO. SPP. CAISO. ISO New England. NYISO. These six control power delivery for most of the country. Every hyperscaler building an AI campus needs to plug in through one of them.
FERC didn't ask gently. It used Section 206 of the Federal Power Act — the clause that says prove your rules are fair, or we rewrite them for you. The agency declared existing tariffs presumptively unjust for loads above 50 megawatts. That bar covers nearly every new data center in the queue.
H1 2026 Rate Hike Requests
$18.6B
| Customers Hit by Q2 Filings
56M
|
Hyperscaler Capex, 2026
~$700B
| Grid Operators Under Order
6
|
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.
The money on both sides is staggering. Five hyperscalers — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle — plan to spend about $700 billion in total capital expenditure this year. Most of that needs grid connections. Those connections flow through exactly these six operators.
But the grid serves families, too. And the bills keep rising.
"The pressure on household energy bills isn't easing. As we gear up into a political cycle where energy affordability is a defining issue, all eyes will be on these regulatory decisions."
Utilities filed $18.6 billion in rate increases during the first half of 2026. The second quarter set a record on its own — $9.2 billion in new requests, 26% above Q2 2025. Those filings alone could touch 56 million customers.
The two stories are one story. Faster data center hookups mean more grid spending. More grid spending means higher rates. Slower hookups leave hundreds of billions in AI capex stuck in line.
What comes next is clear. Stakeholders get 30 days to comment on whatever the RTOs filed. Then FERC rules.
I'm watching the utilities with the heaviest data center exposure. Dominion, AEP, Xcel — they all trade on load growth forecasts. Those forecasts now hinge on what comes out of these filings.
The grid was never built for a customer that shows up wanting 500 megawatts at once. The old model assumed slow, steady growth. Data centers shattered that. Now the whole regulatory system is trying to catch up — across six regions, under one deadline.
That deadline passed yesterday. The most important bottleneck in tech isn't chips. It's the wire. And the rules for that wire are now officially up for rewrite.
How To Collect $1,152 A Month From Gold’s Soaring Prices
Gold just shattered another record, breaking through $5,000 per ounce for the first time ever.
In just the first 26 days of this year, gold has surged 15%...
Building on last year's historic 65% gain.
But I've found a smart way to play this gold surge.
It's a simple gold fund that's been quietly delivering up to 64% in yearly distributions — paid monthly — while gold climbs.
That means while others wait for gold to go higher…
You could already be collecting $1,152 a month.
The next payout could be just days away.
• RESISTANCE
The First State Said No
Governor Hochul picked up her pen on July 14. One signature. New York became the first state in America to impose a statewide moratorium on large data centers.
The executive order pauses new permits for any facility drawing 50 megawatts or more. Up to one year. It does include carve-outs for unapproved projects primarily used for manufacturing, research, education, or medical care.
Governor Hochul signed the nation's first statewide moratorium on July 14. New permits for data centers 50 MW and above are frozen for up to one year. The state legislature also passed the Responsible Data Center Development Act, which covers facilities 20 MW and up.
New York isn't alone. Texas froze new grid hookups for data centers earlier this year. But no state had gone this far — a governor's signature on a full statewide pause.
The public is on board. An Annenberg survey released August 11 found 61% of Americans now oppose data centers in their area. That's up 12 points in four months.
The shift crosses party lines. Among Democrats, 69% oppose. Among Republicans, 54%.
The surprise? Adults under 30 lead the charge at 70%. The group most likely to use AI is the most hostile to the buildings that run it.
For developers, the moratorium squeezes an already tight map. Any project above 50 megawatts without a permit is frozen. The choice: wait a year, or move to states still saying yes — Virginia, Georgia, Indiana. Those states have grids already under strain.
More demand in fewer places makes each grid more fragile. The same Annenberg survey found 68% of Americans say the government has done too little to regulate AI. That pressure won't fade before November.
When the first state says no, every utility with data center load growth in its forecast has a new risk to price.
• BLACKOUT WATCH
Two Lines About to Cross
Two warnings from the past two months. Both got buried under the earnings hype.
The Bank for International Settlements — the central bank of central banks — released its 2026 Annual Report in late June. It compared the AI capex surge to the railway mania, the canal bubble, and the dot-com bust. The language was blunt: disappointment in returns could trigger a sudden pullback and turn the boom into a "protracted investment bust." The BIS flagged the 2008 crisis before most of Wall Street did. When it uses the word bust, I pay attention.
Epoch AI published a chart in June that should be on every investor's desk. It shows aggregate hyperscaler capex — across Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle — on track to overtake operating cash flow around Q3 2026. Oracle has already crossed the line. Amazon is approaching it. In 2023, capex consumed about 41% of cash flow. Now it's nearly all of it. The only way to keep building at this rate is to borrow. And borrowing requires lenders who believe the returns will come.
The market is pricing a decade of power demand growth. The BIS is pricing in the chance the money runs out first.
