"President Donald Trump on Thursday designated Laura Swett chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, marking the agency’s third leadership change in nine months."
"As tech companies build data centers worldwide to advance artificial intelligence, vulnerable communities have been hit by blackouts and water shortages."
"A new law in Ohio will fast-track energy projects in places that are hard to argue with: former coal mines and brownfields."
"Google recently courted the township of Franklin, Ind., so that it could construct a giant campus to house the computer hardware that powers its internet business. But the company needed to rezone more than 450 acres in the Indianapolis suburb, and residents weren't having it."
"The Trump administration has begun prioritizing the review of new, potentially hazardous chemicals used in data centers that public health advocates and environmental attorneys warn could endanger workers, communities and the environment."
"The state with the most data centers is struggling to enact laws to protect electric customers and limit the energy and environmental impacts of their explosive growth."
"Utilities are struggling to meet demand as AI data centers surge. Equipping air conditioners with batteries could be an easy and hugely scalable way to free up electricity supply at peak times."
"OpenAI and Oracle announced Tuesday that they are planning to build five new data center sites as part of the “Stargate” project, a development that would significantly expand U.S. AI infrastructure and could affect the makeup of the grid in multiple states."
"The AI-driven boom in data centers is putting growing demands on water in California and the Southwest.
New legislation in California would require data centers to report how much water they use."
"With U.S. households paying 10 percent more per kilowatt hour for electricity than they did at the start of this year, Senate Democrats sought Monday to tie the increasing pain for consumers to the Trump administration’s relentless rollback of clean energy policy."
