New York City’s lights increasingly depend on a pair of half-century-old floating power plants that were never meant to run this hard. The Gowanus and Narrows barge-mounted generating stations, moored off Brooklyn in the Upper Bay, serve as the city’s last line of defense against blackouts. As intense heat waves and rising demand strain the […]
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Texas ratepayers are on the hook for a $33 billion high-voltage transmission expansion that critics call a classic power grab—funneling guaranteed returns to transmission monopolies, condemning thousands of acres of private land, and primarily enabling more intermittent wind and solar that many of today’s assets won’t economically or physically outlast another decade. The Electric Reliability […]
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A leaked report commissioned by the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso) has raised serious alarms that the country’s aggressive net zero transition is increasing the risk of blackouts while driving up electricity costs for consumers. Produced by energy consultancy Cornwall Insight and shared with The Times by a whistleblower, the document highlights how the […]
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Back-to-back heat waves sweeping the United States are pushing electricity grids to a tipping point, as temperatures topping 100°F (38°C) drive households to max out air conditioners while a surge in around-the-clock demand from AI data centers and factories shrinks power reserves and strains decades-old transmission equipment. This is emerging as the new normal for […]
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Wind and solar are key, but not in existing grid deployments. This article was first run on the Energy News Beat Substack. Global electricity generation is set for a massive expansion. According to OPEC’s World Oil Outlook (matching the chart data for 2025–2050), total generation rises from about 32,017 TWh in 2025 to roughly 59,500 […]
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On Wednesday, July 22, 2026, extreme Texas heat drove air-conditioning demand that pushed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid past 91 gigawatts for the first time. Unofficial real-time figures from ERCOT’s website showed a peak around 91,300 megawatts near 5 p.m. CT, with system-wide demand data indicating highs near 91,089 MW. This shattered […]
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The U.S. electric grid faces a critical bottleneck: explosive growth in electricity demand from AI data centers, manufacturing resurgence, and electrification is outpacing the physical expansion of the high-voltage transmission network that moves power across regions. According to energy economists Leonard Hyman and William Tilles in a new OilPrice.com analysis, the country needs roughly 5,000 […]
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Energy News Beat Channel | July 16, 2026 Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has implemented a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) affecting approximately 7,800 customers across small portions of 10 counties in Northern and Central California. The action, announced on July 14, 2026, began in the afternoon of July 15 as a precautionary measure […]
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Exelon Corporation, America’s largest electric utility by customer count, is sounding the alarm. Its CEO, Calvin Butler, has warned that the United States could face blackouts as early as 2027. This comes amid surging electricity demand — driven heavily by AI data centers — and chronic underinvestment in new power generation and grid infrastructure. At […]
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The largest U.S. regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection, escalated emergency measures on July 3, 2026, issuing a federal alert to cut electricity consumption across its vast territory amid generator outages, overloaded high-voltage transmission lines, and surging air-conditioning demand from a prolonged heatwave. PJM, which manages the electric grid for approximately 67 million people, activated demand-response […]
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