Texas ERCOT Grid Holds Beyond 91 Gigawatts in Heat Wave – At what cost?

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 Next Generation of Nuclear Energy: A Conversation on Growth, Grid Reality, and Public Trust

A wildly fun podcast with Grace Vanderhei and Alina Voss. In this Energy Newsbeat podcast episode, host Stu Turley sits down with nuclear experts Grace Vanderhei (nuclear fuels engineer and former Miss America) and Alina Voss (NX Atomics) to explore the nuclear industry’s pivotal moment. As the U.S. restarts decommissioned reactors and deploys advanced reactor […]

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Data Center Growth on Track to Absorb a Fifth of US Power Use by 2035: Nuclear Had Better Be Implemented Before We Get There

The explosive growth of data centers, driven primarily by artificial intelligence, is reshaping America’s electricity landscape. High-end projections now show data centers potentially consuming up to 20% of total U.S. electricity by 2035 in aggressive scenarios—roughly a four- to five-fold increase from today’s ~4-5% share. Even as AI model developers announce efficiency gains, the underlying […]

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Building the Future at Warp Speed: How Aalo Atomics is Solving the Energy Crisis

Yasir Arafat, Co-Founder, CTO, & President, stops by the Energy News Beat podcast On July 4th, 2024—America’s 250th birthday—something extraordinary happened that most people missed. Allo Atomics turned on a brand new advanced nuclear reactor for the first time in 50 years. But here’s what makes this truly revolutionary: they designed, built, and achieved criticality […]

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Largest US power grid PJM escalates emergency actions to avoid blackouts

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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The U.S. is leading SMR Projects Globally

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are reshaping the nuclear energy landscape with their compact size (typically up to 300 MWe per unit, versus 1,000–1,400 MWe for traditional large reactors), factory-built modular designs, enhanced safety features, and faster deployment potential. These attributes make SMRs ideal for powering data centers, remote communities, industrial sites, and replacing retiring coal […]

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U.S. Department of Energy Meets President Trump’s Goal, Delivers Third Advanced Reactor CriticalityJuly 2, 2026

In a landmark achievement for America’s nuclear renaissance, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that Deployable Energy’s Unity demonstration reactor successfully achieved criticality on June 30, 2026 (late yesterday), at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). This marks the third DOE-authorized advanced reactor to reach this milestone by the July 4, 2026, deadline set by President […]

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250 Years of Energy: How America’s Abundant Natural Resources Powered a Rising Nation — And Why Smart Policy Will Determine the Next Century

This article was first Run on The Energy News Beat Substack. If you would like to make a comment, head over there.  There is a pattern that the more political regulatory overreach, innovation, and lower costs to consumers are quashed. From the wood fires that warmed homes and fueled early industry in 1776 to the […]

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