Comment by phil21

> because they don't really do as much peak draw anymore

This is the same for more or less all major industrial users of electricity. Typically it's a boon for a power grid and overall lowers prices due to the stable consumer that helps you achieve very high capacity factors on your generation side. Large industrial users typically pay for a "max usage rate" (e.g. they commit to 200MW and will always pay for 200MW even if they only use 180MW average that billing period) due to the infrastructure needed to serve them - so it's as close to guaranteed money a power grid operator is likely to ever get.

If we want to re-industrialize the nation to any meaningful degree, we are going to need more baseload. AI datacenters may be a bubble, but if we can't somehow leverage the unlimited free money being poured into this space to augment our electric grid and build generation capacity for the first time since the Greatest Generation, we will have entirely failed as a society. The fact we have made it more compelling for folks to work out private deals with nuclear power plant operators to go behind-the-meter vs. just taking it from the grid is utterly absurd and shows how absolutely impossible it is to get anything done these days. These were last-ditch options after operators got frustrated trying to do things the usual way with years to decades of delays.

What is really happening at a very high level zoomed out: As a nation we decided to stop investing in energy infrastructure for over 50 years, and we are now reaping what we have sown. Eventually you run out of the previous generation's infrastructure investments, and also run out of cheap parlour tricks like sending industry overseas and focusing on energy efficiency vs. actually building stuff.

We get to figure out how to build things again or die trying. The AI bubble has only brought the demand forward a few years - anyone paying attention to this sector knew grid instability was effectively written in stone without major changes. Take our electric grid out of the hands of politicians and put it back in the hands of engineers and planners that actually can do things. You can't even build a transmission line of any length or size these days without a decade or more of legal battles and NIMBY. Good luck with the actual size of investment we need today.

tldr; We deserve all the pain we collectively get. You can only ignore problems for so long to take short term gains. Chickens coming home to roost in this arena, among many others. Once you stop investing in the future, the future eventually comes for you.