Should a grid operator's waiting list be the place we decide how big AI gets to be?
Texas just paused every new data center interconnection after its queue swelled to 474 gigawatts — more than five times the state’s all-time peak demand — using an audit rather than a moratorium. Is a technical queue review the right instrument for what is really a political decision about the scale of the AI buildout, or is it the only lever that actually works because it picks no public fight?
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In the August 5th episode of Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts, we dug into Governor Abbott’s August 3rd order and the number underneath it: 1,800+ projects, ~90% of them data centers, asking for power the Texas grid has never come close to carrying. The striking detail is that when regulators simply asked companies how much power and water they’d actually use, 28 of 377 replied — and kept their place in line anyway. That suggests the queue isn’t a demand forecast at all, it’s an option book, and the audit is less an energy policy than the first honest measurement anyone has taken. We also looked at the other direction nobody talks about: demand you engineer down instead of build up. Have a listen to the full episode and tell us where you’d put the check — on the grid, in the statehouse, or on the workloads themselves.
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