AI revolution: So big, Texas grid needs the equivalent of 30 Nuclear Reactors By 2030 to meet Power Demand

By Jo Nova

The world is about to flip from an energy diet to an electrical boom. Look at Texas.

Here in Australia our top Blob Scientists tell us it will take 15 years to build one nuclear plant. But in Texas, which has two nuclear plants already, the AI revolution is beating down the door, and it’s saying “Feed me 30 plants for breakfast ” — or at least by 2030. It’s like a different planet.

There are already 340 datacentres in Texas which use 8GW of power, but new projects are so large, they are starting to ask for a whole gigawatt up front. And the sum total of requests for new electrical supply add up to 99 gigawatts — most of which have materialized in the last year. The new level of demand is so big, the grid managers are starting to worry that single new industrial loads are large enough to threaten the grid.

The ERCOT grid peak load last summer was 86 gigawatts. The new peak demand by 2030 is expected to be 75% bigger. It may not all be nuclear, ERCOT did [...]