The United States should investigate new and novel ways for large power consumers to manage their power consumption during critical grid periods to enhance reliability and unlock additional power on the system.
America’s AI Action Plan
One of the few things AI policy observers can agree to in their forecasts of the near future is that AI will require tremendous electricity to continue scaling. Supplying this electricity will undoubtedly require vast new infrastructure, including natural gas plants, nuclear fission plants, and, eventually, enhanced geothermal and nuclear fusion. Building this infrastructure, in turn, demands smart deregulation in environmental and energy law. This is a story, and a policy playbook, that will be familiar to most people who have read about AI’s power demands.
Yet executing this playbook well is insufficient. First, even the most basic electricity infrastructure—transmission lines, transformers, natural gas turbines, and the like—are badly supply constrained. These bottlenecks are unlikely to be resolved fully in the next few years. Second, there is substantial engineering, financial, and logistical execution risk associated with nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and enhanced geothermal. Even if the deregulatory agenda goes perfectly, it does little to mitigate those more basic risks.
So America will need more than just deregulation. Fortunately, there is low-hanging fruit to be plucked. America can pull gigawatts out of thin air through a combination of technology and smartly targeted policy. Let me show you how.
