5 Big Energy Stories - 10.14.2025
As electricity bills rise, candidates in both parties blame data centers - Good story at Semafor detailing a building backlash among Republicans and Democrats alike against the proliferation of AI datacenters in their communities’ back yards. Maybe we can call the phenomenon AI NIMBY.
It’s not surprising, really: We’ve seen similar pushback in recent years towards wind and solar projects all over the country (Robert Bryce has done great work creating a database of such community pushback examples), as well as their stationary battery installations. Before that, it was shale oil and gas development, and before that it was nuclear. Every form of energy, no matter how “dirty” or “clean” it happens to be, ends up with a NIMBY movement opposing it.
Key Excerpt: On Friday night, dueling candidates for a board of supervisors seat in this suburban county found a cause that united them: banning new data centers.
“I think we should, personally, block all future data centers,” said Patrick Harders, the Republican running for an open seat on the Prince William County board. George Stewart, his Democratic opponent, agreed that “the crushing and overwhelming weight of data centers” was a crisis, with massive companies “having us, as residents, pay for their energy.”
