Hat tip to the Daily Caller and Simon August, Energy Reporter

Data centers are powering the AI revolution—but who’s paying the bill? In this episode of Energy News Beat, host Stu Turley digs into a $29.4 billion question that’s about to hit your electricity bill. Federal regulators just rejected most of PJM’s plan to make data centers bring their own power, and the consequences are staggering. Your electric bill could jump by $26.87 in June 2025, and that’s just the beginning.

With capacity costs up 46% over four auctions, Americans are waking up to a hard truth: energy dominance means little if grandma in Ohio can’t keep the lights on at a fair price. In this episode, we break down the data center crisis, explore why the U.S. is losing refinery capacity at an alarming rate, examine the geopolitical stakes of the Russia-Ukraine diesel deal, and ask the tough questions about America’s energy future. Buckle up—this is the energy story nobody’s talking about, and it’s already on your power bill.

Who Pays For Data Center Power, and 9 other huge stories on the Energy News Beat Stand Up

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1. Data Center Power Costs & Grid Impact (Primary Focus)

Stu extensively covers the controversial $29.4 billion question of who pays for data center capacity on the PJM grid. Key points include:

FERC rejected most of PJM’s plan to require data centers to bring their own power
Data center loads added 29.4 billion to capacity costs across four auctions (46% of total costs)
Electricity bills are rising significantly (e.g., $26.87 increase in New Jersey in June 2025)
Public opinion: 84% concerned about data center impact on energy prices; 73% support requiring data centers to bring their own power
The host advocates for “BYOP” (Bring Your Own Power) as the solution
I am for Data Centers Done Right.

Data Centers need to be done right, and this is very concerning.

The demand behind it

PJM’s January forecast has summer peak demand climbing from 156,373 MW this year to 222,106 MW in 2036, up 65,733 MW or 42% in a decade, and to 253,077 MW by 2046 (PJM load data). The record peak is 166,929 MW, set in 2006, and PJM has about 182,000 MW of generating capacity today (PJM Inside Lines). PJM adjusted the forecast for data center growth in 14 zones, from ComEd and AEP to Dominion and PSE&G (PJM).

Chart 6. PJM forecast summer peak, 2026-2046. Source: PJM 2026 Load Forecast.

As of PJM notice posted Oct. 12; no newer notice as of 7:00 a.m. CT Oct. 13

The squeeze is not theoretical. For today, Tuesday, PJM issued a Maximum Generation Alert and a Load Management Alert, extended a capacity advisory through Oct. 14, and said it had received an emergency order from DOE. It blamed unusually warm weather and planned fall maintenance (PJM Inside Lines; ENB).

Bringing your own power is already happening without a tariff rule. On Oct. 6, Google and Constellation announced 890 MW of nuclear uprates at 11 PJM units, more than $4.3 billion, with the first expected by 2028 (Google/Constellation).

How consumers and investors see it

Consumers are worried, and getting more so. Half of Americans (50%) now say data centers are mostly bad for home energy costs, up from 38% in January, Pew found in a survey of 10,548 adults. That includes 44% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats (Pew). In an AP-NORC/EPIC poll, 84% said they were concerned about data centers’ impact on local electricity prices, and 73% backed making data centers cover grid-upgrade costs (AP-NORC). In a Heatmap Pro poll of 4,118 registered voters taken May 15-28, 2026, seven in 10 said they would oppose a data center near them, up from about four in 10 in August 2025 (Heatmap, June 3, 2026).

Chart 7. Public opinion on data centers and power bills. Sources: Pew; AP-NORC/EPIC; Heatmap Pro.

Consumer advocates have been blunt. New Jersey’s Rate Counsel called last year’s increase “over $20.00 per month” (NJBPU). Maryland’s People’s Counsel ties the summer jump to “the capacity market impacts of data centers” (OPC). Consumer advocates in the FERC case pushed for access to the registry data (FERC order).

2. China’s Oil Market Activity & Inventory

Discussion of Chinese refiners slowing inventory drawdowns and increasing oil purchases:

China buying more seaborne crude (approaching 12 million barrels per day)
Sourcing from Malaysia and Singapore due to cheaper tanker rates
Implications for global oil markets

3. Hurricane Impact on Gulf Oil & Gas Operations

Response to recent hurricane disruptions:

1.46 million barrels per day shut in (71% of Gulf output)
1.26 million cubic feet per day of natural gas shut in (59%)
Personnel evacuated from 129 of 371 platforms
Refineries faced less disruption than expected

4. Russia-Ukraine Diesel Deal & Sanctions

Trump administration’s energy ceasefire and Russian diesel imports:

Controversy over whether the deal breaks 2020 law
Diesel prices up 71% since announcement
Discussion of sanctions hypocrisy (EU buying from Russia during war)
Host advocates for ending the war and changing Ukrainian leadership
Simon from the Daily Caller had a great take on this and had several great quotes.

Asked whether Russian diesel would meaningfully lower U.S. prices, Stuart Turley, president and CEO of Sandstone Group, told the DCNF, “No, but it is a help because it gets President Putin to the table.” He called the question “the tip of the iceberg of the entire problem.”

“There’s only two ways diesel and gasoline prices can come down,” Turley said. “One, demand destruction. Number two, … more refineries. It takes decades to build refineries.”

Turley told the DCNF in a statement that the administration should instead use the Defense Production Act to expand U.S. refining, saying the law “is the right tool, and now is the time.”

“Use it as a checkbook and a referee, not a press release,” he added.

He also urged a wider Jones Act waiver, which he called “critical to keeping prices from skyrocketing,” especially on the East and West Coasts.

“High diesel prices is the inflationary impact to the United States economy that the U.S. Treasury nor the Fed can impact,” Turley told the DCNF in an interview, adding, “Buckle up. We’re in for a rough ride.”

The Kremlin said after Putin and Trump spoke Friday that “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to supply oil and oil products to the American and world markets.”

5. California’s High-Speed Rail Crisis

Budget and timeline failures of the bullet train project:

Funding gap and hidden timelines
Bakersfield segment reduced from 171 to 162 miles, budgeted at $35.7 billion
Comparison to Morocco’s successful bullet train project
Criticism of regulatory overreach
This was a lot of fun as this article really hit a nerve in Sacramento, and there were lots of people reading it.
It is Horiffic to think that it is easier to do business in Morroco than California.

The Morocco Contrast: SNCF Left California for a “Less Politically Dysfunctional” Environment

Energy News Beat previously highlighted a stark contrast. France’s SNCF, involved in early California planning in the 2000s, withdrew around 2011 after frustration with political interference, route changes driven by local interests, high costs, and over-engineering. Project manager Dan McNamara told The New York Times (October 2022): “There were so many things that went wrong. SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”

In Morocco, SNCF provided design, construction, and operational expertise for the Al Boraq line—Africa’s first high-speed rail. The roughly 350 km Tangier–Rabat–Casablanca corridor opened in November 2018 after about a decade of work. It cut Tangier–Casablanca travel times from roughly five hours to about 2 hours 10 minutes at speeds up to 320 km/h. Costs were among the lowest globally for high-speed rail, on the order of €9 million per kilometer (or roughly $15 million per mile in some analyses). While not perfectly on the original schedule or budget, the project was completed successfully and has operated reliably. Morocco is now expanding its network further, including toward Marrakech, with international contractors and financing.

California’s economy is more than 20 times larger than Morocco’s, yet the first Central Valley segment alone is projected at more than $200 million per mile in some estimates—orders of magnitude higher than Morocco’s. California’s full Phase 1 scope has been estimated as high as $231 billion (or an “optimized” $126 billion), with full service potentially not until around 2040. Voters approved Prop 1A in 2008 for a $33–45 billion system with San Francisco–Los Angeles service in under 2 hours 40 minutes by 2020. Billions have been spent; no high-speed passenger service exists.