Posted on 11/23/2025 7:39:28 AM PST by DFG
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation reported Tuesday that winter electricity demand is increasing, especially in regions with high concentrations of artificial intelligence data centers.
NERC outlined in its 2025-2026 reliability report that “much of North America” is at risk of failing to meet demand in “extreme operating conditions.” Regions loaded with energy-hungry AI data centers face heightened outage risks during intense winter weather, according to NERC.
“Winter electricity demand is rising at the fastest rate in recent years, particularly in areas where data center development is occurring,” NERC said on Tuesday. “Although resources are adequate for normal winter peak demand, any prolonged, wide-area cold snaps will be challenging. This is largely due to rising electricity demand, which has grown by 20 GW since last winter, significantly outpacing winter on-peak capacity.”
Just four years ago, winter storm Uri devastated Texas and other parts of the South-Central U.S. along the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and Southwest Power Pool power grids. NERC Assessments and Performance Analysis Director John Moura said Tuesday that this coming winter resembles 2021 conditions.
“Electricity demand continues to grow faster than the resources being added to the grid, especially during the most extreme winter conditions where actual demand can topple forecasts by as much as 25 percent — as we saw in 2021 in ERCOT and SPP,” Moura said. “This latest assessment highlights progress on cold weather readiness but underscores that more work remains to ensure energy and fuel supplies can be reliably delivered even during the harshest conditions.”
NERC also noted that grids need to prepare for intermittent sources like solar and wind as well as natural gas generating less electricity during low-output periods and potentially severe cold snaps.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
Our Pocono Mountain home had a combo coal-wood stove. It heated all 1,400sf quite nicely. Just one fan in the hallway to move air into the back rooms. Two years of coal cost $239. The wood we just cut from fallen trees in the woods during summer months. I regret to this day selling the place and not taking that stove with us.
“Massive Winter Energy Blackouts May Come Thanks to AI Data Centers and Their Energy Consumption”
Color anyone with a brain surprised.
Been saying it for years. This addiction to technology is going to put us in the stone age...
Total drama queen click-bait headline.
Data centers have generators they use when the energy company is low on juice and asks them to take the load.
The power shortage won’t be fixed by forcing motorists into electric cars. At least the data centers give us something of value.
I’ve been warning about this for a year, mostly in regards to the DemoKKKRat Civil War (Big Tech/AI/Tech Bros vs. “Green”) but it is a problem. Easiest way to solve is for states to simply require energy as a precondition for building.
But also WATER. This will be the next big fight, is the massive amount of water these things take. I don’t oppose them at all, but I do oppose people not understanding that power and water will be required at never before seen levels and it’s time we start building infrastructure for both like crazy, including desalinization plants.
The problem Isn’t power hungry AI. The article suggests that a new form of technology that requires energy to do work is the problem.
The problem has been the Watermelons (Green on the Outside and Red-socialist on the inside) sabatoge of US power. It doesn’t matter what it was, they killed it. Nuclear-killed because of risk. Oil, killed for being dirty. Coal- dirty. Windmills- energy inefficient and kill wildlife. Solar-inefficient and not viable in US as well as dirty. Natural gas—carbon dioxide (even though it’s better than releasing it into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas. If it’s energy, the Democrats have blocked, negated, protested against it for 50 years. Energy is the power to do work. They want a welfare society and Keynesian economics of printing money.
Democrats and Socialists made this problem.
If outages come it’s news.
Now it’s crystal ball readings by people who don’t like tech...
Could well be. Incredible, isn’t it? For decades we’ve been admonished to ‘save energy’ for various reasons, most lately to ‘save the planet’. And now, rather suddenly, we have a new technology that is characterized in particular by its demand for massive amounts of electricity. Oddly, we are advised that this technology will soon take over, to a large degree, our lives, and everyone just seems to be going along with it. Huh. It consumes vast amount of energy, and produces... what, exactly? And we just march right along...
Yep, exactly. I’m so old I can remember “4 out of 5 Doctors Smoke Camels.”
Everything is malleable when it comes to money.
EXAVTLY
ANOTHER ISSUE:
WATER
THESE DATE CENTERS USE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WATER A DAY-—NOT RECYCLED.. ADDS TO HUMIDITY IN THE AIR.
TEHRAN IS HAVING ISSUES WITH AQUIFERS ACTUALLY COLLAPSING DUE TO LOW WATER.
LOCALS LIVING NEAR DATE CENTERS WILL BE COMPETING FOR WATER AND POWER.
THEY CANNOT CREATE THEIR OWN WATER-——!!!!!!!!
Seeing how addicted people are to their screens many people would gladly freeze in the cold as long as they could watch the next tiktok video.
Been saying it for years. This addiction to technology is going to put us in the stone age...
The Technology Trap is closing in.
“I think the hunger for AI power is the reason we are suddenly being told global warming isn’t a big deal anymore.”
You are right on the money. Enslaving us using Climate Change was not working so well so their priorities have changed. They have decided to digitally enslave us all with AI instead.
But they WILL enslave us, been the underlying plan all along. And we are begging for them to it out of personal greed and convenience.
And it is not slow either, I can now see changes daily... Folks are going to be lucky to have a fire pit and wood in their backyard. Those in the City are just screwed...
It’s slow until it gets real fast.
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