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Posted on 06/21/2026 11:57:08 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At a press conference earlier this month, a reporter told Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear that people in Boyd and Greenup counties had been "caught off guard" by a deal local officials unveiled to bring a very large data center to the area.
A number of Boyd County residents had packed a town hall the day before to lambast county judge-executives and other local leaders in part over concerns about what a proposed hyperscale data center could mean for electricity bills and the local environment.
Beshear in response said he was not going to let a data center come into the state and "pass along the cost of energy." He also said such data centers could be a boon for communities by boosting local property taxes. "Any data center that wants to look at Kentucky is going to have to pay for 100% of its own energy," Beshear said. "And if it needs new means of production, it needs to pay for those, too."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
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Here in the Free State of Florida, Governor DeSantis signed SB 484, which requires large data centers (consuming 50+ megawatts at peak) to pay their full cost of service so everyday ratepayers do not subsidize their massive energy and water needs.
Love my state.
What are these grifter “utility companies” going to do when Musk leads a massive migration of data centers to orbit? Great thing about orbit is, you don’t have corrupt, money grabbing NAACP creeps out there trying to steal your money.
Beshear in response said he was not going to let a data center come into the state and “pass along the cost of energy.“
And he is another lying rat going for 28. He will take the payoff behind closed doors. The parsing is cute. He did not say he would stop it.
Grok:
Very few “big” traditional power plants (e.g., large nuclear, coal, or baseload gas) have been built in the US over the past 50 years (roughly 1975–2025), with most new capacity coming from smaller or modular natural gas units, wind farms, and especially solar farms in recent decades.
Traditional Large Plants (Nuclear, Coal, Large Gas)
Nuclear: Almost none. The vast majority of the US nuclear fleet (now ~94–96 reactors at ~54–57 plants) came online before ~1990, with most construction starting by the mid-1970s. The only notable recent completions are Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia (2023–2024), the first new reactors in ~30+ years. Earlier units like Watts Bar 2 (2016) were long-delayed restarts of old projects.
Coal: Very few new large plants. Most of the current ~200 coal plants are decades old (built mostly 1960s–1980s). No significant utility-scale coal construction in the past 10–15+ years due to economics, regulations, and shifts to gas/renewables.
Natural Gas: More activity, especially combined-cycle plants in the 1990s–2000s (hundreds of GW added overall, but often in smaller or multiple units per site rather than massive single “plants”). Many are not “big” single facilities by historical standards.
Result: For conventional large centralized plants, the number built since ~1975 is in the low dozens at most (dominated by gas, with a handful of nuclear/coal-related).
Broader Context: Renewables and Total Capacity Additions
“Big power plants” is ambiguous today because modern additions are often wind farms or solar farms (utility-scale, often 100+ MW, sometimes 500+ MW or more per project) and battery storage. These are numerous:
Recent years: Dozens to hundreds of new utility-scale solar, wind, and storage projects annually. For example, 2024–2025 saw record additions (~50+ GW/year total capacity, mostly solar/wind/storage). Solar alone added tens of GW yearly in utility-scale projects.
Total plants: The US has thousands of utility-scale generating facilities (over 11,000 historically including smaller ones; EIA tracks plants ≥1 MW). Many are renewables. Exact “new builds” count since 1975 is in the thousands when including all wind/solar sites and gas units.b81c5c
Net picture: US electricity capacity has grown significantly (now ~1.2+ million MW utility-scale), but the era of building many massive new coal/nuclear plants ended decades ago. Growth shifted to gas (peaking ~2000s) and then explosively to renewables since the 2010s. Many older plants have retired.
For precise counts by type/year, check EIA’s Form 860 data (generator-level additions/retirements). Definitions of “big” (e.g., >100 MW, >500 MW) and “plant” (vs. individual units) affect the tally. Let me know if you want details on a specific type!
That must be why my monthly electric bill has dropped like a rock.
Most of the new power plants are being built by cash rich AI companies.
Even Musk built a huge new gas powered power plant to power his massive Colossus AI data center in Memphis.
Oh well if the utilities tell us not to worry that’s good enough for me!
U.S. company. Their product does not require exotic rare earths, does not require retooling existing semiconductor foundries, is made in the U.S.
Yes, that’s good but my fear is they will use so much energy there won’t be enough to go around.
We’re in GA and planning to back up our new house with generator and solar. If we get blackouts which worries me I want to have another way to power our place.
Force all data centers to generate their own power, just as refineries do.
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