If we let a hyped “AI hole” dictate land and vitality coverage, we’ll privatize important infrastructure and socialize the fallout.
Every so often, it’s essential to deal with what our alleged companions in music distribution are as much as, as a result of the truth is that they’re not file folks—their actual aim is getting their palms on the funding we’ve all made in serving to compelling artists discover and maintain an viewers. And when those self same CEOs use the income from our work to pivot to “protection tech” or “twin use” AI (civilian and navy), we must always hear what that euphemism actually means: killing machines.
Daniel Ek is backing battlefield-AI ventures; Eric Schmidt has spent years bankrolling and lobbying for the militarization of AI whereas shaping the insurance policies that green-light it. That is what occurs once we get in enterprise with individuals who don’t share our values: the capital, knowledge, and social license harvested from tradition will get recycled into techniques constructed to search out, repair, and end human beings. As Bob Dylan put it in Masters of Struggle, “You fasten the triggers for the others to fireside.” These offers aren’t value-neutral—they launder credibility from artwork into fight. If that’s the long run on provide, our first obligation is to say so plainly—and refuse to be complicit.
The identical AI outfits that for many years have refused to license or begrudgingly licensed the tradition they ingest at the moment are muscling into the onerous stuff—energy grids, water techniques, and aquifers—wherever governments are determined to win their funding. Suppose bespoke substations, “islanded” microgrids devoted to single company customers, precedence interconnects, and high-volume water attracts baked into “innovation” offers. It’s taking place globally, however nowhere extra aggressively than within the U.S., the place coverage and allowing are being bent towards AI-first infrastructure—thanks in no small half to Silicon Valley’s White Home “AI viceroy,” David Sacks. If we don’t demand accountability on the level of information and on the level of vitality and water, we’ll get up to AI that not solely steals our work but additionally commandeers our utilities. Identical to Senator Wyden completed for Oregon.
These aren’t pop-up server farms; they’re decades-long fixtures. Substations and transmission are constructed on 30–50-year horizons, technology belongings run 20–60, with multi-decade PPAs, water rights, and recorded easements that outlive elections. As soon as metal’s within the floor, price designs and precedence interconnects get contractually sticky. In contrast to the Web fights of the final 25 years—the place you would pressure a license for what travels by the pipe—this AI footprint binds communities for generations; it’s primarily perpetually. So we shall be caught for generations with the selections we make at the moment.
As a result of China–The New Missle Hole
There’s a well-recognized ring to the way in which America is now speaking about AI, vitality, and federal land use (and certain expropriation). Within the Nineteen Fifties Chilly Struggle period, politicians bought the nation on a “missile hole” that later proved largely legendary, but it hardened budgets, doctrine, and concrete in ways in which lasted many years.
At present’s model is the “AI hole”—a narrative that claims China is sprinting on AI, so we should pave quicker, allow quicker, and loosen up previous guardrails to maintain up. After all, this diverts consideration from China’s advances in directed-energy weapons and hypersonic missiles that are right here proper now at the moment and can play havoc in an precise battlefield—which the West has no counter to. However let’s not discuss these (a minimum of not till we lose a provider within the South China Sea), let’s fear about AI as a result of that may make Silicon Valley even richer.
Watch any interview of executives from the frontier AI labs and inside minutes they are going to hit their “as a result of China” speaking level. Nationwide safety and competitiveness are actual issues, however they don’t justify clean checks and Constitutional-level protected harbors. The missile‑hole analogy is helpful as a result of it reminds us how a compelling menace narrative propaganda can swamp due diligence. We are able to help strategic compute and vitality with out letting an AI‑hole story completely bulldoze open house and saddle communities with the invoice.
Vitality Haves (Them) and Have Nots (Everybody else)
The result’s a two‑monitor vitality state AKA hell on earth. On Observe A, the frontier AI lab hyperscalers like Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI & Co. construct firm‑city infrastructure for AI—on‑website electrical energy technology by microgrids exterior of everybody else’s electrical grid, devoted interties and different interconnections between electrical operators—typically on or close to federal land. On Observe B, the general public grid carries everybody else: properties, hospitals, small producers, water districts. As President Trump mentioned on the White Home AI dinner this week, Observe A guarantees to “self‑provide,” however even self‑equipped campuses nonetheless lean on the general public grid for backup and monetization, they usually compete for scarce interconnection headroom.
President Trump is permitting the hyperscalers to get everlasting rights to construct on huge parcels of presidency land, together with non-public utilities to energy the large electrical energy and water cooling wants for AI knowledge facilities. Unusually sufficient, that is persevering with a Biden coverage below an government order issued late in Biden Presidency that Trump now takes credit score for, and is a 180 out from America First in keeping with individuals who must know like Steve Bannon. And but it’s taking place.
If somebody says “AI labs will construct their very own utilities on federal land,” that land is available in two flavors: Division of Protection (now Struggle Division) or Division of Vitality websites and land owned by the Bureau of Land Administration (BLM). This are vastly totally different classes. DoD/DOE websites resembling Idaho Nationwide Laboratory Oak Ridge Reservation, Paducah GDP, and the Savannah River Web site, indicate behind-the-fence, mission-tied microgrids with restricted public friction; BLM land implies public-land rights-of-way and multi-use trade-offs (grazing, wildlife, cultural), longer timelines, and grid-export dynamics with potential “curtailment” which suggests prioritizing electrical energy for the hyperscalers. For instance, Idaho Nationwide Laboratory (INL) as one of many 4 AI/data-center websites. INL’s personal environmental studies state that about 60% of the INL website is open to livestock grazing, with monitoring of grazing impacts on habitat. That’s seemingly over.
That is about how we energy something not managed by a handful of corporations. And it’s in regards to the land footprint: fenced photo voltaic yards, switchyards, substations, huge transport strains, wider roads, laydown areas. On BLM vary and different open areas, these services translate into actual, native losses—grazable acres inside fences, inventory trails detoured, vary enhancements relocated.
What the 2 tracks actually do
Observe A solves a enterprise downside: compute progress outpacing the general public grid’s building cycle. By placing electrons subsequent to servers (actually), operators keep away from ready years for a substation or a 230‑kV line. Microgrids present islanding throughout emergencies and participation in wholesale markets when related. It’s nimble, and it really works—for the operator.
Observe B inherits the volatility: planners should contemplate a surge of enormous masses which will or could not seem, whereas sustaining reliability for everybody else. Capability margins tighten; transmission initiatives get reprioritized; retail charges take up the externalities. When utilities plan for speculative masses and people initiatives cancel or slide, the area will be left with stranded prices or deferred upkeep elsewhere.
The land squeeze we’re not counting
Public companies tout gigawatts permitted. They hardly ever publish the acreage fenced, AUMs affected, or water commitments. Utility‑scale photo voltaic generally pencils out to on the order of 5–7 acres per megawatt of capability relying on format and topography. At that ratio, a single gigawatt occupies hundreds of acres—acres that, not like wind, typically can’t be grazed as soon as panels and safety fences go in. Even the place grazing is technically attainable, entry roads, laydown yards, and vegetation management impose actual prices on neighboring customers.
Wind is extra appropriate with grazing, nevertheless it isn’t footprint‑free. Pads, roads, and security buffers fragment pasture. Transmission to maneuver that vitality nonetheless wants corridors—and people corridors cross somebody’s water strains and gates. A number of use is a precept; on the bottom it’s a schedule, a map, and a price. Only for reference, a rule‑of‑thumb for acres/electrical energy produces is roughly 5–7 acres per megawatt of direct present (“MWdc”), however entry roads, laydown, and buffers prolong past the fence line.
We’re going by this proper now in my a part of the world. Central Texas is bracing for a wave of latest high-voltage transmission. These are 345-kV corridors chopping (actually) throughout the Hill Nation to serve load progress for chip fabricators and knowledge facilities and tie-in distant technology (so massive strains are a should when you decide to the utilization). Ranchers and small cities are pushing again onerous: eminent-domain threats, devalued land, scarred vistas, live-oak and wildlife impacts, and routes that ignore current roads and utility corridors. Packed hearings and county resolutions demand co-location, undergrounding research, and actual alternate options—not “decide a line on a map” after the deal is finished. The battle isn’t towards reliability; it’s towards a planning course of that externalizes prices onto farmers, ranchers, different landowners and dealing landscapes.
Texas’s newest SB 6 is the case examine. After a wave of ultra-large AI/data-center masses, frontier labs and their allies pushed lawmakers to rewrite reliability guidelines so the grid would accommodate them. SB 6 empowers the Texas grid operator ERCOT to police new mega-loads—by emergency curtailment and/or firm-backup necessities—successfully reshaping interconnection priorities and shifting reliability threat and prices onto everybody else. “Everybody else” means you and me, form of just like the “full religion and credit score of the US”. Texas SB 6 was signed into legislation in June 2025 by Gov. Greg Abbott. It’s now in impact and directs PUCT/ERCOT to set new guidelines for very giant masses (e.g., knowledge facilities), together with curtailment throughout emergencies and added interconnection/backup-power necessities. So the satan shall be within the particulars and somebody must placed on the entire armor of God, so to talk.
The phantom downside
One other quiet driver of dangerous outcomes is phantom demand: builders submitting duplicative load or interconnection requests to maintain choices open. On paper, it seems to be like a tidal wave; in follow, solely a slice will get constructed. If each inquiry triggers a utility examine, a route survey, or a placeholder in a capital plan, neighborhoods can find yourself paying for capability that by no means comes on-line to serve them.
A greater deal for the general public and the vary
Prioritize already‑disturbed lands—industrial parks, mines, reservoirs, current corridors—earlier than greenfield BLM vary land. The place greenfield is unavoidable, set a no‑web‑loss aim for AUMs and require actual compensation and restore SLAs for affected vary enhancements.
Milestone gating for giant masses: require non‑refundable deposits, binding website management, and gear milestones earlier than a challenge can maintain scarce interconnection capability or set off grid upgrades. Rely solely contracted masses in official forecasts; publish state of affairs bands so price circumstances aren’t constructed on hype.
Frequent‑hall guidelines: make builders show they will’t use current roads or rights‑of‑means earlier than claiming new footprints. The place fencing is required, use wildlife‑pleasant designs and decide to seasonal gates that protect inventory motion.
Public fairness for public land: if a campus wins accelerated federal siting and lengthy‑time period locational benefit, tie that to a public income share or capability rights that immediately profit native ratepayers and counties. Public land ought to ship public returns, not simply non-public moats.
Grid‑assist obligations: if a non-public microgrid islands to guard its personal uptime, it also needs to assist the grid when related. Enroll batteries for frequency and reserve providers; decide to emergency export; and pay a fair proportion of mounted transmission prices as a substitute of shifting them onto households.
Or you would do what the Dutch and Irish governments proposed below the guise of local weather change laws—kill all of the cattle. I can let you know proper now that that ain’t gonna occur in Texas.
Will We Get Fooled Once more?
If we let a hyped latter day “missile hole” set the phrases, we’ll lock in a two‑monitor vitality state: non-public energy for individuals who can afford to construct it, a extra fragile and dearer public grid for everybody else, and open areas transformed into everlasting infrastructure at a reduction. The choice is easy: worth land and grid externalities truthfully, gate speculative demand, require public returns on public siting, and design hall guidelines that defend working landscapes. That’s not anti‑AI; it’s professional‑public. All the pieces not managed by Massive Tech—shall be higher for it.
Let’s be clear: the data-center onslaught shall be financed by the taxpayer a method or one other—both as direct public outlays or by sweet-heart “leases” of federal land to construct non-public utilities behind the fence for the richest companies in business historical past. After all of the goodies that Trump is handing to the AI platforms, let’s not have any unfastened discuss of “promoting” extra electrical energy to the general public–that worth must be zero. Even so, the gross sales pitch about “extra” electrical energy they’ll generously promote again to the grid is a fantasy; when margins tighten, they’ll throttle output prices, not volunteer philanthropy. Image it: do you actually suppose these corporations gained’t optimize for themselves first and final? We’ll be left with the payments, the land impacts, and a grid redesigned round their wants. Ask your self—what within the final 25 years of Massive Tech habits says “reliable” to you?
