On June 3, 2025, Fb/Meta introduced a 20-year power output settlement with Constellation Vitality to buy 1.1 gigawatts of electrical energy from the Clinton Clear Vitality Middle in Illinois—sufficient to energy almost 800,000 houses. Why? To supply a dependable supply of electrical energy for Meta’s AI knowledge facilities. Whereas the power won’t be piped into to Meta’s knowledge facilities–but–the monetary deal successfully secures output for a single company purchaser.
This deal is a part of a rising development of tech giants locking up power output for his or her AI operations—notably from nuclear sources—to gasoline large AI fashions and knowledge facilities. The development raises important coverage questions on useful resource allocation amongst ratepayers, and the function of privatizing ostensibly public infrastructure funded by bondholders or fee payers.
And make no mistake–these offers occur exterior the general public’s approval or enter and no one is within the room who has been elected canine catcher. Let’s see if the FTC opens an investigation into the monopoly results of this privatization development–however that’s a subject for an additional day.
It additionally tees up a possible showdown between Large Tech platforms worthy of the “company wars” straight out of Rollerball. Right here comes the wrecking ball.
Meta and Microsoft: A Sample Emerges
Meta’s association mirrors Microsoft’s 2024 settlement with Constellation to buy output from Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which had been offline since 2019. That deal helped justify the plant’s restart and secured long-term electrical energy output for Microsoft’s AI methods, together with its OpenAI partnership.
Different examples embody: Amazon and Google signing multi-gigawatt clear power offers with a mixture of wind, photo voltaic, and small modular reactor suppliers and OpenAI traders exploring management of small grids and direct transmission entry for AI energy wants.
These aren’t conventional renewables designed to displace fossil fuels. These are capacity-locking offers for high-reliability power, usually nuclear—and normally from services constructed with public subsidies or ratepayer-backed debt.
And we haven’t even began speaking about how Large Tech has privatized the Columbia River hydroelectric venture in Oregon courtesy of Senator Information Middle.
Privatizing the Grid, One AI Mannequin at a Time
Many nuclear vegetation, like Clinton and Three Mile Island, had been initially funded with public bonds, ratepayer surcharges, or federal tax credit. In Illinois, as an example, the Zero Emission Credit score program (partially underwritten by ratepayers) financed the Clinton plant by means of 2027. With that help expiring, Meta stepped in—not as a public steward, however as a personal output purchaser.
This development raises considerations:
1. Vitality Privatization by Stealth: Vitality from once-publicly supported infrastructure is being redirected to single-purpose AI operations.
2. Crowding Out Native Customers: As firms safe giant shares of grid output, bizarre ratepayers face greater costs, lowered entry, or deferred upgrades.
3. Ratepayer Subsidies for Company Acquire: Public or quasi-public investments made a long time in the past at the moment are producing returns for personal companies, not for the general public good.
AI’s Insatiable Vitality Gorging
The present era of enormous AI fashions is energy-intensive by design. Meta, Microsoft, and others are planning multi-gigawatt knowledge middle expansions—not only for cloud providers however for real-time AI processing, coaching, and reminiscence recall capabilities that run 24/7.
The U.S. Vitality Info Administration initiatives knowledge middle demand to double by 2030, with AI accounting for over half the brand new load. Nuclear is enticing right here: it’s carbon-free, always-on, and ostensibly much less politically weak than fossil fuels or hydropower–till we get a rerun of the China Syndrome courtesy of asymmetrical drone assaults or another disaster.
AI or AC? Public Questions, Non-public Offers
Large Tech’s snarfing up nuclear vegetation invitations scrutiny:
– Have been these vegetation constructed with public bonds or utility ensures? If that’s the case, what rights do communities retain?
– Are these offers topic to regulatory assessment, or are they purely negotiated by means of company channels?
– Ought to there be caps or taxes on unique energy procurement to make sure truthful grid entry?
– What occurs throughout heatwaves, outages, or surges when AI demand competes with hospitals or residential customers?
And the principle query to me, which is can the federal government intervene to redirect or meter electrical energy consumption to AI knowledge facilities in favor of AC–to keep away from large warmth harm within the prolonged drought.
To this point, these questions stay unanswered by the businesses and regulators alike.
Meet the New Monopsony, Worse that the Previous Monopsony
Meta’s nuclear deal might seem “inexperienced” on the floor, but it surely displays a elementary reshaping of the power panorama—one the place AI firms change into monopsonistic consumers of important energy sources, quietly–and shortly–privatizing public utilities and crowding out social priorities.
As power turns into the brand new forex of the digital age, the general public and elected officers should ask:
Who will get the AC and who will get the AI?
