Power Grid Becomes AI's Binding Constraint — Lake Tahoe Loses Utility, Texas Plans 40 GW Gas Plants, UK Queues 30+ GW
Multiple simultaneous reports quantify the AI power crisis: NV Energy stopped selling power to a Lake Tahoe utility serving 49,000 customers as data center demand tripled peak capacity. Texas has ~40 GW of natural gas plants planned specifically for data centers (enough for 10M homes). The UK has 30+ GW of data centers awaiting grid connection (2/3 of GB peak demand), with Amazon canceling UK projects due to delays. NVIDIA and Emerald AI are developing demand-response 'flexible AI factories' that could unlock 100 GW of existing U.S. grid capacity.