Data center backlash is cross

This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey. Jeremiah Karpowicz, Content Director at Clarion Events, is filling in for Paul this week. This week’s episode features special guest Molly Taft from WIRED, who discusses the growing, cross-partisan opposition to AI data centers. This week’s “Cleantecher of the Week” is Drew Baglino, founder and CEO of Heron Power. His company builds solid-state transformers that don’t rely on the steel causing shortages, and Heron just closed a $140 million round to build a U.S. factory capable of producing 40 gigawatts of the gear a year. Congratulations, Drew! 1. OpenAI Locks In Lease for Huge Data Center in Ohio With Backing From Nvidia — The Wall Street Journal OpenAI has signed a 20-year, 10-gigawatt data center lease in southern Ohio with SoftBank’s SB Energy, the largest data center project announced to date. Nvidia is backstopping the value of the completed facility, to the tune of up to $105 billion, so SB Energy can borrow against the project without lenders worrying about what happens if OpenAI ever walks away. That’s a much smaller ask than the roughly $250 billion all-up guarantee Nvidia was reportedly considering earlier this summer, before investor pushback over the exposure sent its stock down 5% in late July. In exchange, Nvidia becomes the exclusive chip supplier for that first half of the campus and is taking a $1.5 billion equity stake in SB Energy. 2. The Blackout That Could Devastate America — The New York Times Modeling by FERC found that taking out just nine critical substations nationwide could black out the entire country. Large power transformers are truck-sized units that step down high-voltage electricity for local use, and are mostly bespoke and hand-built. They can take up to five years to source and cost as much as $14 million each. The U.S. only manufactures about 20% of what it buys. A significant portion of the country’s large power transformers were already averaging 38-40 years old over a decade ago, meaning many are now well past that. Replacing this aging fleet and powering new data centers could double the demand for large power transformers by 2027. If a coordinated attack knocked out enough substations, experts say the recovery could take years, not weeks, since replacement transformers have to be custom-built and are too heavy to move without specialized rail cars that barely exist in North America anymore. 3. Big Batteries to Bolster the Grid Are Stuck Waiting to Plug In — Bloomberg Battery demand is surging as data centers and electrification push up electricity use, but connecting those batteries to the grid is getting slower. Nationwide, roughly 750 gigawatts of storage projects are sitting in interconnection queues waiting to get hooked up, and the median wait time has jumped from 1.5 years in 2015 to 5 years in 2025. The holdup is mostly equipment, meaning transformers, circuit breakers, and other grid gear that are in such short supply that utilities can’t build the upgrades fast enough. PG&E says some circuit breakers now take nearly four years to procure. 4. DOE says we need more transmission, decides building less is fine — Factor This The DOE is killing off the review process for the last three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, or NIETCs. These are DOE-designated regions that are eligible for loans and permitting tools intended to speed up transmission development in high-congestion parts of the grid. All seven of the others had already been scrapped back in 2024. These three corridors would have spanned more than 3,500 miles, connecting Canada to the PJM grid, linking Southwest Power Pool with WestConnect, and expanding tribal energy access. Secretary Chris Wright called the review process ineffective at improving reliability or cutting costs. The DOE points to other transmission investments instead, including $1.6 billion and $3.3 billion in loans to utility AEP and its Texas subsidiary, along with over $26 billion for Georgia Power and Alabama Power, subsidiaries of utility Southern Company. 5. How Data Centers Broke American Politics — WIRED A growing, cross-partisan backlash against AI data centers is uniting right-wing populists and left-leaning environmentalists who otherwise agree on almost nothing. A recent Gallup poll found 70% of Americans would oppose data center construction in their area, and Facebook groups opposing data centers grew from under 100,000 members in December to over 500,000 by July. The backlash has already led to political fallout, including data center moratoriums introduced in a dozen states and passed in New York, an attack on a pro-data-center Indianapolis council member, and protester arrests in multiple states.