“We built generation. We forgot the roads.”
But the roads aren’t just a metaphor. Until this year, there was no federal requirement to plan long-range transmission. FERC’s new rule forces grid operators to think twenty years ahead and share costs across states.² The Department of Energy says we must double regional capacity and build cross-country corridors by 2035 just to break even.³
Even that depends on a cascade of ifs—permitting, supply chains, and whether construction can outrun the next peak demand.
Meanwhile, we’re already wasting power. California curtailed record solar in 2025.⁴ In the Plains, wind farms idle their blades for lack of transmission. In New England, tight gas supply sends oil-burning plants back online. The grid is greener than it was a decade ago—but not green enough. And nowhere near fast enough.
In Kaya’s neighborhood, the HOA petitioned Dominion to bury part of the new loop. They were worried about stray voltage, about proximity to schools. The answer was simple: too costly, too slow. Burying the line would delay the substation needed for the next cluster of hyperscale tenants.
“Renewable power on paper isn’t clean if it never leaves the substation.”
Across the South and Mid-Atlantic, utilities have defaulted to natural gas—not because it’s cleaner, but because it gets built. Steve Lasker, a senior executive at Dominion, calls it “grid realism.”
“When your interconnection queue is ten years long and your customers need power in two,” he told me, leaning back in his chair, “gas is the only tool that works.”
Lasker’s realism has consequences. Transformers can take more than 100 weeks to replace. Distribution upgrades lag behind population growth. And backup generation, once a precaution, now guarantees uptime.
At 2 a.m., diesel trucks idle outside the compound, brake lights glowing through Kaya’s blinds. His wife pulls a pillow over her head. Even as neighbors circulate real estate listings and swap names of soundproofing contractors, permits are issued for another three-story data vault two blocks over. The HOA objects again. The result is the same.
“I’ve got neighbors thinking about selling,” Kaya says. “But where do you go? It’s like this everywhere now.”
That sense—that there’s no opting out—isn’t just a homeowner’s anxiety. It’s systemic.
Globally, data center demand is on track to more than double by 2030—exceeding the size of Japan’s entire grid.⁵
In the U.S., hyperscalers are adapting faster than the grid. Microsoft is contracting for small nuclear.⁶ Amazon and Google are building wind-battery hybrids.⁷ Sam Altman is investing in micro-reactors.⁸ Not because they want to disrupt public utilities, but because they’ve run out of other options.
While Kaya’s lights flicker, China lays wire.
The State Grid Corporation of China will spend $89 billion this year alone.⁹ It has already completed 38 ultra-high-voltage lines connecting inland wind and solar bases to coastal cities.¹⁰ Their transformer production lines move twice as fast. Permits clear in months, not years.