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America stopped doubling its grid
The long boom
The pace slowed a bit starting in the 1970s, but growth continued until the early 2000s, when it flatlined. Through all those earlier decades, power plants kept getting built somewhere, in places where they met little NIMBY opposition, and builders found ways to get it done.
Why growth stalled
Deindustrialization and globalization explain the flat line. Manufacturing jobs went overseas, people went to work in offices, and the country needed less power. Efficiency gains played a small part as well, and the country lost the muscle of doubling its grid every decade.
Power before compute
Power generation comes before data centers, so the amount of compute a country can run depends on it. Data centers were around long before AI. They serve the internet and every mobile app on a phone as well as AI, and concerns about surveillance and privacy can be met with stronger privacy laws.
Why is building power lines so slow?
Power lines that cross several states need approval from each state, because authority over siting mostly rests with the states. Congress gave federal regulators a backstop siting power in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. A federal appeals court in 2009 limited how that power could be used, in a case brought against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The result is that a single line can need dozens of separate permits.
How does a smelter compare to a household?
Heavy industry uses electricity on a scale that offices and homes do not. Aluminum smelting is among the most power-hungry processes, because the metal is separated from its ore with electric current that runs around the clock. A single large smelter can draw hundreds of megawatts, comparable to the demand of a mid-size city. When plants like these close or move overseas, demand on the grid drops with them.
How do efficiency gains flatten power demand?
Appliance and lighting standards cut the electricity needed for the same service. According to the US Department of Energy, an LED bulb uses roughly 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb that produces the same light. Refrigerators are another example, since standards that began in the 1970s and 1980s made new models far less power-hungry than the ones they replaced. Savings like these offset growth in the number of devices in homes and offices.
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