The Grid Wasn’t Built For This

The US Grid Wasn’t Built For This

Tejasri Gururaj

Global data center power demand is projected to hit 84 GW by 2027—a 50 percent jump from 2023 levels—with AI workloads accounting for 27 percent of that total, according to Goldman Sachs Research.

The grid is strained by increasing demand from electricity-hungry data centers and electric vehicles.Getty Images

The grid cannot keep up with AI. For decades, electricity demand grew slowly and predictably, giving utilities comfortable margins to plan capacity years in advance. That model broke almost overnight. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, utilities’ five-year summer peak demand forecasts jumped from 38 GW to 128 GW, a more than threefold increase in a single planning cycle.

Unlike traditional server loads, which are relatively flat and predictable, AI inference and training jobs generate sharp, near-instantaneous power spikes. Large-scale GPU clusters can produce fluctuations of hundreds of megawatts within seconds.That’s a load behavior utilities have no historical model for.

Energy companies are no longer treating hyperscale data centers as large customers to be served from the grid, but rather as anchor infrastructure to be co-built with.

What follows is a look at what that shift actually demands at the systems level — why natural gas is currently the only tool that can fill the gap at the required speed and scale, what that means for emissions commitments already being made today, and what the longer path to balancing this with storage, transmission, and cleaner alternatives realistically looks like.

Power grids are engineered for predictability. Seasonal peaks, industrial cycles, and population growth are modeled to plan generation capacity for the future. Fitting AI into this picture requires much more than just scaling.

Training a large language model means thousands of GPUs running simultaneously, sustaining enormous power draws for days or weeks, then dropping off sharply. These spikes are unpredictable and can be extreme. Dispatch curves determine which plants run when, whereas reserve scheduling ensures backup capacity is always available. AI workloads stress both in ways utilities have no historical model for. The forecasting crisis this has created is visible in the numbers, with a threefold increase in peak demand between 2023 and 2024

Developers routinely file speculative interconnection requests for projects that never get built, flooding queues with phantom demand. ERCOT, Texas’s grid operator, developed an entirely new Adjusted Large Load Forecast methodology to account for exactly this — the gap between projected data center load and what actually materializes.

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Your Car Will No Longer Be Your Own - New Vehicles Will Soon Have AI Kill Switch

Your Car Will No Longer Be Your Own - New Vehicles Will Soon Have AI Kill Switch

MICHAEL SNYDER

Imagine that you just received a very alarming phone call and you are in a panic to get home. Unfortunately, since your eyes are wide and full of alarm because of the phone call that you just received, the AI kill switch in your vehicle will not allow you to drive anywhere. 

This is not a scenario which may or may not happen someday. This is already federal law. Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed by Joe Biden directed the NHTSA to establish permanent standards for impaired driving safety equipment on all new vehicles within three years. 

Fortunately, Congress gave the NHTSA some more time in 2024, but now another deadline is looming. If Congress does not act, very soon all new vehicles in the U.S. will come equipped with systems that determine who gets to drive and who does not get to drive.

Automakers are arguing that the technology still isn't ready because it makes way too many mistakes.

Some drivers just naturally have eye or head movements that make them appear to be impaired in some way.

Some drivers just naturally have eye or head movements that make them appear to be impaired in some way.

Of course others are extremely upset about this dystopian law because of how extremely intrusive it is.

Do we really want AI to track our eye and head movements every time we enter our vehicles?

Unfortunately, even though it has been on the books since 2021, most Americans have never even heard about this very alarming law...

The measure, often referred to as the Halt Drunk Driving Act, anticipated that as early as this year, auto companies would be required to roll out technology to "passively" detect when drivers are drunk or impaired and prevent their cars from operating. Regulators can choose from a range of options, including air monitors that sample the car's interior for traces of alcohol, fingertip readers that measure a driver's blood-alcohol level, or scanners that detect signs of impairment in eye or head movements.

Once the NHTSA sets the final rules, there is no going back.

At that point, it would take an act of Congress to overturn the law.

Recently, there was an effort to remove funding for the implementation of this measure, but that effort was soundly defeated...

A Republican-led effort to remove the Halt Act's funding was defeated in the U.S. House last month by a 268-164 vote. Another bill to repeal it entirely awaits a committee vote.

Most of the opposition has stemmed from suggestions that the law would require manufacturers to equip cars with a "kill switch". That would essentially allow them to "be controlled by the government," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on the social platform X, drawing comparisons to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984."

The goal of the law is to reduce the number of accidents caused by impaired drivers, but they are attempting to do this in the most dystopian way possible...

Tucked into a broader federal safety initiative is a requirement for impaired-driving detection technology in all new vehicles. The goal sounds simple enough: reduce crashes caused by drunk or fatigued drivers. It's a problem that has been around for decades, and lawmakers are trying to address it with new technology.

To do that, automakers will need to install systems that monitor drivers in real time. These systems rely on cameras and sensors that track things like eye movement, head position, and overall attentiveness. It's not just observing -- it's constantly analyzing what the driver is doing.

Some of us are easily distracted.

And some of us are often tired because we work all the time.

Does that mean that we are too "impaired" to drive our vehicles?

Under the new rules, AI will get to decide that.

In other words, you may be the one making payments on the vehicle, but a computer will decide whether you get to drive it or not...

If the system detects what it believes is impairment, it doesn't just issue a warning and move on. In some cases, it could prevent the vehicle from starting or limit how it operates once you're already driving. That means the car itself becomes the decision-maker, not the person in the driver's seat.

For many drivers, that raises immediate concerns. It introduces a scenario where a machine decides whether you're allowed to use something you own, based on its interpretation of your behavior.

The way that this law is written, each one of us has to pass a test each time we want to operate a vehicle.

That is insanity.

The good news is that even supporters of this new law expect the NHTSA to put off any final decisions until next year, and once the rules are permanently established automakers are expected to get at least a couple of years to fully implement them...

Communism’s Comeback – and America’s Amnesia

Communism’s Comeback – and America’s Amnesia

Jeffrey Ludwig

With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the Cold War virtually disappeared. Further, In the 1990s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Under Deng Xiaoping (premier of China, 1978–1992), the PRC had begun to set up empowerment zones and allowed capitalist multinational corporations to operate within their borders. McDonald’s has some nice fast food outlets in China, and many of our medicines as well as our Barbie dolls are manufactured there. Chinese restrictions on child-bearing won the hearts of Western liberals, who are convinced that over-population combined with climate change (formerly “global warming”) is the cause of poverty on our planet. “Sustainable” use of resources became a new mantra. For many, sustainability means capitalism and communism working together side by side. How else can we arrive at the fulfillment of the Marxist principle “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”?

The highly educated of the West neatly combined all these avenues of discourse — climate change, population control, compatibility of communism and capitalism — with the widely accepted utilitarian doctrine of the greatest good for the greatest number (believed by most if not all of Western Civilization). Our own left-wing/liberal elite easily accepted John Stuart Mill’s belief that the “greatest good” could best be discerned by the more educated, informed classes of people. What a neat package!

The only snag is that it leaves out of the equation two important dimensions of the problem. Dimension One: What happens to the individual in this process, and in particular, what happens to the liberty of the individual?  Dimension Two: What is the role of God and of individual morality in this collective vision? Does subjecting oneself to the decisions of the new experts of the greatest good (sic) become a “new morality”?

There is one paradigm of capitalist economics where private ownership and management of one’s assets is justified, and another opposing paradigm where ownership, product design, prices, wages, and uses of goods and services are governmentally regulated and/or controlled. There is one paradigm where God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, is mainstream, and there is the more recent paradigm, where the human caretaker model — taking care of society and nature — is the end-all and be-all.

Those, like this writer, who grew up before 1991 were brought up in a world that was anti-communist. The majority view, held by both our major parties, emphasized private ownership of property and individual liberty restrained by Judeo-Christian morality. Despite the banning of prayer in our schools in 1962, faith in God was perceived as legitimate (varying on an individual-by-individual basis), and not as a somewhat out-of-date interest merely to be tolerated. We had “rights,” and those in the USSR didn’t. We had prosperity, and the commies did not. We were good guys, and they were bad guys. People wanted to become citizens and emigrate to the USA, and nobody wanted to go to commie countries. We were in a fight against those who sought to disrupt all the positives of the USA and looked to the Soviets for leadership in doing so

However, once the USSR collapsed, it seemed that the idea of two sides in the world also evaporated from American consciousness. A paradigm shift began to take place. Now we are struggling through a great identity crisis between leftist programs and policies and programs and policies based on private property and liberty. The left, following the example of Mao’s Long March, has kept pushing forward, pushing forward, and now has taken over one of our two major parties.

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US working on building new coalition to ensure ships can pass through Hormuz

US working on building new coalition to ensure ships can pass through Hormuz — WSJ

Reuters

ToI Staff

The United States is asking other countries to join a new international coalition that would enable ships to navigate the Strait of Hormuz after traffic through the waterway stalled, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The proposed coalition, dubbed the “Maritime Freedom Construct,” would share information, coordinate diplomatically and help enforce sanctions, the Journal says, citing an internal State Department cable.

“Your participation will strengthen our collective ability to restore freedom of navigation and protect the global economy,” the cable sent to US embassies reportedly says. “Collective action is essential to demonstrate unified resolve and impose meaningful costs on Iranian obstruction of transit through the Strait.”

According to the report, the cable says US diplomats should ask their foreign interlocutors whether their countries want to be a “diplomatic and/or military partner,” and that the mission will be run jointly by the State Department and US Central Command.

“The MFC would be complementary to other security maritime task forces, including the maritime planning effort the U.K. and France are leading,” the cable also reportedly says.

CENTCOM chief to brief Trump on new plans for US military action against Iran

ToI Staff

US President Donald Trump is slated to receive a briefing on new plans for potential military action in Iran on Thursday from the leader of the US Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, Axios reports.

Three sources with knowledge of the matter tell the outlet that CENTCOM has drawn up plans for a “short and powerful” series of strikes on Iranian targets, with the aim of pressuring Iran to give ground in negotiations.

One of the sources says other options being readied include a takeover of parts of the Strait of Hormuz and dispatching special forces to snag Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile.

The Drums Of War Are Not Random—They Are Prophetic

The Drums Of War Are Not Random—They Are Prophetic

David Bowen

Yes, the drums of war are beating, louder and louder. Across the globe, tensions are rising at a pace that feels escalations are inevitable. Nations are aligning, alliances are shifting, and conflicts once considered regional are now threatening to ignite on a global scale. For those who study Bible prophecy, these developments are not surprising; they are expected.

The question is not if war will come. The question is: Are we watching the stage being set for the final wars described in Scripture?

Jesus warned: “…you will hear of wars and rumors of wars…” Matthew 24:6 Today, we are no longer simply hearing rumors—we are witnessing escalation. We see this through Middle East tensions involving Israel and Iran, global power struggles between superpowers, military buildups, and shifting alliances. This is not random. It is a startling convergence.

Zechariah 12:3 warns that God “will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples…” Israel remains the epicenter. It is the constant global focus of world leaders, at the UN, on college campuses, and in the media. The Jewish State is surrounded by hostility, political and spiritual conflict, and antisemitism is emerging at an increasing pace.

Ezekiel 38 describes a coalition forming against Israel. Key elements today make this undeniable, including a restored Israel (since 1948), identifiable nations within this prophecy coming into alignment, and an increasing cooperation among adversaries. What was prophecy is now forming in real time.

We now live in an age of instant communication and logistics. This allows for a different type of war, artificial intelligence warfare. This modern war includes AI-assisted targeting, predictive military strategy, and autonomous operations (drones and remote missile strikes). Battlefields are shifting from human-led to system-driven. War is becoming faster and less dependent on human presence, but more focused on human destruction.

Through Cyber Warfare, nations can now shut down power grids, collapse financial systems, and disrupt communication networks. War can now happen without a single soldier crossing a border.

Technology now allows digital currency systems, biometric identification, and real-time tracking. An unsettling level of control through technology—on a global scale—is no longer a “someday” thing; it is now a reality.

Matthew 24:4 Jesus stated, “Take heed that no one deceives you.” Modern deception is everywhere. AI-generated content, “deepfakes,” and controlled narratives run rampant. Truth itself is under attack.

The three forces of war, technology, and control are merging. War creates instability, instability creates demand for order, and technology enables that order.

The final war described in God’s Word does not end in uncertainty. It ends in victory! The world sees chaos, but those who know Scripture see alignment. The drums of war are not random—they are prophetic. And while nations prepare for conflict, believers prepare for eternity.