AI, datacenters, ignorant politicians: the coming electricity crisis

The small modular reactor (SMR) project was led by Tsinghua University's Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, drawing on decades of pebble bed research that included a formal cooperation agreement with South Africa's PBMR programme, a reminder that nuclear knowledge is cumulative, international, and hard-won.

While Western politicians debate whether to permit new reactors, China is already operating them. Just like Japan did when we invented transistors, China will take our invention and make it work, both practically and economically.

The questions politicians cannot answer

History tells us political leaders will continue to cling to the political safety of climate-framing while avoiding electricity-reality conversations. But the AI and data center boom is making that avoidance untenable.

The question is whether government policies will catch up, or whether politicians will continue preaching zero-emissions while blocking the only power source that reliably delivers. Continuous power is needed; politicians that have stymied nuclear-generated electricity will have to provide the answer as to where the electricity will come from.

Basic "electricity wisdom" questions that demand straight answers from politicians

• If you support zero-emissions electricity, why have government policies spent three decades blocking nuclear energy, the only proven emissions-free source of continuous, uninterruptable power?
• With data centers requiring electricity that is always on, which generating source do you support: coal, natural gas, or nuclear? And if nuclear, what specific regulatory and policy changes will you make to enable it?
• With electricity demand set to rise by more than 40% over the next decade, and with AI and data centers accounting for a growing share of that demand, where specifically will the electricity come from, and who pays when it is not there?

These are not gotcha questions. They are the most consequential electricity infrastructure questions of the next century. The bidding war for electricity between data centers and ordinary households, hospitals, schools, businesses, and families are already beginning. Without a competing supply of continuous power, there will be no good outcome for either side. So we all need to ask these questions of the leaders we elected, over and over again.

Time for electricity wisdom

America has a track record of nearly 70 years of nuclear power plant operation without injuries - alongside more than 70 years of nuclear Navy reactor operations for ALL their submarines and ALL their aircraft carriers without a single nuclear related casualty. For more than seven decades, nuclear power has proven to be the safest, most compact, emissions-free, and most cost-effective way to produce continuous, uninterruptable, and dispatchable electricity.

Physics has not changed. The safety record has not changed. Technology is established. What has changed is the political willingness to talk about it honestly. Electricity is becoming the most valuable commodity on earth. The AI revolution will drive demand to levels that intermittent power from breezes and sunshine cannot meet. The world market is voting for continuous, uninterruptable, and zero-emissions electricity from nuclear.

It is time for electricity wisdom to replace electricity theatrics. NOW is the time to start building nuclear power for the continuous, emission-free, uninterruptable electricity that civilization requires.