[nvitas]

just as a thought experiment, say you're an entrepreneur, how would you solve this problem?

whether it AI, Data Centers, EVs...I'm seeing this problem more and more, we need more energy/power. I'm curious to see what others think are possible viable solutions.

[jedberg]

This isn't a problem that can be solved by a clever entrepreneur. This is what government is for. When you have a shared resource that everyone needs, government is the best option for making sure its distribution is fair.

We already know how to solve this: make transmission owned by the government, make generation free-market. Cities do this already. The city of Santa Clara owns all the transmission, and then buys power on the open market along with generating themselves.

The result is their power costs 1/2 as much as all the surrounding cities that have PG&E.

[infecto]

I was actually going to disagree on first glance but I absolutely agree with this.

Transmission has no business edge, you will gain the best economies of scale by having the city (or larger regional) manage it.

Free-market works on the generation side because as prices change, producers can decide to build out more capacity or innovate to gain an edge. I don’t think a single monopoly construct, like the PG&Es of the world, have incentive to innovate and properly serve the market.

[xboxnolifes]

And ironically (not really), this setup is more market competitive. Instead of having transmission owned by 1 maybe 2 companies who also monopolize generation, you get a government who just buys the power as cheap as people can make it. There are better incentives on the government owned transmission than on a company owned transmission.

[bix6]

Nuclear has a ton of VC interest right now. Or the robinhood dude with his space beaming stuff.

I think anything you can do to add to the energy mix is worthwhile atm. Does America produce any domestic solar panels? I’m talking wafers not assembly.

[infecto]

I still think decoupling generation from transmission is part of the problem and I don’t know if I love the construct of a single legislated monopoly.

In this specific case, Liberty and constituents should have come up with a plan on the first contract term for generation. Maybe it meant spinning up their own generation plant within CA or NV.

It’s not a popular idea here but I still think energy markets can help solve this problem. If you have multiple producers and a market rate for electricity you can more quickly incentivize new generation and innovation compared to the single operator monopolies that exist.

[jeffbee]

Entrepreneurs know exactly how to solve this issue: panels, batteries, and wires. But it isn't so simple when you face 20 years of permitting between BLM, USFS, tribes, states, counties, cities, and individual litigation. If you want an example of how bad this is look at the permitting timeline for SunZia in New Mexico and its transmission line to California.

Gas pipelines don't have the same problem because the federal government exercises centralized permitting and eminent domain powers for fossil fuels under a 1938 law, and there is no corresponding statute for electric lines.

[niwtsol]

Has there been any attempt for some sort of legislation that would allow utility solar or electric lines to be included in that?

[__MatrixMan__]

I'd come up with a variety of ways to interfere with the placement of datacenters, and I'd sell them as a service to people who don't want a datacenter to interfere with their access to water or electricity. This would be, hopfully, absurd enough to make the government realize that they need to step in and make my business model irrelevant.

[jerlam]

If you're xAI, just build your own power plants:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-mus...

[greenie_beans]

become a politician and make electricity a public resource, as it should be