“Even if they were, there’s not enough power for them to turn on.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Even if the data center capacity described as under active development (about 61GW of IT load) were being built, there is not enough power for it to turn on.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, The AI Industry Is Lying To You, paragraph 16.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-the-ai-industry-is-lying-to-you-9edcf6-a1
We recorded 33 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-03-24. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- even if they were being built (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- Even if they were
- there’s not enough power for them to turn on
Our interpretation
- The plain reading concerns power sufficient to operate the cited cohort collectively, roughly 61 GW of IT load or 79.5 GW including facility overhead.
- Power must be deliverable at the relevant sites. National nameplate generation alone is not a sufficient measure.
- This is a present-state observation under a hypothetical construction assumption, not a conditional forecast requiring construction to occur first.
- Use Q4 2025 as the latest completed reporting quarter before the post, consistent with the surrounding pipeline discussion. Do not reinterpret the claim as a forecast that power will never become available.
Counts as supported if: Matched generation, transmission and service records show that the cited cohort could not collectively receive enough power to operate, including available on-site supply.
Counts as contradicted if: Matched records show sufficient deliverable grid and on-site power for the whole cited cohort at the reporting baseline.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The sources establish serious power constraints, particularly in PJM. They do not establish the stronger, cohort-wide proposition. A comparison of future load commitments with a generation queue does not by itself measure all power currently deliverable to these projects. The cited records therefore support the concern but do not settle the claim as written.
Limitations
- Regional adequacy findings cannot automatically be applied to every US project.
- Future capacity commitments are not current available power.
- The claim leaves phased and interruptible operation unspecified.
Evidence (2 items)
Context only: Wood Mackenzie,
183 GW
Why it matters here: The analysis describes a broader large-load commitment pipeline and a PJM generation-queue mismatch. Neither is a site-matched accounting of available power for the 61 GW IT-load cohort; contracting with a wires-only utility also does not itself establish an absence of generation.
- Publisher
- Wood Mackenzie
- Kind of source
- Independent measurement
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: PJM Interconnection,
transition gap
Why it matters here: PJM identifies a resource-adequacy problem associated with its 2027/2028 auction. This supports the existence of regional constraints, but does not measure present power availability across the nationwide cohort.
- Publisher
- PJM Interconnection
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A dated assessment matching the cited projects to available generation, transmission, utility service and on-site supply, with enough coverage to establish aggregate sufficiency or a definite shortfall.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, The AI Industry Is Lying To You
Even if they were, there’s not enough power for them to turn on.
- Where
- paragraph 16
- Published
- 2026-03-24
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-the-ai-industry-is-lying-to-you-9edcf6-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-the-ai-industry-is-lying-to-you-9edcf6-a1.