West Virginia Watch – If you were listening earlier this year as the governor and legislature pushed through legislation to incentivize data centers and microgrids in West Virginia, you would have heard a lot about China. Lawmakers said we are in an artificial intelligence race with China, and West Virginia is primed to be a spot to build a new data center-heavy economy. The bill, House Bill 2014, even includes specific references to China.
Read the full op-ed.
That echoes concerns I’ve seen nationally as well. Both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Congress members, and countless other experts in national defense, the technology industry, and more have said that we’ve found ourselves in a new arms race in regards to AI. They say if we want to win that race, we’ll need vast amounts more energy than we have today. A recent Department of Energy study estimates AI energy needs could triple in just the next three years alone.
Why then, did Congress just pass a bill that will set our new electricity generation back years, raise utility prices for consumers and continue our reliance on dirtier, costlier energy projects that take longer to build?
