In a final act before leaving office, Georgia regulators have authorized a massive $16.3B fossil fuel expansion, gambling that a forecasted AI boom will pay for it. (Canary Media)
In a unanimous decision, the state’s five Republican commissioners—two of whom were just voted out of office—approved Georgia Power’s plan to build nearly 10 GW of new gas plants and batteries. The “lame-duck” vote preempts the arrival of incoming Democratic commissioners who ran on lowering utility bills.
The utility argues the massive buildout is needed to serve skyrocketing data center demand. But critics (and even the commission’s own staff) warned that only a fraction of this demand is contractually guaranteed.