Two environmental activist groups say they plan to organize resistance against a plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Eddystone, a small borough in Delaware County.
They say the facility would threaten not only the environment, but also public safety.
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRQL) said during an online meeting Wednesday that documents show negotiations have beenhappening behind closed doors for more than a year.
They cited a newly released tranche of documents that show the plan has progressed with nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with state officials.
More than a year ago, U.S. Sen. David McCormick (R., Pa.) wrote an opinion piecein the Washington Times publicly announcing the $7 billion project by Penn America Energy to build the terminal along the Delaware River in Eddystone.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said the documents show that the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Eddystone officials have been talking to, or in negotiations with, a developer for at least a year.
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The environmental groups say Eddystone Borough officials initially denied open records requests about those negotiations, prompting a yearlong legal mediation.
The planned facility aims to produce 7.2 million tons of LNG per year from Pennsylvania’s rich Marcellus Shale deposits, Carluccio said, based on a presentation by Penn America to Eddystone Borough on March 7 that was obtained through a records request.
“There have been no public meetings or public disclosure about the proposed project,“ she said, adding that “the public knows nothing about this, and Eddystone Borough knows all about it.”
Carluccio said nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and confidential meetings involving high-level state and local officials have helped shield the project from public scrutiny.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental protection said it had not had any pre-application meetings regarding a proposed LNG export facility and no permits for such a facility are under review.
In a statement from Eddystone Borough, officials said they are aware of the “public discussion” regarding a potential LNG facility. The statement said that members of Borough Council met with representatives of the project last year “for informational” purposes.
“Those meetings did not constitute approval or endorsement of any future development,” the statement said. “No approval action is currently before Borough Council.”
If an application is submitted, the statement said, the borough would conduct a “thorough review” and that the process would be open to the public.
Pa.’s drive toward LNG
State, public utility, and elected officials, as well as unions, have been working toward locating an LNG facility inSoutheastern Pennsylvania, although no site has been formally proposed.
The Philadelphia LNG Task Force was created from legislation introduced in 2022 by State Rep. Martina White (R., Philadelphia) to explore the possibility of the first liquefied natural gas export facility along the Delaware River. Former Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed the legislation to form the task force.
Although McCormick noted Eddystone as a location, no official planning documents have beensubmitted to Eddystone or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
According to records obtained through Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Act, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) entered into a formalized nondisclosure agreement with Eddystone Energy LLC in October 2025.
The DCED issued a statement to The Inquirer saying that it “routinely discusses potential projects with companies seeking to do business in the Commonwealth.”
The agency said the discussions are confidential because they involve proprietary information from companies.
“Maintaining confidentiality in such discussions is common practice in the business development industry across the country,” the statement said.
A draft NDA was additionally distributed between Eddystone Borough Council and Penn America Energy Holdings, though it appears it was never officially finalized, Carlucci said.
Advocates say that Franc James, CEO of the now-dissolved Penn America Holdings LLC, has been the primary figure driving the LNG project forward, alongside an array of state politicians.
On Wednesday,Carluccio asserted James isbehind Eddystone Energy LLC, a Delaware corporation formed in May 2025.
Internal records reveal that meetings have involved representatives from the offices of Shapiro, State Sen. John Kane, McCormick, and State Rep. Dave Delloso, as well as Eddystone Borough officials.
For example, a document from Shapiro’s office shows there was an hourlong meeting in February with Eddystone Mayor Ronald Hughes, Borough President William Stewart, Kane, James, multiple union representatives, and Technip Energies, an international energy infrastructure developer with a specialty in LNG.
And James wrote an email dated July 11 to Samuel Robinson, Shapiro’s deputy chief of staff, stating that the “LNG Eddystone team” would attend the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit that same month in Pittsburgh. The summit was organized by McCormick.
Community reaction
An LNG facility along the Delaware River waterfront in Southeastern Pennsylvania has been discussed for years with James’ Penn America Energy Holdings, also referred to as Penn LNG.
Though no location had been firmly named, it was initially believed Chester would be the host. However, that location received massive pushback from residents led by Zulene Mayfield, founder of the CRQL advocacy group, and resulted in a political turnover in the city. No project was ever formally proposed for Chester.
The environmental advocates say the plan for Eddystone is well underway despite the lack of public input. Mayfield said she plans to organize Eddystone residents to oppose it.
“This project is already rolling, that’s what we’re telling you,“ Mayfield said Wednesday in the webinarshehosted withCarluccio. ”The attempt is already being made to put it right in Eddystone.”
Mayfield and Carluccio said the borough is too small to host a large LNG export facility, which typically span 1,000 acres. The borough is one-square mile.
They also fear that an explosion or fire could not only reach neighboring towns but also stretch across the river to New Jersey.
If you’re getting burned by high heating bills this winter, you’re in good, and equally stressed, company.
U.S. households are expected to pay more than $1,000 on average to heat their homes this winter, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association’s projections, which were updated last month. That’s about $100 more than households paid last year, according to the association, which advocates for federal funding for low-income ratepayers.
And customers usually pay more in freezing temperatures, when more energy is required to keep their homes comfortable.
A wood stove provides heat in the old stone farmhouse of Patrick Melcher’s near Downingtown.
Philly-area residents were hit with a double whammy: They experienced one of the coldest, snowiest winters in recent memory as rate increases took effect for major utilities, including Peco and PGW.
Spokespeople for Peco and PGW, which provide electric and gas service to millions across southeastern Pennsylvania, said many of their customers saw increased usage this winter due to the cold. They noted that individual bills can also be impacted by thermostat settings, efficiency of appliances, and weatherization of windows, doors, and other parts of the home, as well as whether customers have opted for a third-party energy supplier.
“Energy affordability remains a priority, and rising supply costs — set by competitive markets and not controlled or profited from by Peco — continue to be a major driver of customer bills,” spokesperson Candice Womer said in a statement, noting a nearly 20% year-over-year supply cost increase for electric customers and a nearly 10% increase for gas.
The Inquirer spoke with five people who live across the region, have different types of homes, and use varying fuel sources and heating systems. Here’s how much they’ve paid to keep warm this winter.
Quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Melcher, a 48-year-old who owns a custom woodworking business, said he usually needs to fill his 250-gallon oil tank twice a year. In early January, he paid $800 for a 230-gallon top-off, or about $3.45 per gallon, which he thought was fair. He had paid around the same for an oil fill-up in October. This winter, Melcher said he’s also spent about $900 on firewood for his wood-burning stove, plus a couple hundred dollars a month to fuel the electric heaters in his workshop.
“I don’t have a ton of money. I have a small business. But what else can you do? In the wintertime, it hurts. You hope for a mild winter. It’s one of those things you can’t control.”
An oil tank heater is shown in the basement of Patrick Melcher’s home near Downingtown.
Simonsen, a 69-year-old retired public relations professional, said her electric bills are usually around $50. This winter, however, her last three bills have been $78, $84, and, most recently, $312 for the period of mid-January through mid-February. She keeps her heat around 65 during the day, she said, and 60 at night. She’s billed through her condo complex, and said her neighbors have noted similar increases.
“I know we had very cold days but we were just boggled. I’m looking at everything around the apartment now. What can I turn off? Have I been careless about leaving things on? I don’t think so, but I am much more cognizant of that. I’m wondering if this is the new reality.”
A phone charger plugged in a Center City apartment. In Fairmount, Janice Simonsen said she is making sure she unplugs everything after receiving a more than $300 electric bill for a 750-square-foot unit.
Capriotti, a 55-year-old research scientist, said her family switched from oil heat to natural gas over the past decade. They were fed up with paying hundreds of dollars every time they needed to fill their oil tank. Still, she said, their home is drafty and they need to upgrade doors and insulation. Their most recent Peco bill, which includes electric and gas, was $721, and the gas portion was $570.
“It’s better than oil heat for sure, but this past year has been very rough. $720 for heating and energy is a bit much. I don’t want to say I can’t pay it, but it’s definitely a struggle.”
Carol Capriotti paid more than $700 in February for gas and electric service for her Willow Grove home, which she heats with a gas-powered boiler.
Fritz, a 41-year-old full-time hospice aide who works part-time at a distillery, said she had her upstairs and downstairs heat pumps serviced in December. In recent years, she insulated windows and the basement ceiling, and she said she keeps the temperature around 65. Fritz is billed directly through the borough electric department, and can’t ever remember receiving a bill this high since moving into her home 13 years ago. Before the most recent charge, her last three monthly electric bills totaled $256 in December, $424 in January, and $505 in February.
“I’m a single parent. I work full-time and part-time. My child has behavioral issues. So I am struggling. It is more than the [$704] mortgage payment. I know in the winter months it goes up, but to go up that high, it’s frankly ridiculous.”
Seidell, a 52-year-old who works in technology, said his bills this winter are on par with previous years’. He has gas-powered forced-air heating, he said, but electricity powers the blower fans that circulate the air. Seidell got solar panels installed in 2020, and he said they offset his electric cost throughout the year, though less so in the winter than in the summer.
As for his heating bills, “it’s been reasonable. My house was built 125 years ago. I don’t really do anything to keep it energy efficient besides the programmable thermostat and the solar panels.”
In Ardmore, Sean Seidell’s 1,800-square-foot twin home, which has solar panels, has cost about $200 to $250 a month to heat this winter.
American families are feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. In the past five years alone, the supply portion of the standard service residential electric bill in Philadelphia has increased by 71%. In the Lehigh Valley it has increased by 77%. And in Columbus Ohio, by 110%. These are three data points in a national trend.
New research from the Energy Markets and Policy Group that includes The Ohio State University and Lehigh University where we serve as principal investigators, provides new insights about another factor you were probably not thinking about – middlemen introduced by deregulation.
How deregulation brought middlemen instead of competition
Under the old system, a state regulatory commission set prices for all electricity services – generation, transmission and distribution – which were supplied by the same monopoly utility company. Each state commission was required by federal law to ensure that rates were “just and reasonable.” Under deregulation, that same commission rate-setting process still holds for transmission and distribution, but the generation part was split off.
Deregulation created competitive wholesale markets for generation, but price competition did not spread widely at the retail level. In states with active retail deregulation, there are two ways the retail generation price can be set. Consumers get to pick which one – buy from a marketer on the open market, or do nothing. Most people choose to do nothing.
Rather than introducing efficiency, this system of retail deregulation created a new complexity: middlemen marketers. In most cases, no matter which choice people make, it’s hard for them to understand how their electricity rates are set.
Option A: The open market
Electricity customers in deregulated retail markets can choose a company that buys the electricity on their behalf. Energy salespeople have sophisticated marketing programs to sell their companies’ plans.
For example, people who live in the Cincinnati area can contract with one of more than 50 suppliers to buy electricity on their behalf from the wholesale market. In the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia there are more than 30 suppliers. Their monthly bill would still come from the regulated distribution company (Duke Energy, PPL, PECO, respectively), and would still include regulated charges for distribution and transmission set by state and federal officials. But it would also include charges from an unregulated retail supplier, for the generation part of their bill – their electric supply.
Our research has found that these markets are not working as intended.
Option B: Do nothing – default service
For people who choose not to shop on the open market, by doing nothing they remain on what is called the “standard offer” or “default service.” Sometimes it is also called “provider of last resort” service because it is not meant to be the best option.
For these people, state law generally requires each distribution utility to hold auctions or use a procurement process like a request for proposals to determine which middlemen companies get to be their supplier, and of course, at what price.
People in this category still buy from middleman marketers. But rather than choosing their own middleman, they get the middleman the utility company selects for them.
Help for consumers usually comes after problems have arisen, rather than preventing them in the first place.
Our research team sought to determine whether, and how much, electricity consumers would save money if they used the supposedly competitive open market, rather than going with the default rate. To answer this question, we developed a detailed database of every daily retail choice offer filed by every supplier in all service territories in Ohio for a decade – which meant compiling millions of records.
We found that 72.1% of the open-market offers exceeded the utility’s default rate. In some years, there was not even one single cost-saving offer for the entire year, or longer. The vast majority of these supposedly competitive electricity prices were higher than customers would get by doing nothing. Taking the time to research the market and compare prices was often not worth consumers’ time.
Importantly, the study found that suppliers in the open market were not setting their prices based on market fundamentals – like the underlying wholesale price of electricity. Instead, they were setting prices based on the results of the utility’s default supply selection. In a competitive market, that is not supposed to happen.
In some of the default-option rate auctions, as few as five suppliers placed bids. In others, there were as many as 15 companies vying to provide default-option electricity. Our analysis found that in situations when the underlying costs of generating electricity were the same, default supply auctions with fewer bidders delivered significantly higher prices for consumers than auctions with more bidders.
It’s important to note that Ohio’s process for setting default service rates is more robust than many other states. In Pennsylvania, the process is similar to Ohio’s. In some states, it is not uncommon for even fewer companies to bid. So Ohio and Pennsylvania’s situation is not actually a worst-case scenario for consumers. Rather, it’s probably better than many other states with deregulated electricity markets.
Putting it all together
The first study showed that the open market is not setting efficient retail rates and is not working as intended. Most of the offers made available to consumers are not worth their time, and the suppliers in those markets are not setting their prices based upon market fundamentals. Instead, these companies are taking their cues from the local distribution utility’s default supply auctions. That is not how deregulation was envisioned.
The second study showed that the process which sets the default supply rate is also not very competitive. Less competition means the middleman companies bidding in those auctions can bid, and win, higher prices – raising electric bills and increasing their profit margin.
Energy deregulation promised lower prices through competition. But instead, consumers got an army of middleman marketers. And, those middlemen have been taking their cues from a bidding process that often has too few participants to keep prices low.
Noah Dormady is Associate Professor of Public Policy at The Ohio State University; Alberto J. Lamadrid is James T. Kane Professor of Economics and Industrial and Systems Engineering at Lehigh University . A version of this article appeared on The Conversation., a nonprofit news website sharing the knowledge of researchers.
NEW YORK — The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight to about $3.11 in the U.S., according to motor club AAA.
Gas prices were already rising before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran as refiners switch over to summer blends of fuel, but crude futures have risen sharply this week because of the war.
On Tuesday, oil futures soared to levels not seen in more than a year as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
Benchmark U.S. crude jumped 8.6% to $77.36 a barrel.
Brent crude, the international standard, added 6.7% to $81.29 a barrel. Global oil prices jumped to start the week over concerns that the war will clog the global flow of crude.
FRANKFURT, Germany — Oil prices rose sharply Monday as disruptions in tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint raised uncertainty about how U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran would affect supply to the world economy.
US oil traded 7.4% higher at $71.97 per barrel, while international standard Brent was up 7.7% at $78.46 per barrel.
Higher oil prices raise the prospect of costlier gasoline prices for U.S. drivers as well as for other goods at a time when people in many countries have been stung by inflation.
A key focus was the situation around the strait at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. Tanker traffic dropped sharply amid disruption of satellite navigation systems, data and analytics firm Kpler said on X, while the UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported attacks on several vessels in the area on either side of the strait and warned of elevated electronic interference to systems that show where ships are.
A bomb-carrying drone boat struck a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Monday, killing one mariner on board, Oman said. Iran has been threatening vessels approaching the Strait of Hormuz and is believed to have launched multiple attacks.
Saudi authorities reported they intercepted Iranian drones that attacked the Ras Tanura oil refinery near Dammam and the refinery was shut down as a precaution, Saudi state television reported. Market attention has focused on whether the conflict would widen to other oil-producing countries in the region.
Monday’s price increase was within the $5-$10 per barrel range expected by analysts based simply on the fear factor associated with the outbreak of war. And some war concerns were already reflected in the price before the conflict started.
However, long-term disruption to ship traffic in the strait could send prices even higher, and so could damage to oil infrastructure in other Gulf countries. Meanwhile, a shorter conflict in which disruptions are easily reversible could mean the current price spike won’t last.
Europe is tightening the net on Russian oil being shipped through its waters, squeezing Moscow’s ability to fund its war even as officials and business executives in Russia fear the window is narrowing to reach a peace deal before the economy deteriorates.
The European Union is considering imposing an outright maritime ban on services needed to ship Russian oil, such as insurance and transportation, as part of a new sanctions package marking four years of Russia’s war.
The ban would significantly ratchet up the sanctions imposed on Russian oil, replacing the current oil price cap system, and comes as 14 European nations — including Britain, France, and Germany — warned last week they could intercept the shadowy fleet of tankers Russia created to help it evade sanctions operating in breach of international maritime law.
Russian oil revenue plummeted by 50 percent in January compared with the same month the previous year after tough new sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury on Russian oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil in October. The penalties forced Moscow to accept ever-steeper discounts of more than $20 per barrel for its oil. Combined with India’s apparent agreement to halt Russian oil purchases in favor of increased imports from the United States and potentially Venezuela, the measures threaten to further strainthe resources Moscow needs to fuel its war machine, risking crisis as nonpayments grow across the economy.
Inspired by the seizure last month by U.S. forces of the Marinera tanker after a weeks-long pursuit despite a Russian submarine escort, the French navy briefly captured another suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker, the Grinch, which had been traveling from the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk across the Mediterranean carrying 730,000 barrels of oil under the flag of Comoros.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the vessel was subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin used intermediaries to buy up aging tankers and created what became known as the shadow fleet, to lessen its dependency on Western shipping services and reduce sanctions risks. Instead of being insured through Western companies, these tankers often receive insurance from Russia, backed by the country’s central bank, and sail under the flags of less stringent jurisdictions such as Sierra Leone and Cameroon, to conceal the origin of the oil.
If enforced, the proposed measures could impact nearly a half of Russia’s oil exports, or about 3.5 million barrels per day, which head through European waters via the Baltic and Black seas, with crude shipments mostly bound for refineries in India, China, and Turkey.
It’s not yet clear if the proposed EU maritime services ban, which requires a unanimous vote by member states, will be passed. But with the risk on the shadow vessels increasing from interceptions as well as attacks by Ukrainian drones, the costs are rising for shipments through Europe.
“Russian oil exports are highly sensitive to disruptions in shipping.It is an Achilles’ heel,” said Janis Kluge, an economist at Germany’s Institute for International and Security Affairs. “If I were in Russia’s shoes, I would be very worried about the developments both with regards to a stricter policy against the shadow fleet and the Ukrainian drone attacks against tankers. Because both create significant risks. It is critical for Russia to have these shipping lanes open for its oil, or it will really run into big trouble.”
A Russian academic close to senior Moscow diplomats said any European ban on maritime services for Russian oil and any further interceptions of shadow fleet tankers were “serious threats for Russia.”
“This is a threat not just for the economy, but also it’s a political question about whether Russia can allow such actions without losing its political reputation,” the academic said.
Even without the further risk to oil exports, Russian finance officials have been writing with increasing urgency to President Vladimir Putin to warn of a potential crisis by the summer, according to a person in contact with these officials and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The officials have warned falling revenue means the budget deficit is only set to grow without further tax hikes while pressure is mounting on the Russian banking system due to high interest rates and a corporate borrowing spree to fund the war.
One Moscow business executive said the crisis could hit in “three or four months” as signs appear that real inflation is spiraling far beyond the officially declared 6 percent despite interest rates being held at a high 16 percent. Signs of growing strain in the economy are the biggest numbers of closures of restaurants in Moscow since the pandemic and the forced layoffs of thousands of workers as costs grow, the executive said, also on the condition of anonymity.
But there is little sign that Putin is set to change his calculus and step back from the Kremlin’s maximalist war demands. Last week, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the Western security guarantees Ukraine says it needs for any deal, calling instead for an end to the regime in Kyiv.
“We have no understanding about when the war will end,” the business executive added.
The growing economic pressures are nevertheless weighing on Moscow as it seeks to keep the Trump administration on its side during negotiations to end the war. “If Trump comes to the conclusion that Russia is sabotaging the negotiation process then it’s possible there could be new sanctions including on the energy sector, and this is a serious challenge for Russia,” the Russian academic said.
If anything, Russia is only growing more vulnerable to economic pressure, said Craig Kennedy, a former vice president at Bank of America Merrill Lynch now at Harvard University.
“Oil revenues are sliding, credit is overextended. And Moscow knows things are only likely to get worse in 2026,” he said.
Not all of Russia’s oil is under sanction, and Western companies can ship this oil as long as it is sold under the price cap first imposed by the European Union in December 2022. The EU had hesitated over imposing a full ban over fears it could cause a counterproductive oil price spike.
But when the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s two biggest oil majors, Rosneft and Lukoil, in October last year, it sharply increased the share of Russia’s total oil output under U.S. sanctions to 80 percent. Moscow became even more reliant on its shadow fleet to transport its oil through the Baltic and Black seas to refineries in India, Turkey, and China.
“The amount of unsanctioned oil now produced in Russia is a lot lower,” Kennedy said. “If shipping compliance gets tightened, it could put even more pressure on Russian export revenue.”
Ukraine has also been stepping up its own efforts to target the shadow fleet, further increasing the risks and costs of shipping Russian oil. Since late November its forces have attacked at least nine Russia-linked tankers, deploying naval and aerial drones, as well as mines.
European officials will likely still face a game of cat and mouse in targeting the illicit Russian oil. Already since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, two mysterious new intermediary companies — Redwood Global Supply FZE LLC and Alghaf Marine DMCC — emerged out of nowhere to become major exporters of Russian oil, according to data from Kpler, a global commodities intelligence firm, compiled by the Kyiv School of Economics.
Redwood sold 757,000 barrels per day in December, and Alghaf sold 174,000 barrels per day after trading zero amounts of oil previously, according to the data. “What we observed is that volumes traded by these new companies skyrocketed,” said Borys Dodonov, head of the Center for Energy and Climate Studies at the Kyiv School of Economics.
European governments also argue that many of the Russian shadow fleet vessels flying flags of convenience from nations such as Cameroon and Sierra Leone are not compliant with international maritime safety standards, while those that sail under more than one flag during a voyage — as the Marinera did — can be treated as “stateless” under international maritime law allowing them to be boarded and searched.
Amid the crackdown, Russia could be forced to register more of its shadow fleet under Russian flags, making them easier targets for sanctions, analysts said, especially if they are de-registered by other flag states.
Any such move however could also increase the possibility of conflict over attempts to board Russian-flagged vessels with Moscow seeking to intimidate Europe out of taking any action. Russia’s Maritime Board, overseen by hawkish former Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, warned late last month that measures would be taken to protect Russian shipping interests against actions by “unfriendly states.”
“It’s a question of whether these actions will be taken by the Europeans by themselves without the participation of the U.S.,” the Russian academic said. “Then there could be some measures in response like protection by a military convoy.”
As we settle into the new year, the idea of “leftovers” might not be quite as appetizing as it was a few weeks ago, while we were relaxing with family and friends during the holidays. But 2026 greets us with a challenge that went unmet last year: securing Pennsylvania’s energy future in a way that benefits our economy, environment, and everyday lives.
Why is this a challenge? Because we are currently facing difficulties of our own making, or perhaps more accurately, the consequences of our own inaction. Like New Year’s resolutions, the solutions will take more than promises.
At the heart of the issue is the remarkable speed and intensity of data center development in Pennsylvania. According to the most recent report from the independent market monitor for the 13-state PJM regional electric grid, data centers have dramatically increased costs for Pennsylvania’s energy consumers by as much as $23 billion across the PJM footprint over the past three years.
Rising electric costs
In other words, the primary reason electric costs are going up, and what increasingly worries public officials about grid reliability, is existing and projected future energy demand from data centers. That demand shows no sign of slowing down.
To be fair, data centers provide vital construction and technology service jobs, can help build local tax bases, and are seen as essential to economic competitiveness and national security. But all this comes at a very real cost borne by citizens — including those who may benefit, and many who do not.
So, what does this mean for decision-makers?
First, we need to manage the frenzied rush to build data centers by enacting strong standards to protect communities and energy consumers. These measures include requiring data centers to directly pay for necessary grid connection and expansion costs to accommodate their demand, and securing additional, preferably clean, generation to meet their needs. This is essential to help ensure grid reliability, along with expanding other programs and policies to make our grid more efficient and electrons more abundant.
Between recent efforts by the state Public Utility Commission to manage large energy user demand and legislation introduced in the General Assembly to address consumer and community concerns, we’re seeing the beginnings of a solution to several of these challenges.
These are urgently needed and should be advanced as soon as possible. Pennsylvania is not alone in developing these safeguards, so putting reasonable protections in place won’t hinder our competitiveness and will ensure this important industry develops in a sound and sustainable manner.
Diversifying the grid
Pennsylvania also needs to do all it can to diversify our electric grid, make it more efficient, and incentivize new, cleaner energy generation. Legislation from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Lightning Plan (House Bill 501 and Senate Bill 501) to expand our state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards should be front and center, as it would bring new generation technologies like advanced nuclear, renewables, and geothermal to our state and help reduce long-term costs.
Legislation to modernize existing energy efficiency programs (House Bill 505 and Senate Bill 505) — which have proven to reduce energy demand and save consumers money — should also cross the finish line this year. So should policies that further encourage utilities to deploy advanced transmission technologies to bolster grid resilience.
Pennsylvania also needs to examine how we can better facilitate project development at the local level, where both a lack of capacity and intentional impediments have stymied the expansion of a clean energy supply. We can have strong protections in concert with fair and efficient review.
Protesters rally in Manassas, Va., in 2023 against a newly built data center for Amazon. New data centers are planed nationwide.
On top of the energy cost considerations, we also need to ensure data centers do not overtax water resources (which could cause similar cost inflation for public water users) or worsen our air quality. On this latter point, data centers should be required to maximize battery storage instead of using polluting backup generators.
This may sound like a large to-do list, but it’s one Pennsylvania can’t afford to ignore any longer.
2026 can be the year we move forward together and forge energy solutions that help our communities, economy, and environment. Let’s not lose another moment or any further opportunities to build an affordable, reliable, and prosperous clean energy future.
Tom Gilbert is president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday signed a law that will open the nation’s oil sector to privatization, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.
Lawmakers in the country’s National Assembly approved the overhaul of the energy industry law earlier in the day, less than a month after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela’s capital.
As the bill was being passed, the U.S. Treasury Department officially began to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil that once crippled the industry, and expanded the ability of U.S. energy companies to operate in the South American nation, the first step in plans outlined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio the day before. The license authorization by the Treasury Department strictly prohibits entities from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba from the transactions.
The moves by both governments on Thursday are paving the way for yet another radical geopolitical and economic shift in Venezuela.
“We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children,” Rodríguez said.
The legislation promises to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil and allow for independent arbitration of disputes.
Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
The revised law would modify extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30% and allowing the executive branch to set percentages for every project based on capital investment needs, competitiveness and other factors.
It also removes the mandate for disputes to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors have long viewed the involvement of independent courts as crucial to guard against future expropriation.
Will change Venezuela’s economy
Ruling-party lawmaker Orlando Camacho, head of the assembly’s oil committee, said the reform “will change the country’s economy.”
Meanwhile, opposition lawmaker Antonio Ecarri urged the assembly to add transparency and accountability provisions to the law, including the creation of a website to make funding and other information public. He noted that the current lack of oversight has led to systemic corruption and argued that these provisions can also be considered judicial guarantees.
Those guarantees are among the key changes foreign investors are looking for as they weigh entering the Venezuelan market.
“Let the light shine on in the oil industry,” Ecarri said.
Some oil workers support overhaul
Oil workers dressed in red jumpsuits and hard hats celebrated the bill’s approval, waving a Venezuelan flag inside the legislative palace and then joining lawmakers in a demonstration with ruling-party supporters.
The law was last altered two decades ago as Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, made heavy state control over the oil industry a pillar of his socialist-inspired revolution.
In the early years of his tenure, a massive windfall in petrodollars thanks to record-high global oil prices turned PDVSA into the main source of government revenue and the backbone of Venezuela’s economy.
Chávez’s 2006 changes to the hydrocarbons law required PDVSA to be the principal stakeholder in all major oil projects.
In tearing up the contracts that foreign companies signed in the 1990s, Chávez nationalized huge assets belonging to American and other Western firms that refused to comply, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. They are still waiting to receive billions of dollars in arbitration awards.
From those heady days of lavish state spending, PDVSA’s fortunes turned — along with the country’s — as oil prices dropped and government mismanagement eroded profits and hurt production, first under Chávez, then Maduro.
A high-profile bill to ban Philadelphia from incinerating its trash was put on hold Thursday after intense lobbying by residents, activists, and industry put its future in doubt.
The bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, made a last-minute decision to pull the measure, which wouldprevent the city from shipping its trash to be burned for energy at the Reworld Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility in Chester.
“I made the difficult decision to hold the bill today because my colleagues have asked for more time with it,” Gauthier said, noting she had not given up on the bill.
Gauthier said the bill would prevent “dumping on cities that are more vulnerable than us.”
“This would never happen in a community that wasn’t populated mainly by Black people, and mainly by poor Black people,” she said of Chester. “The people that are lobbying otherwise — they know that they would never accept this where they live.”
The move to hold the bill came after hours of public testimony by people speaking for and against it.
However, almost all of those speaking against the bill either work for Reworld, the Chester waste-to-energy plant, or represent labor unions. Reworld employees could be seen lobbying Council members in the hallways.
Gauthier’s “Stop Trashing Our Air Act” would prohibit the city from contracting with companies that incinerate solid waste or recyclables. Gauthier said that 37% of the city’s trash is incinerated.
The bill, she has said, is designed to combat environmental injustice, contending incineration has been particularly harmful to the Chester area.
Chester Mayor Stefan Roots and local activists expressed support for the legislation on Thursday, citing health and environmental concerns.
“I’m asking you and begging you,” Roots said in asking Council to vote in favor of the bill. “We’re counting on all of you to support it.”
Chester resident Zulene Mayfield, left, Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, right, and Chester Mayor Stefan Roots meet to discuss Gauthier’s “Stop Trashing Our Air Act,” which would ban the city from incinerating waste, during a visit with lawmakers and staff in Chester, Pa., on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025.
Roots said the Reworld plant burns more trash than all of Delaware County produces.
Multiple Chester and Philly residents say the emissions from Reworld either caused or exacerbated asthma and other health conditions.
Andrea Robinson moved to Chester three years ago, she testified to Council. But she was unaware of the Reworld facility when she moved there.
“I walk out my door and smell the stinky odor. I’m embarrassed to invite family and friends over. There are dust and dirt all over the car and windows,” she said.
Fierce lobbying
Gauthier’s bill ran up against a fierce effort to prevent its passage.
Alex Piscitelli, facility manager at Reworld, testified that theplant operates under “the strict requirements of the Clean Air Act.”
He said claims that the facility causes human health issues “are simply not supported by the data” and emissions “operate well below federal limits.”
Multiple representatives of the company spoke, including workers who lived in Chester and Philadelphia.
Ramona Jones, who lives in Chester and works at Reworld, said the job allows her to be close to her children and family. She said the company has given her ”a livable wage, a higher wage.”
Matt Toomey, a business agent for the operating engineers union, told Council that “up to 120 family-sustaining jobs” were at stake, and noted the Reworld plant is heavily regulated and located in an already industrialized area.
Political reality
Aides for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, whose administration opposes the legislation, also worked the room.
Council members hardly ever call for votes on doomed bills. But Gauthier initially appeared to be willing to roll the dice by calling the measure up for a vote despite its uncertain fate.
As the morning progressed, however, it became clear she did not have the nine votes needed for passage and almost certainly did not have the 12 votes that would be needed to overcome a likely veto by Parker.
Insisting on the vote would mean that Gauthier was putting colleagues in the uncomfortable position of choosing between environmental advocates and trade unions, two important constituencies in Democratic primaries.
But Gauthier pledged to push for the bill.
“I am committed to this,” she said. “At the City of Philadelphia, we have to be a model for brotherly love, sisterly affection.”
As the September evening inched along, the line of residents waiting their turn for the microphone held steady. Filing down the auditorium aisles at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, they were armed with questions about a new gas plant slated for their community.
Sitting quietly in the audience was John Dudash. For decades he’s lived in Homer City, a southwestern Pennsylvania town that was once home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the state. The plant, which shares its name with the town, closed nearly three years ago after years of financial distress.
Dudash, 89, has lived in the shadow of its smokestacks — said to be the tallest in the country before they were demolished — for much of his life. At its peak, the Homer City power plant employed hundreds of people and could deploy about 2 gigawatts of energy, enough to power 2 million homes.
It was also a major source of air pollution, spewing sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which pose serious health risks. Today, Dudash wonders if the pollution might have exacerbated the lung issues that claimed his wife’s life six years ago.
The proposed gas plant, expected to be up and running in 2027, will replace the old coal-fired power station, but with more than double the energy output — 4.5 gigawatts of energy. The new plant also will have the potential to emit 17.5 million tons of planet-heating greenhouse gasses per year, the equivalent of putting millions of cars on the road.
And it will serve a new purpose: Rather than primarily sending electrons to the regional grid to power homes or businesses, the new power plant will exist mainly to feed data centers planned on the site.
As the hearing wore on that September night, Dudash, a conservationist, did not stand to speak; instead, he sat quietly, taking mental notes. The next morning, he emailed two staffers at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
“First of all, the project will not be stopped,” he began, with resignation. He went on to offer a few caveats — among them, advice about air monitoring.
His letter reached the agency alongside more than 550 comments on a key air permit for the proposed plant, a testament to the project’s complexity. After the permit was approved Nov. 18, Dudash’s prediction began to look remarkably accurate — though the Homer City plant still has about a dozen additional permits awaiting approval before the project can be completed, including one that would impact several acres of wetlands and hundreds of feet of a local stream.
Though it is among many energy sites popping up to power the artificial-intelligence boom across Pennsylvania, the Homer City facility is unique for its size, its advertised economic potential — the owners have promised the project will generate more than 10,000 construction-related jobs — and for its likely environmental impact. It has earned the backing of President Donald Trump, who called it “the largest plant of its kind in the world,” a distinction its owners could not verify. There was a buzz in town in late October when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, visited, though it was unclear what drew him to Homer City.
“I don’t really trust the people who are coming in to build and run the place,” Dudash said. “I do not agree with the artificial-intelligence portion of it.”
“They’re going to have to sacrifice the environment for these jobs,” he added. “In Appalachia, we’ve been doing that for years.”
The Homer City proposal
When the old plant sputtered to a close in 2023, it left the surrounding community — which was built on the local abundance of coal — in search of an economic lifeline. Now, the data center boom sweeping the country brings promise of such a rebirth for communities like Homer City — though this promise is one that some experts say may be less than billed. And, it comes with risks.
The new power plant will be much larger than its predecessor and is permitted to emit more than twice as much of some pollutants as its predecessor did. The data center, or centers, it powers would also consume a tremendous amount of water — perhaps more than its host townships can spare, some fear.
Homer City, Pa., once a vibrant thoroughfare during coal’s heyday, was completely empty of pedestrians on an afternoon in 2024.
Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity and has the potential to offer a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry. Though some in the community are sanguine about the promise of jobs, expertssay the reality for many living around data centers may fall short. Some are left wondering exactly who the new plant is for — them or some faraway tech companies.
The Homer City project is far from alone in its emergence: The nonprofit Fractracker has identified 39 planned data centers in the works across Pennsylvania. Tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are moving in, alongside others intrigued by the state’s rich legacy of power production, deep natural gas reserves, and generous subsidies. In July, Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, from eastern Pennsylvania, held a conference in Pittsburgh during which companies announced more than $90 billion in data center investments and related energy infrastructure.
This tech boom largely has bipartisan support, including from Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who said at a June press conference that he is committed to “ensuring the future of AI runs right through Pennsylvania.” Legislators in Harrisburg, meanwhile, are introducing bills that would both spur the burgeoning industry and give it guardrails.
The extent to which the Homer City facility’s owners have lobbied for supportive legislation is not clear. The company’s lobbying registration with the Pennsylvania Department of State goes back only to January 2025. It has, however, spent at the local level. In November, for instance, the company gave a community nonprofit $25,000 for a holiday food drive. It also urged state utility regulators, who are drafting a policy on data centers, to issue one that does not saddle data centers with costs that might “push” them out of state.
The Homer City proposal is the brainchild of the same private equity owners that closed the plant in 2023 — after years of financial difficulty and two bankruptcies. Two firms own close to 90% of the plant, with New York City-based Knighthead Capital Management holding the vast majority of that. It’s part of a wave of private equity investment in the data center industry. In March, the owners, operating under an LLC called Homer City Redevelopment, toppled the plant’s signature smokestacks. A few weeks later, they announced that the plant would reopen with a data center customer, or suite of customers, to be announced as soon as 2026.
Critics fear the new plant will require a lot more water than its predecessor. The supercomputers that data centers house whirr away around the clock, and need to be routinely cooled down. Some data center companies have introduced recycled water into their systems. Homer City Redevelopment has not said if their data center clients will be among them.
How to handle the water
In 2014, U.S. data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, enough to fill nearly 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. That number tripled by 2023, with the vast majority of the water consumed by “hyperscale,” or large, facilities like Homer City. In states like Colorado, where water use has, for decades, been meticulously planned and negotiated, data centers are threatening to strain such finely tuned systems.
Dudash, the longtime Homer City resident, is concerned about a similar fate. “I’m not sure how they’re going to handle the water,” he told Capital & Main after the September hearing.
The power plant has, since 1968, been allotted an uncapped amount of water from Two Lick Reservoir, a 5 billion gallon, dammed-off portion of a creek that the plant’s former owners built explicitly for its use.
The power plant shares the water with a utility that serves two local communities — Indiana Borough and the broader White Township — as part of a 1988 drought management plan to prevent and respond to catastrophic weather conditions. The borough of Homer City gets its water from Yellow Creek, a tributary of Two Lick Creek, which serves the reservoir and picks up the slack in the event of a drought.
“Should the Two Lick Creek Reservoir be emptied, [the water utility] would not be able to provide sufficient water to protect public health and safety in their service area,” the drought management plan reads.
In 1985, the delicate system between Two Lick and Yellow Creek was strained when the then-Homer City plant drew so much water from the reservoir that it led to a drought. “Had a significant rainfall not occurred … the reservoir may have faced total depletion,” the drought management plan reads.
A report from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows that the water utility drawing from Two Lick has, in recent years, routinely used nearly half its allotted amount. But critics fear that allocation could be at risk once a data center opens and starts drawing water.
Robin Gorman, a spokesperson for Homer City Redevelopment, told Capital & Main that it plans to leave cooling and water-use decisions to its data center clients, making it unclear how much water will be needed to keep all the computers running, or where that water would come from.
Rob Nymick, Homer City’s former borough manager, who serves as manager of the Central Indiana County Water Authority, told Capital & Main that he is confident local municipalities can share water resources with the planned gas plant. But the data centers could be a different story.
“I do know that data centers do require a tremendous amount of water,” Nymick said. “That’s something we probably cannot provide.”
Nymick said that community officials are operating with “limited knowledge,” and that during the handful of meetings they have held with Homer City Redevelopment, “The only thing that they wanted to discuss is the actual power plant.”
Eric Barker, who grew up in Homer City, attended the September hearing with restrained optimism. “The power plant was a source of pride and is a source of pride for the community,” he said. “There’s not too many large employers in Indiana County,” he added.
But he found little comfort at the September hearing.
The Department of Environmental Protection “seemed woefully, woefully, comically underprepared,” Barker said, citing a response he received to a question about the types of pollutants that would increase under the new Homer City proposal, compared to what was emitted by the old plant. Barker was told the agency would look into it and get back to him.
“Some questions and concerns were raised at the public meeting regarding the plan approval about matters beyond the limited scope of the meeting,” said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Tom Decker in a statement. “Interested parties are encouraged to look to the DEP’s extensive website, including its community page dedicated to the Homer City project, for resources addressing such questions and concerns.”
Despite the questions that followed, the department, on the whole, signaled satisfaction with the Homer City plant’s air permit application at the hearing. “What’s being proposed is what we consider state-of-the-art emission controls,” said Dave Balog, environmental engineering manager at the department’s northwest regional office.
Environmental nonprofits Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Clean Air Council, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice countered in a 44-page comment on a draft of the key air permit that the application does not incorporate the best tools for mitigating pollutants such as ammonia, which is known to cause respiratory issues and other health risks. The Department of Environmental Protection agreed with Homer City Redevelopment’s analyses of its best available technology, and the permit was granted.
‘We’re fighting for our survival’
As Homer City’s smokestacks imploded and fell to the ground last March, leaving only a gray cloud, Dudash wondered what particulates might be in the dusty mix. While there were rumors in town that asbestos might be among them, the Department of Environmental Protection told Capital & Main that the site was inspected for the substance before it was demolished and none was found.
Still, coal dust, fly ash, and silica particulates are all possible during such implosions, an agency representative said. In the months since, residents have complained of repeated blasts from the site rattling their houses. As of January, the blasts occurred daily.
But the particulates that drift from the old plant during the blasts may pale in comparison to the carbon dioxide emissions the new power plant is predicted to release. The key air permit the Department of Environmental Protection issued to the facility allows it to release up to 17.5 million tons of the heat-trapping gas per year — the equivalent of putting 3.6 million gas-powered vehicles on the road annually. In 2010, according to federal data, the plant emitted just over 11 million tons of greenhouse gasses. In 2023, when it was operating at a fraction of its capacity, it emitted 1.3 million.
In their comment to regulators, the nonprofit environmental groups said that the carbon dioxide emissions would be triple those of any polluting facility in the state, representing 6% of Pennsylvania’s total emissions. The new plant will also emit sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, two classes of respiratory irritants, but at rates lower than the old plant. The nonprofit Clean Air Council condemned regulators’ issuance of the air permit, calling it a “death sentence.” Along with PennFuture and the Sierra Club, the council appealed the permit in December.
The owners said the emissions from the new plant will result in a 35%-40% reduction in carbon dioxide compared to the old plant, but the calculation does not account for the new plant’s larger size. Instead, it is per-megawatt hour, meaning per unit of energy generated. Natural gas is less emissions-intensive than coal when burned, but because the Homer City plant will generate more than double the energy of its predecessor, its overall emissions profile is expected to be higher.
As the state grapples with extreme weather events such as flooding due to global warming, locking in carbon emissions is the wrong direction to go, the environmental nonprofits argue. On an annual basis, the plant will be permitted to emit hundreds of tons of respiratory irritants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and dozens of tons of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. It will also emit health-harming compounds like toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene.
Additional emissions are likely to come from the natural gas drilling that will be required to power the site.
In 2024, Nymick told Capital & Main that the borough was struggling to find a new economic engine. “We’re fighting for our survival,” he said at the time. Data center industry advocates contend that the data center gold rush will be a boon for communities like Homer City, where boarded-up storefronts line the main street.
“For every one job in a data center, six jobs are supported elsewhere in the economy,” said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, at a hearing in the state Capitol in October.
The smokestacks of the former coal-fired Homer City Generating Station crumble in a planned demolition to make way for a new natural gas-fired power plant in Homer City, Pa., in early 2025.
Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at nonprofit think tank the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the reality isn’t that rosy. The average data center employs as few as 10 people and as many as 110, per his own calculations based in part on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The computers inside them can generally run on their own with limited maintenance.
Even in a rural county like Indiana, O’Leary said, “One hundred is a rounding error. It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re paid $200,000 a year. It’s not enough to make a significant change in the status of the local economy.”
In a recent report on the data center boom in natural gas economies in Appalachia, O’Leary said gas-powered data centers represent the combination of “three non-labor-intensive industries” — fracking, power plants, and data centers. “Stacking [them] on top of each other does not alter the underlying dynamic which ties them together.”
Ron Airhart, a former coal miner and executive assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, is more optimistic about the economic potential of the new Homer City facility.
Still, he concedes that it will never be what the old plant was. “Yes, building a gas-fired power plant is going to create a lot of construction jobs, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But once it’s done, how many actual employees are you going to have working there?”
He quickly added, “But, I’m glad they are doing something with the old power plant there.”
Gorman told Capital & Main that Homer City Redevelopment and its construction partner, Kiewit, are planning to hire from local unions and building trades. They foresee 10,000 construction jobs. They also anticipate the site will create 1,000 “direct and indirect” permanent jobs, including those hired at the facility itself and those brought aboard for supportive positions, such as suppliers.
“From start to finish, the Homer City Energy Campus will be developed in partnership with skilled local craftsmen and will bring quality, good-paying jobs back to the Homer City community,” Gorman said.
O’Leary said the jobs numbers such as those projected by the Data Center Coalition are inflated, similar to the employment projections made before the fracking boom in rural Appalachia. He said such projections are a detriment to communities, in part because taxpayers shoulder the cost of subsidies to attract the industry to the state, such as a sales and use tax exemption for data centers that Pennsylvania codified in 2021. Gov. Shapiro has estimated that the credit will expand to about $50 million per year for the next five years.
Local residents are also burdened with rising utility bills. The surging demand for electricity is straining the region’s power supplies, increasing what utilities pay for electricity. New power plants coming onto the grid must install transmission equipment, the costs of which they share with consumers. These economic factors, in sum, could outweigh the benefits of the new jobs the data center creates, O’Leary said.
Earlier this year, the grid operator for the region that encompasses Pennsylvania, PJM, saw electricity prices surge by roughly 1,000% from two years ago. Some of that cost is expected to be passed onto customers.
“We have a problem, and that problem is real, and it is exponential electricity load growth causing exponential price increases for consumers,” said Patrick Cicero, former consumer advocate for the state of Pennsylvania and now an attorney for the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, at the October hearing in Harrisburg.
“In the context of Grandma vs. Google,” Cicero said, referring to older residents faced with high bills, “Grandma should win every day. That should be the policy statement of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Federal and state lawmakers are still determining how and whether to regulate the additional costs that data centers pass onto consumers, including for fees associated with transmission throughout the grid. A bill that would create such a process while establishing renewable energy mandates for data centers is now being weighed by Pennsylvania representatives.
Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, predicts such costs add complications for data centers, and has argued that their demand as a whole is overblown. Supply chain delays spurred by surging demand for turbines, including those that Homer City will be using, could also create additional costs and lag times, he said.
“If there is an AI bubble and it bursts,” he said, “you would have built all this capacity that wasn’t needed.”
Homer City’s owners said the plant is better positioned than others in the industry since it isn’t starting from scratch.
“Much of the critical infrastructure for the project is already in place from the legacy Homer City coal plant, including transmission lines connected to the PJM and NYISO power grids, substations, and water access,” Gorman, the spokesperson, said.
Communities on the front lines of these projects would be the first hurt by a project that fails to materialize.
But in Homer City, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for the promise of a new, job-producing industry, regardless of hurdles.
At the September hearing, many in the crowd wore neon shirts with union logos — a signal of the region’s fierce pride in its industrial past, and deep thirst for an economic boon. After an evening peppered with skepticism over the plant, Shawn Steffee, a business agent at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, stepped to the microphone.
“Everybody speaking about jobs,” he cried, “there will be jobs, and there will be local jobs.”
As he walked away, the room filled with applause — the loudest of the night.
