The PJM Part 2 … Negative Externalities and Data Center Alley

Last update:  2:10am Saturday 11/14/25

This note, Part 2 in what was originally planned to be a three part series, will now be the final installment. It highlights some operational structures of the PJM that facilitated the stunning success of Virginia’s Data Center Alley. Then it sketches a strategy that might enable the founding members of the PJM -- Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland -- to join Virginia as major national and international data center hubs via consortiums that would also guarantee stable lower electricity bills for their regular customers, I.e., households, businesses, schools, government agencies, etc. 

Unfortunately, recent surprising announcements from two powerful utilities — Dominion and Exelon — threaten to burden regular customers throughout the 13 states in the PJM with historically high electricity bills. Their announcements will be discussed in a forthcoming appendix to this note.

Op-Ed ➡ HERE

TL;DR 4Nov25 ... (1) Big Tech Quarterly reports, and (2) Innovative data center proposal from governors of Pennsylania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia

Last update: Wednesday 11/5/25

Welcome to our 4Nov25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 2 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) Big Tech Quarterly reports, and (2) Innovative data center proposal from governors of Pennsylania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR 28Oct25 ... (1) How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power, (2) Anthropic's chatbot can now remember your previous conversations without prompting -- like ChatGPT and Gemini, and (3) OpenAI’s Atlas Browser Takes Direct Aim at Google

Last update: Tuesday 10/28/25

Welcome to our 28Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power, (2) Anthropic's chatbot can now remember your previous conversations without prompting -- like ChatGPT and Gemini, and (3) OpenAI’s Atlas Browser Takes Direct Aim at Google Chrome

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR 21Oct25 ... (1) "Nvidia Targets AI Data Centers And All-Renewable Electricity" ... and Critique

Last update: 9:46:pm Thursday 10/23/25

Welcome to our 21Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top story on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) "Nvidia Targets AI Data Centers And All-Renewable Electricity" ... This TL;DR is different. ChatGPT's summary of the article that reported last week's top story is followed by the blog editor's detailed critique of Nvidia's claim that was reported in the article that "we achieved and will maintain 100% renewable electricity for offices and data centers under our operational control." Nvidia's claim that it will maintain 100% renewable electricity is the stuff of grand satires, like Orwell's masterpieces -- Animal Farm and 1984. The primary reason why data centers have such an insatiable need for ever more massive flows of electric power is because Nvidia's chips are so energy-inefficient. By comparison, Apple has recently paid billions of dollars to TSMC to produce chips that have dramatically higher energy-efficiency. How many billions has Nvidia paid anyone to dramatically reduce the energy demands of its gluttonous chips? 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

What is the PJM Interconnect? How does it work? And why you should care? ... 1-Basics

Last update:  Saturday 3:27am 10/25/25

This note, Part 1 in a three part series, will provide an introduction to the PJM Interconnect that directs the transmission of electric power across thirteen states and the District of Columbia. Part 2 will highlight features of the PJM that provide persistent advantages — lower electricity bills — for households and enterprises in some states, while imposing persistent penalties — higher electricity bills — on households and enterprises in other states. Part 3 will analyze the ironic causes of the persistent penalties, i.e., the negative externalities,  that are being reported by the media with increasing frequency and stridency. 

Click HERE to view full report