New York City’s recent creation of a climate change office illustrates a common approach among modern Western governments – prioritizing imagery and virtue over real strategy and measurable results. These types of offices never offer any real functional solutions but continually portray a superficial aim of appearing proactive. Led by a chief climate officer, the New York City office apparently intends to promote cross-sector climate efforts and connect health, safety, and affordability. Its goals include “coordinating agencies, incorporating a climate perspective, aligning policies and funding, managing projections, expanding programs, and showcasing the impacts of climate change.” In reality, however, this vague initiative adds yet another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, inevitably impeding market efficiency, obstructing practical solutions, and deliberately overlooking the value and effect of free markets, capitalism, and entrepreneurship.
It might be an uncomfortable truth that challenges mainstream climate narratives, but it remains a fact. Most people don't base their daily routines on crafted climate stories. Climate groups are increasingly diverging from common wisdom, and this divergence needs to end because it unfairly impacts those least able to bear it. Ordinary individuals are not, and should not be, be focused on perceived climate issues at the expense of earning a livelihood. Society must move past this unhelpful rhetoric and unrealistic expectations. For most, economic factors like rising utility, housing, and grocery costs influence daily life more than climate policies or concerns. Thankfully, a strong economy can support ongoing decarbonization, while a struggling economy cannot.
The New Energy Reality: AI Data Center Power Demand vs. Grid Stagnation
Businesses also do not base their strategy on a comprehensive climate strategy, nor should they. They should, of course, be mindful of all practical risks that are material to long-term performance, but expecting businesses to prioritize climate as the sole concern above all others is unreasonable and, quite frankly, ridiculous. Instead, successful companies must continually address and adapt to shifting economic conditions, which are crucial to our country's economic stability. The market is increasingly recognizing that economic stability depends on reliable, affordable, and accessible energy. This means managing costs per kWh, ensuring reliable operations, and staying compliant with reasonable standards. At the same time, small businesses in particular must assess whether they can expand without being impeded by energy prices, permit delays, or increased compliance expenses.
While safety, health, and dignity are undoubtedly important and must be cornerstones incorporated into any strategy, achieving large-scale improvements requires access to key factors that underpin economic stability - namely, energy affordability, reliability, and efficient infrastructure. This view isn't merely a personal belief. It is a proven paradigm that has persisted throughout human history. For any economy seeking to boost prosperity, it is crucial to prioritize these three areas pragmatically before addressing other challenges. In other words, affordability, reliability, and accessibility are the foundational elements to any attempt to improve the standard of living.
Why Excessive Regulation Hinders the Growth of the Digital Economy
Establishing a new climate change office is a foolish and insanely inefficient use of scarce resources. New York City, in particular, is already one of the most taxed cities in the country. They are also reporting a $2.2B gap on a $10.4B budget for fiscal year 2026. Suffice it to say, access to incremental capital, i.e., tax revenue, is inherently capped, and discipline must be reincorporated into the mix, or every other aspect and service of everyday life will soon deteriorate. This paradigm also holds true for any business. Disregarding free-market principles, responsible capital management, and the goal of sustainable returns is not only unproductive but also destructive.
The interview's framing is completely superficial, lacks pragmatism, and certainly does not map or detail the ever-important “how” of execution. That said, addressing climate change issues in areas such as housing, transportation, labor, justice, and public health, while fostering collaboration across agencies to create standards and programs, will undoubtedly provide a range of inevitable, baseless justifications for failure in the near future, when tangible, measurable outcomes are noticeably lacking.
The issue with establishing a climate change office isn’t necessarily with the intent, even though it's easy to view this development cynically. The actions by New York City deliberately overlook the logic that underscores efficient capital allocation and a pragmatic focus on functional solutions. As grid constraints confront the growing data-center load from hyperscalers, particularly within the context of global economic competitiveness, our focus should remain laser-focused on improving energy efficiency, affordability, and reliability, not bolstering bureaucracy. We need to adequately address megawatts without unnecessary rhetoric or folly. We need to understand the tenets of scarcity pricing and realize it isn't improved through better coordination memos, nor is reliability enhanced by more government offices. Ironically, those actions actually delay and undermine effective solutions to the dilemma.
Addressing complex challenges requires an intellectually honest evaluation and calculation of ROI and functionality. If new climate offices speed up interconnection timelines, simplify permitting, open transmission corridors, and lower energy costs, then great, call it whatever you want, and let’s go. But history has showcased that such platforms endorse expanding compliance efforts, blaming businesses, spreading rhetoric, increasing reporting obligations, and amplifying enforcement that raise costs faster than they enhance supply. That is not a strategy for improvement. Instead, it is a regressive, punitive affordability tax masquerading as disingenuous virtue and mistaking activity for achievement.
This matters because New York City, like many American cities, faces an increasingly pressing economic problem that disproportionately affects those who can least afford price increases and grid instability. According to Pew Research, over 51% of Americans live in the middle class, and nearly another third are in lower-income households. There is a limited supply of capital and resources, while demand for power due to the emerging digital economy is growing exponentially. That is a recipe for disaster if not managed properly.
“Managed poorly” is defined by an overreliance on the government to solve complex problems rather than by fostering bottom-up entrepreneurship and fostering efficient markets. New York City is not being intellectually honest about its situation. What moves the needle and solves complex environmental problems centers on engineering execution, capital discipline, and measurable, buildable pathways. You can’t staff your way into resilience. You can’t regulate your way into new electrons. And you certainly can’t tax your way into expanded transmission and more efficient distribution.
Beyond Symbolism: Natural Gas, Nuclear, and the Path to Energy Abundance
Critics who disagree with this established paradigm will most likely resort to broad, ambiguous platitudes, such as claiming that oil and gas ignore environmental concerns, which, frankly, is outdated, boring, lazy, incorrect, and played out. A simple Google search proves this. From 2005 to 2022, the U.S. reduced its energy-related CO2 emissions by 18%. Natural gas generation increased by more than 100% during the same period, contributing to a reduction of ~530 million metric tons in CO2 emissions. Contrary to the narrative pushed by environmental and climate doomsdayers, the United States is actually demonstrating to the world that economic expansion and decarbonization can proceed efficiently without ditching fossil fuels.
If we strip out unnecessary emotion and overplayed projected climate anxiety and focus exclusively on facts, data, and graphs, the trend is clear as day. The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions indicates that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were 17% below 2005 levels in 2022, reflecting significant decarbonization achievements over the last decade. Overall, since 1990, the United States has increased GDP per capita by roughly 55% while simultaneously lowering consumption-based and production-based CO2 by ~20% and ~30%, respectively. On the other hand, since 2022, residential electricity prices have increased faster than inflation, a trend expected to continue through at least the end of the decade.
In fact, electricity rates increased in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., over the last 10 years, but each state's selected energy mix largely drives the magnitude of increases. For all the climate hype surrounding the evolving energy mix in California, the state saw the steepest energy price hike at 96% in the last decade. Real wages in California have also declined in recent years, with data indicating that inflation-adjusted earnings for the average worker fell by 1.3% to over 5% between 2019 and 2022/2023, despite nominal wage growth.
Some regions like Los Angeles and the Bay Area saw steeper drops of 5.3% and 3.0%, respectively, in recent years. Energy costs are a major driver of U.S. inflation, and although impacts vary by year, energy prices rose by nearly 50% between 2021 and 2023. While overall energy inflation has recently eased, electricity prices have consistently outpaced inflation for years, with some utility rates rising over 30% since 2019, creating cascading effects on the cost of goods throughout the economy.
Unquestionably, there is an imbalance between energy supply and demand, resulting in a range of downstream consequences that affect the everyday lives of ordinary people. Solutions to these issues should be driven by free markets since they tend to be more sustainable and effective than government interventions. More importantly, the accountability infrastructure within the market is far superior and effective.
Disciplined capital and return on investment fuel future economic growth and structural efficiency. As the global economy enters a decade dominated by artificial intelligence and data centers, regions face a binary choice - pursue abundance or accept scarcity. Creating abundance is obviously the better path, since scarcity-driven systems often lead to increased overregulation, limited supplies, declining public trust, and inflated prices.
Even though New York City remains on the brink of bankruptcy, it's unlikely they'll change course. Like many other climate bureaucracies, the emphasis centers on showcasing a symbol of good intentions that never tackles the actual challenge, i.e., providing affordable, reliable power by facilitating energy abundance and updating our grid. Future economic progress in the United States absolutely hinges on a dependable grid. The grid is a physical infrastructure, while the economy is a throughput system. The surest way to ensure affordability and reliability amid rising demand is through the unglamorous but effective trifecta: free-market competition, capital discipline, and entrepreneurial problem-solving—measured not by press releases but by actual delivered $/kWh and dependable megawatts.
No country can achieve effective solutions or create an efficient path to reliable power solely through regulation and increased bureaucracy. Instead, in an economic era dominated by hyperscale data centers, free market principles, combined with disciplined capital investment that generates sustainable returns, will lead the way. Unfortunately, there are two competing energy discussions in America. The first is ceremonial and occurs on conference stages, through press releases, and in newly created offices with elaborate titles, like “Chief Climate Resiliency Officer.” It begs the question - how are you going to make a city climate-resilient, and what defines success? These questions are typically ignored, and the outbound talk is littered with superficial ambition and treats the increasingly fragile grid like a policy playground, the economy as an experiment, and the public as an audience instead of a stakeholder.
On the other hand, the second discussion is practical and straightforward – by focusing on material metrics, such as whether I will get electricity when I need it. Can I afford it? Can we make the process more efficient? Where can we innovate? In short, it involves tough questions and acknowledged opportunity costs that actually move the needle.
From Scarcity to Abundance: A Practical Agenda for Grid Reliability
Climate activists and fossil fuel detractors seldom acknowledge that critical decisions consist of a series of trade-offs and opportunity costs. There is no silver bullet that magically solves any given problem, and in most cases, it is foolish and reckless to prioritize unrealistic, idealistic aspirations over economic and national defense realities. The harsh truth is that social prosperity and decarbonization depend first on solid economic and defense policies, and they cannot occur without them.
As the digital economy advances over the next decade, the traditional, formal climate discussions will give way to conversations about constraints, since constraints adversely impact future economic growth, which in turn affects social prosperity. This isn’t really that novel of a statement – in fact, it is just common sense. The most rapidly expanding "industrial load" coming online is server farms, and they are the most energy-intensive apparatuses mankind has ever seen. Climate messaging will remain in the picture, but it will organically take a secondary role to concerns about uptime, reliability, and cost—not out of malicious intent, but because technology will undoubtedly improve, society will inevitably adapt, and pragmatic minds will unquestionably prevail.
For years, we took electricity for granted and comforted ourselves with the idea that its demand was mature, i.e., growing slowly, efficiency doing the quiet work, demand response smoothing the peaks. That lull created a dangerous complacency that we must now reverse. We began to treat reliability and affordability as defaults rather than consistent achievements. Hyperscale growth unequivocally ends that era. The AI economy, cloud migration, and the rise of compute-intensive workloads are not incremental. They are load multipliers. They convert electricity from a background utility back into a front-line economic input.
Streamlining Interconnection and Permitting
Hyperscalers generate reliable, bankable demand, which in turn is expected to facilitate capital investment. With such dependable demand, capital markets are simply awaiting opportunities to meet the exponential AI data center power demand without needing further motivation. They need a buildable path, which underscores the true challenge at hand. America has plenty of energy resources, but it struggles to convert them into usable energy swiftly, at scale, and at an affordable cost for a significant percentage of households. While debates over the perfect energy mix continue, it is undeniable that a 24/7 digital economy cannot be sustained by ideology alone. It depends on:
- Interconnection timelines that mean something
- Transmission corridors that can be permitted in this lifetime
- Dispatchable capacity and flexibility that show up on the worst day, not the best day
- Fuel logistics that don’t fall apart under weather stress
- Prioritizing Dispatchable Capacity and Transmission
A functional grid requires dispatchable capacity and flexibility that show up on the worst day, not the best day, and fuel logistics that don’t fall apart under weather stress. This is why the upcoming era will be characterized less by our desires and more by what we can physically create and fund. That’s why free-market principles, disciplined capital use, and entrepreneurial attitudes are not merely preferred but essential. Part of the issue might be that the climate debate aims for an ideal solution. Sadly, perfection is unattainable because trade-offs will always exist. So, despite their perceived flaws, markets are accountable, and accountability should be based on reliability, access, and cost-effectiveness.
Protecting Consumers via Energy Affordability
That said, affordability is the most underrated form of public policy. Energy affordability sounds like a consumer issue until you dissect any vital supply chain. Electricity is in everything we use and will remain critical to any economic endeavor we pursue. When electricity prices rise, costs do not merely shift or pass through. They compound across supply chains, across budgets, across local economies. For high-income households, price increases are irritants. For low- and middle-income households, or two-thirds of our population, rationing becomes a normalized experience. This is unacceptable.
When energy prices increase faster than family incomes, people don’t simply consume less energy out of moral obligation. Climate concerns are probably the last thing on their minds in such situations. Households are forced to make tradeoffs—choosing between utilities and prescriptions, rent and heating, or groceries and unpaid bills. This creates a subtle yet crucial impact on community health, leading to high stress levels, poor living conditions, and preventable medical issues—especially during extreme weather. If you care about social prosperity, national security, health, and economic growth, energy affordability is essential, not optional. This shows that treating energy policy as superficial or symbolic is both dangerous and irresponsible.
Execution over Narrative: The Role of Entrepreneurship in Energy
One of the core misunderstandings the general public displays is the utter fallacy that confuses governance with production. Governments clearly have essential roles in energy systems. Theoretically, they should set pragmatic rules, enforce safety, efficiently manage externalities, and support the vulnerable. The issue is not “government versus markets.” The issue is whether public capital and public authority are being utilized to increase real-world throughput, or to expand administrative layers that can’t produce, ship, or manage electrons. In too many places, we have defaulted to a familiar, counterproductive, and value-destroying ritual - when a complex problem becomes politically salient, we create an office.
When the office cannot resolve the issue, which is often the case, we expand the office. When economic realities and common sense clash, we invest in more processes. Essentially, we are stuck in a cycle of doubling down on ineffective solutions. Applying this approach to hyperscaler load growth results in more bureaucracy, reporting, compliance, and taxes. Ignoring the need to expand physical infrastructure risks repeating history's biggest policy mistake: trying to manage scarcity solely through governance instead of addressing the fundamental cause.
The calculus to get stuff done is not even calculus; it is second-grade math. Disciplined capital and free market principles force real constraints into decisions:
- If the economics don’t work, the project doesn’t get built.
- If the reliability isn’t real, the customer doesn’t sign.
- If the fuel isn’t deliverable, the risk premium explodes.
- If the permitting path is fantasy, the financing fails.
That is not cynicism. That is accountability, and accountability is exactly what’s missing from much of the climate-adjacent bureaucracy ecosystem. Many programs are measured by activity—rules written, committees formed, funds announced—rather than by outcomes that households can feel: delivered $/kWh, reliability metrics, and energy burden.
If we’re committed to affordability and dependability amid growing data-center demands, we need a straightforward test to distinguish genuine solutions from superficial ones. Any initiative that doesn't significantly cut energy costs or enhance reliability per dollar within 2–5 years is probably a waste of capital and time, no matter how it’s marketed. Above all, this isn’t even about opposing climate efforts. It is about cutting through the noise and achieving real results.
Despite the numerous discussions, rhetoric, debates, and concerns about targets, policy improvements haven't followed. More critically, climate targets are irrelevant to most people, as they experience their lives through bills, jobs, and health, not climate targets. Once again, that isn’t to say that corporations shouldn't strive to hit goals. Instead, as history has proven time and again, markets solve complex problems when we let them compete, underscoring another unfortunate truth about markets. The market is already trying to solve the problem. Goals should be lofty but achievable and capital-efficient. Unfortunately and ironically, efforts are being blocked by friction. Hyperscalers are not naïve. They’re not waiting for policy perfection. They are already doing what entrepreneurs do when the system can’t keep up:
- Contracting directly for power
- Co-locating where supply is available
- Exploring behind-the-meter solutions
- Underwriting upgrades
- Hedging with hybrid configurations and fuel optionality
- Using their credit to de-risk infrastructure
Utilities are also boosting capex plans to meet large load demands. For example, Southern Company is increasing its capex plan to $81B, driven by large load growth. Developers are racing to build generation and storage where permitting and interconnection are accessible. Equipment manufacturers are broadening their supply chains. The issue isn't a lack of capital—there's plenty of willing investment. The real challenge is the shortage of reliable pathways for capital to be transformed into infrastructure that facilitates an attractive return. If we want “the market” to deliver affordability, we must do what smart governments have always done: set clear, stable rules and get out of the way of competition, i.e., be a referee, not a player.
In practice, this means:
- Permitting reform with real deadlines and real accountability
- Interconnection processes that reward readiness and punish queue speculation
- Transmission development that can actually be executed
- Create regulatory frameworks that allow solutions to scale instead of being litigated into paralysis
It also means we acknowledge the marvels, capabilities, and utility of natural gas while expediting the functionality and scalability of nuclear and geothermal energy. Any debate that attempts to counter this is either ignorant or uneducated on the matter. Whether you love natural gas, hate it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, the U.S. electricity system still relies on dispatchable capability and fuel logistics – and that is not going to change over the foreseeable future. Renewables and storage are growing and will continue to grow, as they should, as long as they follow the principles of free markets and capital discipline. However, the grid does not run on averages or medians. It is calibrated to run during the extremes—peak demand, low-wind periods, low-solar periods, and high-stress events. No one thinks about the grid, energy, or power until they are confronted with a crisis.
In many regions, natural gas is the marginal fuel that sets affordability and the flexible tool that protects reliability. When it is readily available and deliverable, it tends to reduce price volatility and support dispatchable balancing. When it is constrained, you see predictable outcomes: higher prices, greater volatility, emergency fuel-switching, and the return of unpopular alternatives at the margin. Once again, we are operating within an energy expansion, so placing oil and gas as a mutually exclusive option to renewables is a waste of time. There is a place for both, but renewables will remain the Robin to Natural Gas’ Batman.
That is also to say that we should continue to outline a pragmatic decarbonization path. There is a clear distinction between net zero and decarbonization. If you want net zero, turn off the economy. If you want decarbonization, then innovate functional technologies and efficient markets, namely carbon, that improve system competence. The most reliable pathway to decarbonization is not to pretend that dispatchability isn’t required. It is to build a system that can meet demand while innovation reduces emissions intensity over time through innovation, practical substitution, enhanced efficiency, and improved operations, not overregulation, burdensome taxation, bureaucracy, and a desire to live in a utopian fantasyland.
Taxation can shape behavior, but there are three things taxes are notably bad at producing:
- Transmission corridors
- Interconnection throughput
- Firm capacity on a deadline
A basic understanding of economics shows that you can tax down demand, but you cannot tax efficient and effective supply into existence. If hyperscaler load is driving a new era of higher electricity usage, the solution isn't to make electricity morally costly. Implementing such a policy is morally wrong. Instead, the better approach is to ensure electricity is physically abundant, keeping prices affordable and maintaining reliability despite rising demand.
Ironically, policies that raise electricity costs under the guise of building a better future often backfire because when affordability drops, political support tends to diminish. Without political backing, the transition fails. Scarcity-driven policies are ultimately counterproductive. For a sustainable energy future, the starting point should never be making energy a luxury.
The opposite of government reliance is entrepreneurship. When people hear “entrepreneurship,” they think of apps, pitch decks, and venture capital. In energy and power, entrepreneurship is far more practical and far more important. Entrepreneurship in electricity looks like:
- Building microgrids where reliability is mission-critical
- Financing dispatchable resources where queues are long
- Developing hybrid systems that reduce the cost of firming
- Innovating contractual structures that align incentives between load and supply
- Creating new siting and permitting playbooks that reduce friction
- Deploying software that improves grid efficiency and reduces wasted capacity
This serves as the blueprint for creating abundance, offering the only solution to address upcoming constraints without impoverishing communities. There's no need for political agreement on climate ideology to agree on the grid's requirements. Instead, focus on a consensus regarding the importance of outcomes. Here is a practical, market-forward agenda that respects real constraints:
1) Fix interconnection as a national economic priority:
Prioritize “ready” projects and ensure utilities move faster. Interconnection queues are a hidden tax on the future. Every year of delay is another year of scarcity pricing. Reforms should:
- Prioritize “ready” projects
- Standardize requirements
- Penalize queue squatting
- Ensure utilities have incentives to move faster
2) Treat permitting and siting as economic development:
Establish clear, realistic, and pragmatic timelines. Permitting should be rigorous, but not indefinite. Indefinite timelines are a stealth veto and another form of regressive taxation. Every major infrastructure category should have:
- Clear, realistic, and pragmatic timelines
- Standardized environmental review pathways
- A single accountable owner for delivery
3) Build transmission in an expedited manner:
Transmission is the enabler of competition. Without it, markets fragment and local scarcity dominates pricing. If we want consumers to benefit from the cheapest generation, we need the wires that let it reach them.
4) Preserve dispatchability and fuel optionality during the buildout:
Do not retire reliability faster than you replace it. The grid needs flexibility. That can come from a mix: gas, storage, demand response, and emerging technologies. But the rule is simple: you don’t retire reliability faster than you replace it.
5) Protect households through targeted affordability programs:
Protect the vulnerable without breaking the supply incentive. We must remain untethered from bureaucracy and execute energy policy by protecting the vulnerable, building abundance, using competition to cut costs, and rewarding technologies for sustainable returns. This requires a relentless focus on protecting the vulnerable, not through symbolic offices, but through the tangible lower costs that only competition and supply-side abundance can deliver.
As the digital economy reindustrializes America, we must reward the technologies and capital structures that provide sustainable returns and dependable megawatts, rather than those that satisfy a policy narrative. Ultimately, the grid is indifferent to our intentions; it only responds to what we have the discipline to build. Abundance is not just a preference. It is the only lasting solution to ensure national competitiveness, local prosperity, and the future ability to innovate continuously.