公平事业：人工智能能源链的国有化

Key Takeaways

• The State as Equity Partner: The US Department of Energy (DOE) and state governments are moving beyond subsidies to active equity-like participation in nuclear and geothermal projects.
• The Abandonment of the Market: Volatile wholesale electricity markets are being bypassed by Big Tech in favor of direct, state-backed bilateral contracts.
• The 1933 Parallel: This era represents a 21st-century version of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), where national security and industrial priority override traditional utility regulation.
• The AI Energy Premium: Data center power demand is forcing a “priority queue” on the grid, where those who can partner with the state get the electrons, and residential consumers get the leftovers.

BREAKING (January 6, 2026): The US Department of Energy has officially awarded $2.7 billion in contracts to scale domestic uranium enrichment, including to Orano and Centrus. This move represents a significant acceleration of the “Equity Utility” model, as the federal government directly funds the fuel supply chain required to power the AI revolution.

The News Bridge: The $80 Billion Ghost Returns

On December 10, 2025, a quiet memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between Santee Cooper and Brookfield Asset Management. For the uninitiated, this was the equivalent of a corporate resurrection. Developers are planning to restart the construction of two massive AP1000 nuclear units at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina: a project abandoned in 2017 after a $9 billion bankruptcy that nearly took down the entire US nuclear supply chain.

But this time is different. The “abandonment” wasn’t solved by a rate hike for local residents. It was solved by the sheer, unyielding demand of the AI compute cluster. With a feasibility study due by June 26, 2026, the deal is framed not as a utility project, but as a strategic asset for the future of “frontier AI.”

The V.C. Summer restart is the first clear signal of a new economic era: the Equity Utility. In this model, the US government and state entities like the Texas Nuclear Energy Initiative (a $350 million fund launched recently by Governor Abbott) are no longer just regulators. They are the venture partners and equity backstops for a grid that the private sector is too terrified to build on its own.

Background: The Historical Context

The modern US electricity grid was built on a compromise: regulated monopolies would provide reliable power in exchange for guaranteed returns. This “Regulatory Compact” worked for a century. But as the 2020s progressed, the compact began to fray under the triple pressure of decarbonization, aging infrastructure, and a sudden, vertical spike in demand from AI.

The 2017 Collapse

The collapse of Westinghouse in 2017 marked the low point of US energy ambition. The V.C. Summer and Vogtle projects were billions over budget and years behind schedule. The “nuclear renaissance” was declared dead, and the US ceded the technical lead to China and Russia. For nearly a decade, the consensus was that large-scale nuclear was “un-investable” due to the risk of 10-year construction cycles.

The AI Inflection Point

Everything changed in late 2023 with the explosion of Generative AI. By mid-2025, it became clear that the scaling laws for LLMs weren’t just about data; they were about megawatts. Data center demand, which had been flat for a decade, was suddenly projected to triple by 2030. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta realized that their $100 billion AI bets would be useless if they couldn’t plug their machines into a stable wall outlet.

The Return of Industrial Policy

In 2025, the DOE shifted from “research and development” to “industrial deployment.” The official awarding of $2.7 billion in contracts on January 6, 2026, for domestic enrichment of High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) and Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) was a declaration of energy independence. The state is no longer waiting for the market to fix the fuel supply chain; it is buying the supply itself.

Understanding the “Equity Utility”

The “Equity Utility” is a move toward what economists call a “State-Managed Commercial Estate.” It’s a hybrid model where the physical assets are operated by private firms like Westinghouse or Fervo Energy, but the financial risk and strategic direction are held by the state.

How It Works: The Targeted Backstop

Instead of broad tax credits, the DOE is now providing “targeted support” that looks remarkably like equity. For example, the $110 million DOE contract to support nuclear fuel supply into June 2026 isn’t just a grant; it’s a commitment to buy that ensures the facility remains solvent. In South Carolina, Santee Cooper is retaining a 25% ownership share in the V.C. Summer restart: a direct state stake in the generation of power.

Why It Matters: Risk Abstraction

Nuclear reactors fail as investments because they are “lumpy.” Developers spend $15 billion before they get a single cent of revenue. Private capital won’t touch that without a 15% internal rate of return (IRR). By taking an equity stake, the state lowers the IRR requirement to 2% or 3%, effectively abstracting the risk away from the private developers.

The Data: The Megawatt Math of 2026

To understand the scale of this nationalization, look at the numbers.

Key Statistics:

• Grid Demand Growth: US data center power demand is projected to reach $35\text{ GW}$ by the end of 2026, up from $19\text{ GW}$ in 2023. (Source: RTO Insider, January 2026).
• Federal Intervention: The DOE’s $2.7 billion HALEU enrichment mandate is the largest federal intervention in nuclear fuel since the Manhattan Project.
• State Capital: Over 250 state nuclear bills were introduced in 2025 legislative sessions, with Texas leading the way with its $350 million “Texas Nuclear Energy Initiative” (Source: NCSL).

The physics of AI are unforgiving. A single training run for a GPT-5 class model can consume as much electricity as a medium-sized city ($\approx 50-100\text{ GWh}$). When stacking dozens of these runs across the country, the existing grid isn’t just “strained”: it’s physically insufficient.

$E_{total} = \sum_{i=1}^{n} P_{i} \cdot t_{i}$

Where $P_i$ is the power draw of the $i$-th data center and $t_i$ is its uptime. The current summation is exceeding the $N+1$ redundancy capacity of major regional transmission organizations (RTOs).

The Ideological Paradox: “Anti-Socialist” Nationalization

There is a glaring hypocrisy at the heart of January 2026 energy policy. The current administration has spent years campaigning against “socialized everything,” yet it is currently overseeing the largest state-led seizure of industrial direction in 90 years.

This is not the nationalization of 1970s Britain, where the state owned the coal mines to protect jobs. This is Capitalist Nationalization: the state is seizing control of the means of generation to ensure that private tech titans can win a global AI arms race. By using the Department of Energy as an equity backstop, the administration is effectively socializing the risk of nuclear construction while privatizing the rewards for Silicon Valley. It is a “State-Managed Commercial Estate” that uses the language of the free market to mask the reality of central planning.

The Historical Rhyme: TVA 2.0

As of January 2026, the “valley” is the AI supply chain. The “dams” are AP1000 reactors and 4,000-foot geothermal wells. The motivation is exactly the same: national security and economic survival. If the US doesn’t have the cheapest, most reliable power, the AI industry (and its associated military applications) will migrate to countries that do.

Industry Impact: The Great Bifurcation

The rise of the Equity Utility is creating a two-tiered energy market.

Impact on Big Tech: The Gated Grid

Amazon and Google are no longer just customers of utilities; they are becoming partners to the state. By signing “behind the meter” co-location deals, they are effectively building their own private grids, backed by state regulatory favors. They get “first-priority” power, often at fixed rates negotiated through state-level industrial policy.

Impact on Consumers: The Residual Load

For the average residential consumer, the Equity Utility is a mixed blessing. While state intervention keeps the grid from collapsing, the best, cheapest “baseload” power is being carved out for compute clusters. This leaves residential users on the “residual load,” essentially paying for the more expensive, intermittent renewables and the aging maintenance of the old grid.

Challenges & Limitations: The “Steel-Man” Counter

While the Equity Utility approach solves the capital gap, it introduces significant risks that the mainstream press often ignores.

1. The Construction Trap: Even with state backing, the physical laws of construction remain. If the V.C. Summer restart hits another 50% cost overrun, the state: and its taxpayers: are the ones holding the bag.
2. Regulatory Capture: When the state becomes an owner, who regulates the owner? There is a high risk that safety and environmental standards will be “streamlined” to meet the urgent needs of the AI tech giants.
3. The Interconnection Bottleneck: A 2GW reactor can be built, but if the massive 500kV transmission lines aren’t built (a process that takes 10-15 years), the power is stranded. State equity doesn’t automatically solve the “NIMBY” (Not in Any Local Backyard) phenomenon of transmission.

What’s Next?

Short-Term (1-2 years)

Expect a wave of “reactor restarts.” Beyond V.C. Summer, eyes are on other abandoned or retiring sites like the Palisades plant in Michigan or the Three Mile Island Unit 1. The DOE will likely expand its Loan Programs Office (LPO) to include direct equity-like warrants.

Medium-Term (3-5 years)

The “Small Modular Reactor” (SMR) market will consolidate. Instead of 50 different startups, the state will pick 2 or 3 “national champions” to receive the bulk of the Equity Utility funding, much like the aerospace industry’s “Great Consolidation.”

Long-Term (5+ years)

The distinction between the “Department of Energy” and a “National Energy Corporation” will likely blur. This may result in the creation of a Federal AI Energy Agency that manages a dedicated fleet of reactors specifically for national compute resources.

What This Means for You

As a citizen and a consumer, you should recognize that the “market” for electricity is fundamentally changing.

If you’re an investor:

• Look toward the “industrial-utility complex”—companies like Westinghouse (Brookfield), Constellation Energy, and the infrastructure firms that the state has chosen as its partners.

If you’re a policy observer:

• Watch the “MOU” filings, not the press releases. The real shifts in energy policy are happening in bilateral contracts between tech giants and state-owned entities, often shielded from public rate hearings.

The Strategic Pivot

The US isn’t “nationalizing” the grid for the sake of public welfare; it is nationalizing it for the sake of strategic dominance. The AI energy chain is too important to be left to the whims of quarterly earnings calls and the short-sighted risk aversion of commercial banks. The Equity Utility is the ultimate act of industrial hypocrisy: a state-led takeover disguised as “America First” capitalism. The only question remains: when the state and Big Tech have secured their power, who will be left to pay for the rest?

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