What’s Bothering a Free Market Wonk About the Data Center Boom
Travis Fisher of the Cato Institute discusses his free-market perspective on the data center boom, expressing concerns about socialized costs, tax credits, and eminent domain. He advocates for consumer-regulated electricity reform and the creation of private power networks to meet data center demand, circumventing traditional utility regulations. Fisher highlights states like Ohio, Utah, and Oklahoma as having existing systems that could support such innovation.
In an interview with Heatmap News, Travis Fisher, an energy policy analyst at the Cato Institute, offered his free-market perspective on the rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. Fisher expressed concern over the potential for socialized costs, special treatment like tax credits, overt subsidies, and the use of eminent domain for data center siting, which he deems problematic. While acknowledging the data center boom as a significant growth opportunity, he rejects the idea of imposing moratoriums, viewing it as counterproductive to progress.
Fisher outlined two main approaches to address the energy demands of data centers: improving the existing energy grid and expanding access to off-grid power. He is skeptical that utilities would pass cost reductions from increased demand onto consumers, given the current utility model focused on maximizing shareholder returns. Instead, he advocates for consumer-regulated electricity reform, proposing a system where private utilities serving large customers like data centers would operate without oversight from Public Utility Commissioners (PUC) or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
He noted that some states, including Ohio (citing the New Albany site as an example), Utah, Oklahoma, and potentially West Virginia, already have laws or systems trending towards allowing such private energy networks. Fisher’s goal is to foster a pro-consumer, free-market, and fast-moving energy sector by enabling these “power islands” and providing regulatory certainty for investors. He strongly opposes re-entrenching utility monopolies and believes current regulatory structures are untenable, hindering innovation and consumer choice.