The U.S. is on the brink of a power crunch, driven by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, and the nation's energy grid is not ready for it, an executive behind a major new nuclear partnership has warned. OKLO CEO Jacob DeWitte, speaking at a recent announcement in Washington, said the partnership with Meta will go a long way to adding much-needed power to a key regional component of the national grid. He cited OKLO's plans to develop a 1.2 GW installation in Pike County, Ohio, near the Hocking Hills. DeWitte warned that the U.S. needs to build out the power grid and invest in new installations like the Pike site, saying that the country will run out of power capacity in the next several years, especially in critical industrial markets like the Midwest and Northeast. He also addressed a common misconception surrounding the rise of data centers, which have sparked NIMBY backlash in parts of the country, stating that building these data centers will not drive prices up. DeWitte said that the U.S. energy system as it stands has not been able to keep up with the advent of AI and its power needs. He also highlighted the regulatory environment as one of the biggest structural choke points in bringing new energy online, and said that the dynamic has been 'fundamentally anti-energy'. However, he noted that this dynamic is changing, and that states with the worst energy policies are now facing some of the biggest challenges on that point. DeWitte concluded by emphasizing the need for the U.S. to bring back the capability-set of manufacturing and invest in new power installations to avoid a power crunch.
