The Indicator from Planet Money
The Indicator from Planet Money

One economist's answer to data center anxiety

October 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 1980, the federal government released the Global 2000 Report to the President. It predicted that the real price of energy would rise about 150 percent over the following quarter-century, because oil and fossil fuels were becoming scarce and the population was growing fast. The media nicknamed it the Doomsday Report. But by the turn of the century, the real price of electricity had actually dropped more than 25 percent. The report was not just wrong in magnitude—it was wrong in direction.

That historical miss is the foundation of economist Julia Cartwright's argument about today's data center anxiety. Cartwright, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, says the current fear that AI data centers will drive up home electricity bills rests on the same broken assumptions as that 1980 doomsaying. The mechanism she points to is the price signal itself.

The price mechanism as an innovation engine

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Opening: The Data Center Anxiety Problem** - Hosts Ricky Malvey and Adrian Ma frame the debate: AI data centers are noisy, energy-hungry, and 50% of Americans fear they'll raise home energy bills.
  • 2 (02:32) **The Doomsday Report of 1980** - Cartwright recounts the "Global 2000 Report to the President," which predicted a 150% rise in real energy prices due to scarcity.
  • 3 (04:01) **Why the Doomsday Predictions Failed** - Cartwright explains the report's flaw: it underestimated how human behavior and technology would respond to price signals.
  • 4 (04:56) **The Broken Assumption Behind Data Center Fears** - Cartwright argues that the current anxiety about data centers and energy prices rests on the same flawed logic as the Doomsday Report.
  • 5 (05:43) **Historical Examples: Whale Oil and Copper** - Cartwright uses two historical cases to illustrate how price signals drive substitution and innovation.
  • 6 (06:56) **Private Sector Innovation: Hyperscalers Go Nuclear** - Cartwright notes that major tech companies are already investing in their own power generation to meet data center needs.
  • 7 (08:17) **Public Sector Response: Ending Subsidies** - Local governments are adapting by upgrading grids and changing regulations to manage the data center boom.

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Show Notes

Rising electricity prices are one of the primary reasons why data centers are a public enemy this election cycle. But is it realistic to expect energy prices to stay high forever? 

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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