Data centres: a lightning rod for US LNG?
American voters delivered a sharp rebuke to data centres in the midterms. Can the anti-AI movement shield US LNG exports from rising public anger over energy bills – and if so, for how long?
The Republican Party was not the only big loser at the midterms. On 3 November, Americans voted against data centres on dozens of local ballot measures. Their lone win came in a tiny town in North Dakota, home to fewer than 1,000 people.
Nobody voted on America’s booming exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Yet last year, for the first time, US LNG terminals shipped more gas abroad than Americans burned in their homes, and liquefaction plants are by far the fastest-growing source of demand for American-produced methane gas.
The Trump administration and its allies in Congress maintain that it is possible to have unfettered LNG exports, win the AI race with China and keep energy affordable for American households and businesses. Those three goals were already looking incompatible. How much political pain that causes, and who gets the blame for it, was an open question.
The midterms gave a first answer. Democrats took both chambers of Congress, and where voters’ anger looked for a local target, data centres were the lightning rod.
Aside from sending a wave of data centre sceptics into the corridors of power, measures that limit data centres or oppose them won scores of local ballots while favourable policies were rejected outright. The shock results triggered an intense stock market selloff that wiped trillions off the market cap of Big Tech and chipmaker firms that now dominate the S&P 500.
Lightning rods don’t stop storms; they guide the strike away from the house. Popular resistance to data centres is still gaining strength; if AI hyperscalers are the rod, are US LNG exporters the house?
In this Deep Dive
- Hidden demand: Why aren’t American voters blaming LNG exports for higher gas bills?
- Behind the meter: Why can’t data-centre gas demand go completely off-grid?
- The lame duck: Will Republicans rush through laws to protect LNG exporters before 3 January?
- The mechanics of an export ban: Who holds the US LNG kill switch when the President loses control of Congress?
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