Data Centers Leaving 50K Americans With No Power

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]In what really seems like a David versus Goliath story, a cluster of data centers have swooped in to swipe power away from nearly 50,000 Americans who live in the Lake Tahoe area. We're going to bring in CBN's Raja, California native himself to talk about this in a moment, but just for context, here's what's going on. NV Energy, which has been supplying power to Lake Tahoe since 2009 through a company called Liberty Utilities, notified that company this week that it's ditching those 49,000 customers, leaving them potentially with no electricity whatsoever by May of 2027.

[00:00:38]Envy Energy basically told Liberty Utilities, "All of our available wattage is going to data centers, so figure out your own electricity." Now this story of course has drawn a lot of attention and criticism. So Raj, what do you make of this? There's a lot to go over. So in a nutshell, Nevada is building all of these data centers, all this AI infrastructure and right across the border from the Reno area is Lake Tahoe where you, as you mentioned, about 50,000 locals are going to be suddenly without power. Now, here's where I come in as a California resident. How do you solve this? Well, here's the problem. I actually wrote this down so I I don't forget some of them. Uh you have if you want to fix it, first off, you probably have to get the grid over the Sierra Mountains, which is going to be difficult, but that's actually uh a legit thing. But then it comes to California, and California has renewable energy requirements, which again, it's just going to mushroom the cost of anything like this. Uh then you also have the wildfire issues that we have here in Southern Cal or all of California because um I don't want to sound too flippant, but there's some bird somewhere and so we can't do brush brush clearing and then the fires go nuts and people die and it's it's infuriating. Uh I have a lot of friends who are firefighters and we're not going to get into too much politics, but then we also have insurance cost and for those of you who don't live in Southern California, it's insane. I've had friends, I mean lots of friends, who literally can't buy insurance. And if they do, it's like seven, eight, ten times what they should be paying. Uh because a lot of insurance companies are like, "You know what? I'm out. I'm just going to leave California." Uh because you guys aren't going to clear the brush. You guys aren't going to do the the right thing and update your infrastructure. All these houses are burning down. If you live anywhere near uh uh some trees or some brush, we're just not going to ensure you. Uh then you have the taxes here in California.

[00:02:42]Hooray. Um it is just um I don't know how a state can be run so poorly. I I I have I have such a heart for California.

[00:02:51]I love California, but if you want to see what's happening in California, go to downtown LA, look at the zombie apocalypse that's happening, and be like, "How did we get here?" and yet spend bajillions and bajillions of dollars on this problem and it just keeps getting worse.

[00:03:07]But to get there you have to drive and to drive you got to get some gas. And so when you drive by the local gas station it says 649 a gallon.

[00:03:16]Welcome to California. Uh so we are uh this is this is actually kind of a serious issue because you have Nevada and again all the businesses from California moving to Nevada and Texas and Tennessee. Uh but Nevada you literally cross the border. your state income tax goes from I think corporately I should have looked this up before like 13-ish to zero. Um and so you have people moving to Vegas and moving to Reno. Uh but you know this is and and all these AI infrastructure is moving to to Nevada. Here's a quote. Data centers used 22% of Nevada's electricity in 2024. That share could rise to 35% in 2030. And if you've ever been to Las Vegas, you know they spent a lot of money on all those lights, but we're talking about AI infrastructure taking up a third of Nevada's uh electric bill. So, I don't see if if if the Nevada company truly drops all of Taho's residents, I don't know what you do. You could say, "Well, let's spend hundreds of millions of dollars and connect the thing over to the Sierra." Then you look at like the highspeed rail, the highspeed rail line from LA to San Francisco, you spend a gajillion dollars and nothing has been built. Um, how do I say this without being political? Um, the state with the most resources, the most companies, the most everything is just being squandered and trashed by bureaucracy.

[00:04:50]I'm not that political of a guy, but come on, California. Come on, California. And so, uh, this is the our own doing as this state. I'm praying that people just like kind of here's here's what it is. There's what does good and there's what feels good. And unfortunately, what does good takes a lot longer to explain and process than what feels good. And now California is trapped again in this situation.

[00:05:20]um by our own tying our hands behind our back. I don't see if Nevada drops Tahoe.

[00:05:25]I How do you fix that? Hundreds of millions of dollars a line, which of course will mushroom to billions of dollars a line over the mountains, build a bunch of solar panels real fast. I I don't know. Uh and so I'm a I'm I'm an an optimist, but California, we need to wake up. There's a reason that everyone is leaving. I mean, literally, Trey, it's so sad. Like, so many of my wife and I, our close friends, have moved to Florida and Texas and Tennessee and Ohio, and it's like, "Don't leave."

[00:05:56]They're like, "Why are you staying?"

[00:05:57]We're like, "Good point." Uh, but we're we're here. We're we're we're going to fight for this state. You know, it's a massive economy that's just hemorrhaging money and everything on this on the ground is getting worse, but it's beautiful. And so, I'm going to stay.

[00:06:11]Not because of that reason. Definitely not because of that reason. as long as God has us here because um I'm gonna get off my California soap box. But back to the actual issue at hand. I don't I don't see how this is fixed if Nevada decides to just cut it off. So, usually I'm an optimist, but I don't know, Trey. This seems pretty bad.

[00:06:33]>> Yeah, I think this is certainly a tough a tough issue. And a a piece of the puzzle that makes this much more complicated is the fact that Lake Tahoe and its 49 50,000 residents are living between two states and numerous counties. So there's no one person in charge of everything, which has made it difficult because California can't tell Nevada what its electrical company has to do, right? I mean, there's no jurisdiction for California or vice versa. Nevada can't tell California what it ought to do because each state whether it's poorly run or not is sovereign and has the you know freedom to do whatever it wants with its resources and its money. So that's another tough piece of this whole issue.

[00:07:17]But one thing worth noting because Raj a lot of us don't really understand or spend a lot of time understanding the mechanics here is that data centers built by companies like Google and Apple and Microsoft, Amazon, they have a lot of leverage, a lot more leverage than everyday Americans like you and me. So, electric providers like Envy Energy, they can continue to source power to companies like Liberty Utilities, which provide power to residential properties for a modest income, or they can sell their wattage to huge corporations who will pay a premium for it. So, obviously, follow the money. Where where is the money leading? So to put that into perspective, the Desert Research Institute using Envy Energy's own internal information actually found that 12 data center projects in Northern Nevada could demand 4,900 megawatts of power by 2033, which if you're like me, you hear me and you think, what is that?

[00:08:14]Is that some sort of, you know, that sounds like something from a superhero movie to me? Like a Marvel movie. Um, but that amount of wattage, 5900 megawws Raj is enough to power 4.4 million houses. So, it's not a small amount of electricity by any means. But, my friend, I'll give you the final word here. All right. All right. Here's the thing. I uh I've seen I've seen California, and this might be a little bit of a tangent, just run itself into the ground. Um, and people come here to to live the the the golden dream. At least they used to. Uh, but God brought me brought me to this cuz I feel like we have to end it with some scripture. Um, because people are just I've never been in a place where people are have more and are more discontent.

[00:09:03]Uncontent discontent.

[00:09:05]>> Um, there is this narcissism, this need to and it's it's a weird place, man. It it's not very community oriented.

[00:09:13]There's nothing that really like holds everyone together. or like you go to a place like, you know, Tuscaloosa or Columbus or Knoxville and everyone's a V or a, you know, a Buckeye or something.

[00:09:22]Here, everyone's just kind of doing their own thing in their own little silos. Really hard to make friendships.

[00:09:26]Uh, but people are just coming here to achieve.

[00:09:30]And, uh, I I feel like this is a good way place to end. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. And so to me, I I know it's really easy to look at California and be like, "Well, you guys deserve it. You guys, you know, made a bunch of stupid decisions and here you go." Um, but I I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet on California. Um, and so please be praying for for my state. You know, there's a lot there lots of people live here. And I think you can make the argument people might might not say it's true. I I can think you make the argument that the three most influential 30 square miles in the world are in the United States. You can say Manhattan, New York, Wall Street, and then I would say Silicon Valley and Hollywood. And both of those are in my state. And so the global reach, I mean, you're talking everything from the movie industry to Facebook and Instagram and Google and I mean Apple. And so there's just a lot of influence and a lot of uh what happens here goes out to the world. And so I let's be praying for um the Holy Spirit to kind of flood the streets of California. Let's be praying for eyes to see and ears to hear that Yeshua is the risen king. Um let's be praying um that our eyes turn away from artificial intelligence and all this amazing technology and and to the actual creator. Um, so yeah, my my my hope is is uh from from Tahoe to Chula Vista to to San Jose to Barstow that something really miraculous would happen in in California. So I encourage I'm asking if you're watching this to be praying for the Golden