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Why Data Centers Favor On-Site Gas Power

Most data center developers opting for on-site gas power say that they see it as a “bridge” solution until a grid connection is secured. Yet economics may favor keeping those assets running even after grid power becomes available.

A recent BloombergNEF analysis shows the marginal cost of operating an on-site gas plant may be below industrial electricity tariffs, making continued generation from on-site assets the cheaper option in many cases. 

Marginal generation costs depend on fuel prices and variable operating expenses. BloombergNEF modeled the marginal cost of operating engines, turbines and fuel cells at a mid-scenario gas price of $3.97 per million British thermal units. Gas engines, such as ones manufactured by Wartsila and INNIO, have the highest marginal cost, at $43.2 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Fuel cells, most prominently procured from Bloom Energy, are the cheapest to continue running, at $21.5/MWh, benefiting from high thermal efficiencies and the lowest variable operational cost.  

Securing a grid connection does not necessarily make on-site generation redundant. Developers can continue using gas plants to supply most of a facility’s electricity while relying on the grid for reliability, reserve them for backup or peak demand, or in some cases export electricity to the grid.

The optimal operating strategy will depend on the relative cost of grid electricity, fuel prices and the marginal cost of operating the gas plant. More efficient technologies such as fuel cells and combined-cycle gas turbines are likely to be dispatched more frequently because of their lower running costs.  

The contracted electricity price will ultimately determine how often developers rely on the grid. Industrial electricity tariffs are forecast to average $88.6/MWh in 2027, while wholesale power prices are expected to range from $24.4/MWh to $74.7/MWh, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Developers with access to low electricity prices may increasingly shift demand to the grid, while those paying the highest industrial tariffs could continue to favor on-site generation even after their grid connection is in place.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 05:45

Officials estimated the contraband had a combined value of roughly $324,000 inside the prison.

The WNBA has an agenda, and isn’t women’s basketball. Every fan ejection and covered-up T-shirt reveals what the league truly values: ideological compliance.

Paul Elisha Finger, who captured the footage, "noticed the gentleman jump on the fryer that the lady had just put food into."

A former Long Island lacrosse star and a medical supplies executive were killed in a head-on crash when the teen's car veered into the wrong lane on a Hudson Valley road.

When Paris Went Hungry Under Government Food Controls

Authored by Daniel J. Smith via The Daily Economy,

How does Paris get fed? Frédéric Bastiat famously explained in Economic Sophisms (1845) how market exchange reliably provisioned the (then) million people of Paris with agricultural produce from the countryside that they were able to enjoy "peaceful slumbers...not disturbed for a single instant...."

In stark contrast, Bastiat predicted that there would be "much suffering within the walls of Paris - poverty, despair, perhaps starvation..." if a presumptuous minister decided to replace the market with their own decision-making for what "should be produced, transported, exchanged and consumed...."

We can appreciate Bastiat's observation about the miraculous functioning of the market even more when we look at a time when Paris actually went hungry.

France's Experiment in Forced Provisioning

Leading up to the French Revolution in 1789, France found itself in a precarious fiscal position. It had accumulated crippling debt from the Seven Years' War and its support for the American colonies during their War of Independence. This heavy debt burden left the kingdom woefully unprepared to withstand the economic shocks that followed.

Economic shock came in the form of the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland in 1783, which contributed to climatic disruptions and poor harvests in France in the years that followed. These problems were compounded by a severe hailstorm in 1788 that devastated crops and livestock, raising prices, especially for bread, which was the main staple at the time. Increased demand for grain to support the military and its draft animals, when France declared war on Austria in 1792 (followed by war with Great Britain), pushed prices even higher. When France implemented a draft that drew agricultural workers into the military and then began requisitioning agricultural horses and wagons, the supply of grain was further reduced.

Henry Bourne, writing a two-part article in the Journal of Political Economy in 1919 about this era, notes that in the fall of 1792, "One of the longest and most important debates [of the National Convention] was upon the best method of insuring a supply of bread at a reasonable price." This was a problem that especially loomed over the major city of Paris. Bourne argues that the threat of starvation fueled not only the French Revolution, but the mob mentality and interventionism that followed. As Bourne writes, "People, in a panic because they do not know where next week's bread, meat, and coal are to be found, are not likely to apply the rules of evidence to every rumor." The French clamored for state intervention on the "fixed idea that dearness and scarcity were the result of speculation" rather than underlying economic conditions.

Transporting grain became a risky enterprise as mobs sprang up to seize it, further decreasing the supply of grain to Paris. To add insult to injury, the transportation of grain to major cities was further suppressed by inflation, which made the issued assignats unappealing to country farmers.

The National Convention and the Paris Commune turned to "a series of ventures in price-fixing and food control" to solve the problem. Bourne notes that "price-fixing became one of the characteristic features of the Reign of Terror." In 1793, the National Convention imposed a maximum price, or what economists today call a price ceiling, on grain. In a futile attempt to warn of the potential consequences, Pierre Vergniaud, who later that year was executed under the accusation of the radical Jacobin Maximilien Robespierre, urged that "If you destroy commerce, you decree famine."

French attempts to deny the economic reality reflected by market prices, by attempting to suppress them, resulted in severe shortages and long lines.

"The scheme not only failed to encourage the farmer, it threatened him with ruin," Bourne noted. "His expenses for tools, draft animals, and wages were steadily rising, but his profits were cut down, with the prospect of further losses every succeeding month."

But politically savvy politicians blamed these disappointing outcomes on greed and used them to justify further interventions backed by the threat of imprisonment and death. The National Convention created a Commission of Subsistence and Provisioning to be the "Food Director" of France. Swarms of officials were commissioned to survey farmers' inventories and fields in an attempt to enable government officials to redirect grain to where it was needed. Rules were issued detailing the precise percentage of bran that millers could extract and even dictated the one type of bread that would be allowed. A bread card rationing system was created but was abused as families failed to report the death of family members to continue receiving the same allotment. Bourne reports that in 1794, rations fell to a single pound of bread for each laborer and three-fourths of a pound for others, and that "it was practically impossible to obtain meat, butter, eggs, oil, and other articles of food commonly regarded as necessary," as price ceilings were extended to these items as well.

Officials attempted to appeal to the higher motives of the people, telling them that they were "brothers and that they should help" even if it meant turning over the grain needed for their family, for storage for future use, or even the seed necessary to plant the next year's crop. This proved insufficient, however, so the officials eventually turned to force.

Bourne writes that "An attempt was made to provide for Paris by compelling every farmer to furnish within twenty-four hours sixteen bushels of wheat for each hide of land." French dragoons were soon released upon the countryside to "scour the country" for food and to arrest any suspected hoarders. As Bourne notes, "merchants were thrown into prison upon the accusation of the first intriguer who shouted out his suspicions at a popular society. The local revolutionary committees acted as judges without appeal. To escape a similar fate the other merchants hastened to dispose of their merchandise and did not restock."

If a farmer had grain in the field but no laborers to gather it, laborers were drafted by local authorities. Millers and bakers in Paris were drafted and forbidden from abandoning their work without sufficient notice. Eventually, the National Convention even attempted to extend maximum price laws to the wages of laborers as well.

Despite the substantial and systematic efforts of the National Convention and the boards of the separate departments of France, Parisians and much of the rest of France, went hungry under government control. In Cahors, people "were so poorly fed that they were falling in the street from sheer weakness." In Nord, "grain of every sort disappeared from the markets..." The people of Paris would stand "with famished eyes" for hours in line "only to be told when their turn came that nothing was left." As Bourne concludes, "If the maximum laws were meant to save the common people from want and wretchedness, they failed."

Bastiat's Market-Fed Paris

It is unclear whether Bastiat, when writing in the 1840s about the remarkable way in which free markets coordinated the efforts of countless individuals to feed Paris every day, was implicitly contrasting this outcome with the French Revolution's earlier rejection of market exchange. He almost certainly knew that revolutionary France had experienced severe food shortages and government price controls, making the contrast between the two episodes striking even if he did not intend it.

As Bastiat stressed, government officials could not replace the information and incentives provided by market prices. Orders, price controls, requisitions, forced sales, and even forced labor failed to feed Paris. When the National Convention tried to do so, it produced exactly the outcome Bastiat had predicted more than half a century later: not peaceful slumbers, but long lines, empty markets, and widespread hunger. Notably, these outcomes began to recede as the Commission was abandoned and markets were restored.

Dr. Daniel J. Smith is the Director of the Political Economy Research Institute and Associate Professor of Economics in the Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University. His academic research and policy work uses Austrian and public choice economics to analyze private and public governance institutions.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 05:00

Gov. Kathy Hochul raced to gaslight New York on Tuesday by falsely claiming her new anti-ICE law will boost public safety, when it will do the reverse. Yes: the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act undermines public safety — and good for her GOP gubernatorial rival, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, for standing up to her...

ICE agent Christian Castro, charged with shooting a Minnesota man and lying about it, could be released from a Texas jail on Thursday.

The wedding took place in front of 178 passengers, with the plane's captain — who is also an ordained minister — serving as the officiant.

ICE Begins Deporting Illegal Immigrants To Dangerous African Countries

Imagine entering the US illegally and enjoying the fruits of the American economy for years, only to wake up one day in the darkest of Africa in a country known for cannibalism?  The strategy might be ugly, but it might also be ingenious.  

Last year, illegal Cuban immigrant Yasmany Moreno de Armas was working and living in Florida. He's now in the Central African Republic, after the Trump administration sent him and dozens of deportees to the deeply impoverished and conflict-ridden nation.

The 31-year-old said he only learned the U.S. government was deporting him to Africa after he arrived there in late July, alongside detainees from countries across the globe, including Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia, Russia and Vietnam. 

"We cannot leave, we don't have documents and we're suffering and missing our families, in a continent we don't know..."

Armas claims he committed no crime, but he committed the crime of invading US borders without citizenship.  The ongoing narrative from the political left is that this particular crime somehow doesn't count.

Illegals shipped to Africa are appealing to the media to plead their case, though there's not a whole lot anyone can do about their situation.  Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) the US government has the right to deport illegal migrants with expediency.  And technically, ICE isn't required to take these migrants back to the countries they originally came from.  

Cuban immigrant Yasmany Moreno de Armas says ICE never told him he was being deported to the Central African Republic, a deeply impoverished country that the State Department warns Americans not to visit for any reason due to widespread violence.

The conflict-ridden country is… pic.twitter.com/oGKF4ohXnd

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 23, 2026

The US established an agreement with more stable countries like Liberia in West Africa to accept illegal migrant deportations over a year ago.  Liberia has recently accepted over 1200 of these deportations.  However, ICE and DHS are branching out to other countries in Africa that are not so stable.   

The Central African Republic has a history of extreme sectarian violence.  It also has a long history of cannibalism.  European explorers noted the cannibal practices of the Azande tribes in the 19th Century and the habit has continued into present day, with warlords in the region famously committing cannibalistic acts against their enemies. 

The seemingly random nature of these deportations and the severity of them might sound like unorganized brutality, but if we ponder it for a moment, it's actually highly effective.  Any illegal migrant from anywhere could win the African lottery; no one is guaranteed a ride home.  Therefore, it would be smarter for migrants to self deport and ensure they end up in a place they're familiar with.   

In other words, as news spreads that the US is dumping illegals in the middle of the worst countries in Africa, self deportations could skyrocket and ICE won't be required to hunt these people down in the streets.  It's brilliant.

Appeals to sympathy are having less and less effect as the political left continues to fail to drum up any substantial public opposition to deportations.  In fact, many Americans feel that the sooner illegal migrants are removed from the country the sooner the US can get back to normal business.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 04:15

Timothy Hudson, who is accused of murdering his stepsister, Anna Kepner, will not face trial until November.

And now there is a curiosity who might be turning into something more because through his first 10 major league starts, Zac Thornton’s ERA is 2.88.

The nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences housed at least 15 newborns when the fire broke out, hospital officials said.

The country music legend performed for troops, recorded patriotic albums, had her likeness painted on aircraft.

The country music legend performed for troops, recorded patriotic albums, had her likeness painted on aircraft.

Dear Abby advises a man about a suspicious fiancee and a woman about divorcing because of her brother-in-law.

Parton opened up about an “unexpected connection” she felt with the rapper.

Parton opened up about an “unexpected connection” she felt with the rapper.

US Removes Syria, Including Al-Nusra Front, From Its List Of Terrorism Sponsors

Following a decade-and-a-half of a Washington-led full economic siege of the Syrian state, and after a fierce CIA-backed proxy war (Timber Sycamore) to oust Assad over that same period, this week has witnessed the huge milestone of the United States finally removing Syria from its state sponsors of terrorism list.

The designation itself had stretched back several decades, and it placed major hurdles in the way of international investment, but with the Monday move by the State Department many of the related sanctions have now been eased.

Jabat Al-Nusra, including the current US-backed President of Syria (center). Via Orient News TV/EPA

"Today’s action will help foster additional investment in Syria to promote political and economic stability," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, signaling new US efforts to help the war-ravaged country recover.

Of course, this came only after it was 'mission accomplished' in terms of overthrowing the secular Ba'ath government of Bashar al-Assad. He fled the country in December 2024, as Jolani's al-Qaeda linked militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham entered Damascus, and since then there have been widespread reports of an 'Islamization' of the capital and various other cities and towns. The first year of Jolani's rule witnessed thousands of religious minorities kidnapped or slaughtered - with Alawites and Druze particularly targeted, but also many Christians.

The whole population was brought to its knees by the long-running sanctions, resulting in runaway inflation and soaring food prices, as wages remained stagnant - also as petrol became hard to come by (and as US soldiers occupied Syria's eastern oil and gas fields which previously met domestic fuel needs).

The delisting exposes an ultra-ironic and deeply awkward reality: Al Nusra Front, which is Syrian Al Qaeda (and was founded by the self-declared president Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Jolani) is no longer deemed a terror organization. According to the NY Times:

The removal of the state sponsor of terror designation on Monday came after a U.S. congressional review process and after Syria joined the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State, according to the State Department. The United States also revoked the terrorism designation for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel group that was headed by Mr. al-Sharaa and that was previously known as the Al Nusra Front, the State Department said.

It also once again highlights that when Trump on multiple occasions met President Sharaa, he was literally palling around with with an officially designated terrorist (and who until recently had a $10 million FBI bounty on his head).

It wasn't just the US which supported jihadist groups seeking the overthrow of Assad, but Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE also played a big role (and Israel too at times admitted its support).

Saudi Arabia is among those welcoming the sanctions relief news on Tuesday. Its foreign ministry congratulated the Syrian government and people, expressing hope for security, stability and prosperity.

Can't make this up: Top Syrian envoy to the United States once kidnapped Americans for Nusra Front/HTS...

My interview with the Syrian chargé d'affaires to the US back when he was a member of Jabhat al-Nusra. pic.twitter.com/g0NSaH1WUp

— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) July 28, 2026

Syria had been on the State Sponsor of Terrorism for 47 years. So essentially the US waged a near half-century 'long war' for regime change against Bashar and his father Hafez al-Assad before him.

As for the lifting of sanctions, they ultimately hit the common populace the hardest - whether they be Christians, Muslims, Alawites or Druze - and so at the very least hopefully normal people can have some relief going forward.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 02:45

"I had to kill her, she wasn't going to stop."