Key points
- Musk's measure of a strong economy
- How far ahead China is on power
- Where data centers are pushing prices
- Why I think nuclear is the play
Elon Musk shared an Andreessen Horowitz chart on October 10 linking electricity use with national wealth. Its message: "There are no low electricity, rich countries."
Electricity production is the best metric for the true strength of any large-scale economy imo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2026
I agree that electricity is a useful measure of industrial strength. China's lead in total output shows the scale of its power system, while AI is putting new pressure on America's. I think existing US nuclear plants are the place to watch, because restarts and upgrades could deliver more nuclear power sooner than building new reactors.
China makes 2.4 times as much electricity as the US
China generated about 10,575 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2025, up 4.8%, according to its National Bureau of Statistics. The US generated about 4,430 terawatt-hours, the Energy Information Administration says. That's about 2.4 times as much in China, by my arithmetic.
US electricity use averaged 13.1 megawatt-hours per person in 2025, about 75% above China's 7.5, according to the energy think tank Ember. But China's demand has nearly doubled in a decade. It is narrowing the gap per person while extending its lead in total output.
Data centers are pushing up power demand and prices
Data centers accounted for 4.4% of US electricity use in 2023. That share could reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report for the Energy Department.
In PJM, the grid operator serving all or parts of 13 states and Washington, D.C., data centers account for nearly all the projected increase in peak demand. Its forecast for 2027-28 was about 5,250 megawatts higher than the forecast used in the previous capacity auction. Nearly 5,100 megawatts of that increase came from data centers, according to its December auction results. Capacity prices reached the maximum allowed for the second consecutive year.
Household electricity prices are rising too. The US residential average increased from 16.5 cents a kilowatt-hour in 2024 to 17.3 cents in 2025. EIA projects 18.2 cents this year and a 41% increase in PJM wholesale prices. Data centers add to the pressure, but weather, fuel costs, and grid spending also affect the bill.
Who pays for the grid upgrades data centers need is becoming a political fight. The House voted 417 to 3 for a bill that would push states to make data centers cover the full cost of grid upgrades built for them. It stalled in the Senate.
Why I think nuclear is the play
Nuclear produced about 18% of US electricity in 2025 and can supply power around the clock. New reactors could expand that supply over decades. My near-term interest is in restarting idle plants and getting more output from those already operating.
President Trump's May 2025 executive orders set a goal of growing US nuclear capacity from about 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050, and of having 10 new large reactors under construction by 2030. The Energy Department has started putting money behind that. It closed a $1 billion loan to help restart the Crane plant in Pennsylvania, formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1, and this month offered Vistra (VST) up to $4.2 billion to squeeze more power out of its existing plants.
Big Tech is paying too. Google agreed this week to fund upgrades that would add 890 megawatts at 11 Constellation Energy reactors. Meta signed a 20-year deal for the output of Constellation's Clinton plant in Illinois, and Microsoft is buying the power from the Crane restart.
The objections are cost and time. Existing sites give restarts and upgrades a head start, but neither is automatically cheap or quick. Even the Crane restart has hit a snag. In March, Reuters reported that PJM had told Constellation Energy (CEG) the plant might not connect to the grid until 2031. Constellation said it still expects to restart the unit in 2027, asked federal regulators for help, and won a waiver from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June.
That's why I'm watching owners of existing nuclear plants. They have sites and large customers willing to pay for the output. China's electricity lead gives the debate a sense of scale, but for me, the next thing to watch is how quickly those deals turn into electricity.
