> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.newmexicomadness.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # New Mexico’s Energy Plan Was Written Before ChatGPT Existed - URL: https://www.newmexicomadness.com/new-mexico-energy-plan-written-before-chatgpt/ - Published: 2026-08-18T14:51:20.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T14:51:20.000Z - Author: Duke of New Mexico - Tags: State **The climate agenda was not defeated in one election, one boardroom or one press release. It was overcome by events. Big Tech, Big Energy, Washington and the wider economy are now organized around artificial intelligence, reliable power and physical buildout. New Mexico is still walking down the tracks with a 2019 bill in its hands.** --- The lights are on. The horn is blowing. The rails are vibrating. Across the country, companies are scrambling for data centers, turbines, transformers, substations, pipelines, nuclear power, gas supply and enough land to build it all. The race is no longer theoretical. It is measured in concrete, steel, electricity and construction schedules. New Mexico is still walking down the tracks with an energy plan written before ChatGPT existed. The state’s Energy Transition Act became law in 2019\. It set a path built around the categories that dominated the climate debate at the time: renewable energy targets, zero-carbon promises and utilities moving away from conventional generation. Then the incentives changed. Artificial intelligence stopped being a novelty and became an industrial race. The question was no longer whether a corporation could purchase enough credits to make a sustainability report look good. The question became whether America could generate enough dependable electricity to power data centers, advanced manufacturing, growing cities and the systems behind all of them. That is the test the 2019 framework was never designed to take. ## The agenda was overcome by events Nobody announced the end of the climate agenda. Politicians did not issue a joint statement. Corporations did not confess their old pledges could not keep pace with the buildout. They changed direction anyway. Bill Gates — for years one of the most prominent private backers of climate technology — put the new hierarchy in writing in October 2025\. Climate change, he wrote, will have serious consequences, particularly for poorer countries. But it "will not lead to humanity's demise." He called for refocusing on what should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives. That was not a skeptic speaking from the margins. It was a central climate-tech figure acknowledging that the old doomsday framing does not match the economic and technological reality now in front of us. Washington changed direction too. The United States formally withdrew from the Paris Agreement in January 2026\. The next month, EPA rescinded the 2009 greenhouse-gas endangerment finding for motor vehicles and repealed the related vehicle-emissions standards; environmental groups have challenged the rule in federal court. Those actions do not settle every argument about climate. They show something narrower and more important for New Mexico: the old agenda no longer directs national policy as it did only a few years ago. Big Tech changed the budget. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta began 2026 guiding to more than $640 billion in combined capital spending. By midyear, after each company raised its forecast, they were tracking above $730 billion and had already spent roughly $305 billion in the first six months alone. That money is not an abstraction. Capital spending buys data centers, chips, land, cooling systems, fiber, transformers, substations, generators and power contracts. A company cannot run a data center on a pledge. It needs electricity every hour of every day. Big Energy changed its customer list. Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement with Chevron for Project Kilby, a West Texas data-center development expected to require roughly 2.67 gigawatts of power.\[^5\] Arizona regulators voted 5-0 to approve a 700-megawatt natural-gas plant paired with a data-center complex in western Maricopa County. Washington changed the rules. Big Tech changed the budget. Energy companies changed their customer list. The economy followed the power. ## Capability must meet need This is not an argument that wind, solar and batteries have no role. They do. It is an argument that none of those things, standing alone, can carry the industrial demand now arriving. The climate agenda was built around targets, categories and promises. The AI economy is built around a more physical test: Can the power system deliver dependable electricity at the volume, cost and speed required? If the answer is no, a renewable label does not solve the problem. A corporate pledge does not solve the problem. A compliance calendar does not solve the problem. Capability has to meet need. That is why the energy conversation has shifted toward gas, nuclear, geothermal, storage, transmission and any other source capable of supplying firm power. The market is not waiting for an ideological consensus. It is building what it can build. The entire planet is now singing from the AI sheet of music. Governments, sovereign investors, technology companies and energy firms are racing to secure computing capacity and the electricity behind it. New Mexico is still hand-cranking the old phonograph. ## New Mexico is on the tracks The Energy Transition Act still directs investor-owned utilities to reach 50 percent renewable electricity by 2030, 80 percent by 2040 and 100 percent zero-carbon power by 2045\. Rural electric cooperatives have their own path: 50 percent renewable by 2030 and 100 percent zero-carbon by 2050, with at least 80 percent renewable generation. Those requirements were written before generative AI, before a single data-center campus could require power on the scale of a small city, and before electricity supply became a front-line question of economic competition. New Mexico had an opportunity to modernize its definitions this year. Senate Bill 78 would have allowed nuclear fission and fusion to count toward Renewable Portfolio Standard compliance. The Senate Conservation Committee killed it on a 5-4 Do Not Pass vote. Sen. Joseph Cervantes said the vote should not be read as a rejection of nuclear power itself. He simply would not support defining it as renewable under the current statute. That is the contradiction in a single sentence. The label won. The capacity question lost. New Mexico has more reason than most states to think bigger. Urenco USA is expanding the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, the nation’s only commercial uranium enrichment plant. Kairos Power builds advanced-reactor components and molten-salt coolant in Albuquerque and is developing fuel work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Eunice enriches uranium. Albuquerque builds equipment. Los Alamos works on fuel. New Mexico has the raw ingredients to be part of the firm-power future — and yet its energy policy still struggles to recognize nuclear as part of its own clean-energy future. ## Move or be moved The fiscal risk is straightforward even if no one can yet put an exact price tag on it. States that can deliver land, power, water, permitting certainty and infrastructure will compete for the investment, jobs and tax base attached to the AI buildout. States that narrow their choices to protect the vocabulary of an earlier political fight risk supplying raw materials and watching the higher-value projects go elsewhere. New Mexico has the Permian Basin, national laboratories, enrichment infrastructure, advanced-energy manufacturing, solar, wind, land and a central Southwest location. It should be positioned to compete across the entire energy stack. The train is not coming. It is already here. New Mexico can help build it. Or it can keep walking down the tracks with a 2019 bill in its hands, hand-cranking an old record player while the rest of the world moves to a different song. #### ENDNOTES \[1\]: New Mexico Energy Transition Act, SB 489 (2019), §29; N.M. Stat. §62-15-34; Office of the Governor, "Governor Signs Landmark Energy Legislation," March 22, 2019; New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, **RPS Report to the Legislature*, June 28, 2024\. Investor-owned utilities: 40% renewable by 2025, 50% by 2030, 80% by 2040, 100% zero-carbon by 2045\. Cooperatives: 40% renewable by 2025, 50% by 2030, 100% zero-carbon by 2050, with at least 80% renewable energy. \[2\]: Bill Gates, "Three Tough Truths About Climate," Gates Notes, October 28, 2025\. Verbatim: "Although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity's demise." Also: "This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives." \[3\]: U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement: executive order signed January 20, 2025; withdrawal effective January 27, 2026\. EPA, "Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards Under the Clean Air Act," 91 Fed. Reg. 7686 (Feb. 18, 2026). The rule rescinds the 2009 finding as it applies to new motor vehicles and engines and repeals light-, medium- and heavy-duty GHG standards plus associated compliance provisions. It does not rescind separate EPA findings for stationary sources or aircraft engines. Petitions for review were filed in the D.C. Circuit in April 2026, including **Alaska Institute for Justice v. EPA*, No. 26-1083. \[4\]: Platformonomics, "Follow the CAPEX: Q2 2026 Scoreboard," July 31, 2026, compiling company guidance. The four firms began 2026 above $640 billion combined; after Q2 revisions, they projected above $735 billion; first-half spending was just under $305 billion. Current individual guidance reported: Amazon approximately $220 billion, Alphabet up to $205 billion, Microsoft approximately $175 billion following an accounting shift from finance to operating leases rather than a spending cut, and Meta $130–145 billion. Use current company earnings transcripts if a precise aggregate is challenged. \[5\]: Chevron, "Chevron Signs 20-Year Power Agreement with Microsoft for West Texas Data Center," June 22, 2026\. Project Kilby is expected to deliver approximately 2.67 gigawatts through a phased, modular build. \[6\]: Arizona Corporation Commission, February 4, 2026 open meeting: 5-0 approval of a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility for Baccara Power LLC’s proposed 700.2 MW natural-gas-fired plant, co-located with Takanock’s planned data-center complex in western Maricopa County; Docket L-21369A-25-0222-00253\. The CEC is one of several required permits. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved the project 4-1 on May 6, 2026. \[7\]: New Mexico Legislature, 2026 Regular Session, SB 78, "Nuclear Energy as Renewable Energy." Sponsored by Sens. Anthony L. Thornton, Meredith A. Dixon and Nicole Tobiassen, and Reps. John Block and Cathrynn N. Brown. Senate Conservation heard the bill February 8, 2026 and approved a 5-4 Do Not Pass motion. Sen. Joseph Cervantes said the vote should not be read as a rejection of nuclear energy but that he could not support redefining it as renewable under the current statute. Los Alamos Daily Post, "Senate Panel Rejects Bid To Classify Nuclear As Renewable Energy In New Mexico," February 12, 2026. \[8\]: Urenco USA, "Urenco USA Plans Significant Expansion of U.S. Uranium Enrichment Capacity," June 2, 2026\. Multi-billion-dollar expansion of the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, adding 2.1 million separative work units, a nearly 50% capacity increase. Urenco identifies the facility as the United States’ only commercial uranium enrichment plant. \[9\]: Kairos Power, New Mexico location and Salt Production Facility announcements; New Mexico Economic Development Department; City of Albuquerque LEDA materials; American Nuclear Society coverage. Kairos operates a Manufacturing Development Campus at Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque producing reactor components, equipment modules, fuel and molten-salt coolant. State economic-development materials describe planned TRISO fuel fabrication work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. No Kairos reactor is under construction in New Mexico; Hermes 2 is in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.