“We’re trying to solve a puzzle that illuminates how this market might work over the next five to 10 to 15 years,” Vegas said, as quoted by local media.

Vegas stated that the capacity should increase from 85,000 megawatts to 150,000 megawatts in the next six years, and that initially it was thought that the grid would need only 130,000 megawatts of energy in this time period.

Bitcoin mining and AI data centers will account for more than half of the additional growth on the Texas grid, Vegas said. Data centers for AI workloads consume much more power than regular data centers due to the intensity of the workload.

Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam predict that artificial intelligence could be responsible for the same amount of electricity consumption as Bitcoin in just a few years.

All of this comes as the political climate towards Bitcoin and AI power consumption worsens.

Democratic Sen. Jose Menendez of San Antonio said during testimony that it was “inherently unfair” that mining operations and artificial intelligence data centers could move into the state to take advantage of the low cost of energy while Texans make “tough decisions about costs.”

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick wrote in a blog post that these two industries “create very few jobs compared to the incredible demands they place on our grid” and that the Texas Senate will take a closer look at the issue.

“I’m more interested in keeping the grid as low as possible for customers to serve customers in their homes, apartments, and regular businesses, rather than very niche industries that have large power demands and create few jobs,” Patrick said. he wrote. “We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild West data center and crypto mining where crypto miners crash our grid and turn out the lights.”

The Canadian province of British Columbia imposed an 18-month moratorium on new crypto mining operations in December 2022, citing the low number of jobs they create compared to high energy demand. A state court upheld the ban earlier this year (the moratorium is scheduled to expire by the end of July).

This all comes as Republican frontrunner Donald Trump doubles down on his support for the Bitcoin mining industry.

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump said, “Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against CBDC (Centralized Digital Currency). Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia and the radical communist left.” “We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE in the USA! This will help us dominate in ENERGY,” he said.