From Distortion to Corridor: Why Trusted Governance Is the Missing Link in America’s Energy Future

Greene Financial Advisory

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“AI isn’t just software; it’s a hardware problem measured in megawatts” - Nomi Prins

Read Nomi’s piece: AI’s Grid Reckoning — and Why a Nuclear Resurgence Is Inevitable (Prinsights)

AI’s Grid Reckoning (& Why a Nuclear Renaissance Can Save It)

The Energy Appetite No One’s Ready For

Data centers are arriving faster than new baseload can be built. We can debate timelines for fusion, but right now only nuclear can anchor scale and stability.

But energy hardware is only half the story. Minerals and materials — uranium, lithium, copper, and rare earths — determine who actually gets to build and who sits out.

Supply chains are not spreadsheets; they’re corridors. Without trusted corridors, grand policy collapses into friction, higher costs, and delay.

The Governance Gap (Where Things Break)

We don’t lose the race because we lack engineers or capital. We lose because governance is weak at the handoff:

- Upstream: promising resources, unstable contracts.
- Midstream: processing is concentrated in adversarial jurisdictions.
- Downstream: OEMs can’t sign long-term offtake on shaky compliance.

Result: distortion — price distortions, policy distortions, and timelines that never arrive.