Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares a National Emergency to Secure America’s Bulk-Power System

[u/tetaniclemur]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-a-national-emergency-to-secure-americas-bulk-power-system/

[u/MKUltra1976]

Don't forget the unknown effects of SSTI torsional interactions with the generators based on the AI loads / data centers.

We don't know what we don't know.

Who knows what is coming.

[u/wolpertingersunite → u/MKUltra1976]

This is r/politics. Please ELI5 “sSTI torsional interactions”.

[u/OneRougeRogue → u/wolpertingersunite]

Its very very complicated, but basically turbines do not generate power completely smoothly. A lot of thought and planning needs to be done to make sure everything is in sync with the frequency of the grid, and when the grid is rapidly expanded and new turbines (gas generators) are quickly added, there can be situations where what is almost like a low frequency harmonic forms within the grid (but with electricity instead of sound, and by "low frequency" I mean many times a second, but less than 60htz). This harmonic causes literal physical stress and wear on every turbine on the grid, and with the massive datacenter expansion that's going on there have already been cases where turbines have failed 1/3rd-1/4th of the way into their expected lifespan. Not much research has been done into how or why this harmonic forms and how damaging it actually is, because we only recently started slapping down gigawatts of gas generated power that get turned on and off based on unpredictable loads.

That's the gist of it.

[u/Decision_Original → u/OneRougeRogue]

To add on, historically the only loads (a load is anything you plug in at your house) that could cause these stress issues on generator shafts were electric arc furnaces which were not trying to be built everywhere and the arc furnaces only caused this issue during start up.

AI data centers running in “training” mode do this due having large load fluctuations  and unlike an electric arc furnaces which which would do this for minutes at start up only a few times a day at most (I believe during shift changes at the plant) they can do it hourly.

Because the Eastern, western, and ERCOT interconnections all run in synchronism (load and generation have to be equal in real time to maintain 60 hz electricity across the interconnection) a bunch of these AI data centers in training mode in a given interconnection could cause havoc on generation in those interconnections.

This is a major issue being dealt with across the industry all while these AI data centers and still being built and connected to the transmission system.

[u/Minimum_Nothing_9039 → u/Decision_Original]

And I'm sure these companies are kicking in their fair share of resources and ingenuity to combat this in the name of American Patriotism. Right? Right????

[u/wolpertingersunite → u/OneRougeRogue]

Wow that's fascinating! Thanks for explaining. Who would have thought. Just goes to remind us of the importance of unappreciated expertise.

[u/Parsimile → u/wolpertingersunite]

I just looked this up bc I didn’t understand the phrase either.

From my non-expert read of the information SSTI occurs when mechanical oscillations from a turbine attached to a generator interact with electrical frequencies of the power system coupled to the generator. This interaction causes a positive-feedback loop of increasing oscillations that can damage the turbine-generator shaft, the turbine, and the generator.

The way I’m imagining it is:

Think of the central shaft coming out of a water wheel and connecting it to a grist mill inside a building.

Now imagine inputs from the grist mill and the water wheel interact in a way that causes the central shaft to begin bouncing and twisting at an ever increasing rate and magnitude until it eventually destroys the wheel, the mill, and itself.

[u/Mypizzasareinmotion → u/Parsimile]

This was a great true ELI5

[u/cgarret3 → u/MKUltra1976]

Yup. Head of the CIA just took a personal trip to speak to russian intelligence. Just chatted about standard things though, totally normal, nbd