It seems the root concern is possible threats to the grid. On July 22, 2026, a data center in Virginia did an unexpected shutdown, allegedly dumping more than 3 gigawatts nearly instantaneously onto the grid. I think the fear is that a coordinated attack which disconnected dozens or hundreds of datacenters at the exact same split second could overload the grid and cause some kind of grid crash. So, I presume the government is extrapolating from that to the possibility that lots of civilians are all connected, and you get a similar coordinated attack where the wattage spikes aggregate similarly.
However, instead of saying we can’t have nice things because of threats to the grid, why not build a grid that can withstand such an attack? This is where we seem to be on a downward spiral. Well, OK, who is on an upward spiral? China spent $60 Billion building a million+ voltage transmission network, so it can efficiently move solar and wind power from far away places to power its cities. Even though the West’s technology helped China build it , we have nothing comparable to that. Instead, we all know where the money is going.