March 13, 2025 - The head of West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation sounded the alarm Tuesday, warning attendees of a Murray-Calloway County Chamber of Commerce lunch that the nation’s energy supply will not be able to keep up with demand in the coming years. 

The chamber invited WKRECC President and CEO David Smart and Murray Electric System General Manager Tony Thompson to speak at the event, but Thompson could not attend due to illness. Smart said he had come to deliver a “reality check,” saying that he believed an inability to meet electricity demands would inevitably lead to rolling blackouts in the not-too-distant future.

“We're not going to have enough power to keep the lights on for your house,” Smart said. “We're going to have to do rolling blackouts, where we're going to have to turn you off, and I want to talk about why and how we got there and make you all aware that this is indeed a crisis that we are facing. This is not a political speech. I am not a Democrat or a Republican; however, the policies of the two parties do play into some of the stuff that is going to be talked about today.”

West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation President and CEO David Smart speaks Tuesday at a Murray-Calloway County Chamber of Commerce lunch about the energy crisis facing the nation.
 

Photo: HAWKINS TEAGUE / Ledger & Times

Smart’s presentation – much of which was reported last year in the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives-sponsored Kentucky Living magazine – was titled “Gambling With the Grid.” He said that up until now, the United States has had the most reliable electric grid in the world, but the growing electric vehicle (EV) and artificial intelligence (AI) industries will drastically increase power demands, and the nation’s current renewable energy sources are woefully inadequate to keep up. Smart said this is why always-available resources like natural gas and coal continue to be a critical source of electricity.

“We're going to ‘electrify’ the economy,” Smart said. “We're going to have electric vehicles, we’re going to build all these … data centers that are going to mine for artificial intelligence. We do cryptocurrency mining now, and a lot of different things that require a large amount of electricity, but at the same time, there are rules that are being forced on the generation companies in America by the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, that are closing down some of our base load units like coal and natural gas.”

Smart said that before Donald Trump took office in January, the Biden administration had been pushing renewable resources like wind and solar power. However, he said that less than 5% of the nation’s total energy supply  comes from solar. 

“So all the money that's been pumped at solar for the last 20 years, all the tax credits and everything, has led to less than 5% of the generation of electricity in America coming from solar,” Smart said. “As a matter of fact, if you wanted to replace one nuclear power plant, it would take the whole Napa Valley covered in solar panels to replace one plant. It's just not realistic to be able to do it.”

WKRECC and Murray Electric System both get their electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, and while the TVA is trying to build more facilities, Smart said it takes seven years to open build and open a natural gas-fired plant. For a nuclear plant, he said, it takes 13 years to secure a permit before a company can even start building. Smart reiterated that this long length of time is due to the regulations in place, and he said it is going to be very difficult for regional power generators like TVA to keep up with demand for their own customers as technology companies continue to expand their reach. 

“So it's not an easy fix,” Smart said. “TVA relies on the market (to meet demand), and this past January … our coldest day at West Kentucky, when we hit our peak, TVA had to get 9,000 megawatts from the market because they don't have the generation. So what do you think is going to happen when Amazon and Google start competing for that market power that TVA is paying for? I can assure you, they're willing to pay more than TVA is, and if they're not willing to pay more, who's going to pay that? All of you. There's no other way around it, because TVA is four or five years still from having enough generation on their own to meet their own demand today. But their demand today is going up exponentially.”

Smart said that while he couldn’t speak for other industries Trump’s policies are good for the energy industry, and WKRECC was pleased that the administration declared a national energy emergency shortly after taking office.

“Hallelujah,” Smart said. “We've been preaching for the last 10 years that we're going to run out of power, especially if you keep closing power plants. And finally, we’ve got somebody's ear that's listening. He declared a national emergency. The shift from Biden's energy policy, which emphasized renewable with stringent environmental relations, to Trump, which prioritizes fossil fuel expansion and deregulation, represents a dramatic change. 

“The problem is, these companies are making 50-year asset decisions. When TVA makes a decision to build a natural gas plant or any kind of a power plant, it's generally got a 50-year life expectancy. But every four years, the policy changes on them, so they can't come in and make a decision today based on Trump's policies. … How do you make 50-year asset decisions when it's changing over and over and over, from a political landscape? We need revisions to our energy policy in America. It has to be firm and it has to stand.”

Smart encouraged people to speak to their legislators about supporting sustainable energy policies. While there might not be a whole lot one can do as an individual, he said it is still very important to be responsible and keep a close eye on your family’s usage, especially with rising costs coming.

“You know, TVA went up 10% last year,” he said. “This is only the beginning. You need to be taking every step you can to make your homes more efficient, to figure out ways to try to minimize your electric consumption. It is going to keep going up, and it's not because of anything TVA did. It's not because of anything West Kentucky Rural Electric did. It is the dynamics of the legislation and the regulation that are coming at these generation companies and requiring them to spend all these big dollars. Whatever TVA spends is divided among 10 million people, simple as that, and you're part of the 10 million.”