Ben Inskeep

Environmental, Consumer Groups Challenge Trump’s Unlawful Coal Plant Extensions Extending the lives of unreliable, dirty, and expensive coal plants hurts consumers

Find a link to our filing and more information here: earthjustice.org/press/2026/e...

📰Update: Citizens Action Coalition and other organizations, represented by Earthjustice, have filed a challenge to overturn the illegal DOE orders that directed NIPSCO and CenterPoint to keep unreliable, dilapidated coal plants open and raise our rates to pay for them.

My thoughts:

New: Our analysis finds Big Tech is planning nearly 11,000 MW of AI data centers at 10 locations in Indiana. (There are 40+ non-Big Tech data center proposals, too.)

Each Big Tech data center will receive 🚨billions🚨 in subsidies under our lucrative sales tax exemption.

Link: t.co/Ij9diZXFdr

Cut through the noise on AI data centers by joining experts, including myself, today at 11:30am for a webinar on their impacts.

I will present on the energy, sustainability, and affordability impacts of the 49 AI data centers proposed in Indiana, based on our research.

t.co/Ij9diZXFdr

Nationally, the cost of natural gas power plants has been rapidly increasing.

In Indiana, the cost of IMPA's 260-MW combustion turbine coming online in 2028 has increased from an estimated $337.9 million ($1,300/kW) to $464.4 million ($1,785/kW), a 37% budget increase since the project was approved by state regulators in April 2025. iurc.portal.in.gov/docketed-cas...

Join me and other experts on January 21 for a webinar on how AI data centers impact our energy ⚡️, water🌊, and communities🏘️.

I'll provide an update on the ~50 proposals in Indiana and their impacts to energy & affordability.

purdue-edu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Trump’s DOE Issues Additional Orders to Illegally Force Indiana Coal Plants to Keep Burning Coal The Trump Administration delivers coal for the holidays and higher electricity bills

Link to Earthjustice press release, including a quote from me: earthjustice.org/press/2025/t...

Link to DOE orders:
(1) www.energy.gov/ceser/federa...
(2) t.co/5PpXiNUAWv

It is particularly frustrating to see that NIPSCO has been colluding with the federal government since at least August 2025 to find ways to extend the life of Schahfer, while telling stakeholders it would retire the plant this year.

YouTube video by IURC State of Indiana 2025 Winter Reliability Forum

Earlier this month, NIPSCO said Schahfer Unit 18 has been in extended outage and would take more than 6 months to repair and rebuild to be able to reliably run it for an extended period of time. youtube.com/watch?v=bCzALF4V45M&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE

Another problem? These are some of the most inefficient and least reliable power plants.

In fact, Schahfer Unit 18 is so unreliable that it broke down nearly six months ago and has been in an extended *outage* since then! iurc.portal.in.gov/docketed-cas...

🚨NEW🚨: DOE has issued illegal orders forcing two Indiana coal plants, Culley Unit 2 (CenterPoint) and Schahfer Units 17 and 18 (NIPSCO), to stay open.

Both were scheduled to retire at the end of this month.

These costly orders will raise our bills. We can't afford this!

I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

We have been advocating most of these things in our testimony on energy affordability.

But what does the first item about line extensions refer to?

How Your Private ChatGPT And Gemini Chats Are ‘Sold For Profit’ These Chrome extensions see everything — and take everything. It may already be too late.

we're gonna need a bigger face-eating leopard.🫩

"...your AI assistant is not your friend, it's not your financial adviser and it's certainly not your doctor or your therapist. It's someone else's computer, stacked in a data center, sucking up energy and water."

www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...

4 of 92 counties have now enacted data center moratoriums in Indiana

Link: t.co/JhpYYmgAGd

Ben Inskeep on X: "🔴NEW INDY DATA CENTER PROPOSAL🔴 Sabey Corp. is proposing a 250-MW data center, which could lead to soaring AES Indiana rates, skyrocketing pollution, and harms to our community. Their website is slick, but full of unsubstantiated claims. Let's examine a few of them 🧵 https://t.co/LH0rFcGYK6" / X 🔴NEW INDY DATA CENTER PROPOSAL🔴 Sabey Corp. is proposing a 250-MW data center, which could lead to soaring AES Indiana rates, skyrocketing pollution, and harms to our community. Their website is slick, but full of unsubstantiated claims. Let's examine a few of them 🧵 https://t.co/LH0rFcGYK6

Sabey Corp. is proposing a 250-MW data center on the southside of Indianapolis. x.com/Ben_Inskeep/...

More than 400 people turned up to a data center developer's open house earlier this week in Indianapolis. 👀

Hoosiers are fed up with AI data centers steamrolling their way into our communities and cutting secret backroom deals with utilities & decisionmakers.

Most states don’t disclose which companies get data center incentives, report finds • Kentucky Lantern Most states offering incentives to data centers don’t disclose which companies benefit, according to a new report.

Most states offering incentives to data centers, including Kentucky, don’t disclose which companies benefit, according to a new report.

@stateline.org

kentuckylantern.com/2025/11/17/m...

Photo by Wildstyle Paschall on November 17, 2025. May be an image of text that says 'ALERT 24 4HOUR HOUR VIDEO URNEILLANCE RVTILLANG CC Ho CИT OOH MLATUCSLAS ពត DATA PATALENTER [ENTER DATA CENTER N DUMPING VIOLATORS WILLBE PROSECUTED ng ngorAIR our AIR un invstraint Comrrinity Brightuen NO DATA Center NO DATA CENTER AL1317HIPHOP'.

Photo by Wildstyle Paschall on November 17, 2025. May be an image of one or more people, crowd and text that says 'mo III AeHT 1 24HOUR SUTWVOLLANC STVOL ANCE RAEA DATA CINTER NO DUMPING VIGLATORS DE MILLBE PROSECUTED NO DATA Center ស្ងេត") NO DATA CENTER ALL317HIPHOP'.

Photo by Wildstyle Paschall on November 17, 2025. May be an image of crowd and text.

Photo by Wildstyle Paschall on November 17, 2025. May be an image of text.

Martindale-Brightwood Press Conference

Community leaders blasted MetroBloks and vowed to keep fighting (the data center company) for offering their community:
- a "pocket park" (In a neighborhood full of real parks)
- a mural
- vague promises of job training […]

[Original post on threads.com]

🎶 old mcdonald replaced his farm with an energy intensive data center, a i a i o 🎶

A new unifying issue: Just about everyone hates data centers • Michigan Advance This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. It’s not a nove...

michiganadvance.com/2025/11/15/a...

HEART-WARMING🥰: A new unifying issue: Just about everyone hates AI data centers.

“The MAGA crowd and the Bernie bros have both figured out that they’ve been getting duped,” said
Kerwin Olson of CAC.

Opposition is widespread across political affiliation & geography.

maybe some people don't think our goal as a society should be more efficiently computed slop from a plagiarism machine that jacks up our utility bills while poisoning the environment and making us dumber

CAC has intervened and will be thoroughly reviewing the filing to ensure ratepayers are protected. Link to the docket: iurc.portal.in.gov/docketed-cas...

NIPSCO is proposing to make the data center customer pay for transmission upgrades needed to serve the data center.

In contrast, Indiana utility I&M is forcing its captive ratepayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in transmission upgrades for Big Tech data centers.