Energizing AI: Constellation on Nuclear’s Renaissance and Power Markets

With AI, data centers, and electrification are driving a surge in electricity demand, the pressure is on to keep America’s power grid reliable and affordable. The real question is whether we’ll meet this moment with competitive, market-driven investment – or shift the risk and the cost back onto consumers. 

In this episode of Energy Solutions, EPSA President and CEO Todd Snitchler sits down with Mason Emnett, Senior Vice President of Public Policy at Constellation Energy, the nation’s largest nuclear power plant operator and largest private-sector power producer. 

They discuss what’s really behind today’s energy demand forecasts, why misunderstanding new load profiles can lead to costly overreactions, what the Crane Clean Energy Center restart tells us about the future of nuclear power, what’s happening in PJM, and why competitive markets – where investors bear the risk, not consumers – matter more than ever as the U.S. enters a new era of electricity growth. 

Topics include: 

• Why AI and data centers are changing electricity demand, 
• The biggest misunderstandings about new load growth, 
• Who should bear the risk when demand forecasts or projects are wrong, 
• How competitive markets protect consumer from risk better than vertically-integrated models, 
• What the Crane Clean Energy Center restart means for nuclear’s future, 
• How permitting, interconnection, and market reform can unlock private investment, 
• What Maryland’s CPCN process reveals about state energy policy choices, 
• And why abandoning competition would raise costs and slow progress. 

Host: Todd Snitchler, President and CEO, EPSA 

Guest: Mason Emnett, Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Constellation Energy 

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Chapters

• 0:00 America’s Power Demand Is Growing
• 2:28 A New Era for Constellation
• 3:19 Are Demand Forecasts Getting Ahead of Reality?
• 7:22 Who Bears the Risk When We Get It Wrong?
• 8:24 What the Data Says About Competition and Costs
• 12:58 How Constellation Invests in Reliability
• 15:07 Inside PJM: Markets, Price Signals, and Political Pressures
• 18:27 The Crane Clean Energy Center Restart
• 26:19 Can Nuclear Work in Competitive Markets?
• 30:45 Maryland’s CPCN Process and the Menu of Options
• 37:05 What’s Slowing Everything Down
• 38:40 The Big Picture: Don’t Walk Away From Competition