Understanding How Data Centers Impact Texas

Keaton Peters will present on how data centers affect the power grid. He will explore questions that have come up in his extensive reporting on this topic. How much power will data centers need, and how are they trying to get it? Who pays for new power infrastructure? How do data centers use water? What has happened when data centers move in near residential areas? And what could happen if the stock market’s ‘AI bubble’ starts to burst? The presentation will explain why these questions matter and provide unbiased facts that will allow anyone joining to come to their own well-informed conclusions.

Keaton Peters is an energy reporter for Straight Arrow News. He brings a narrative-driven flair to energy coverage after spending several years as a freelance journalist. His first spark of interest in journalism came when Peters was a copy editor for his undergraduate student newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley during a period of rigorous debate about the role of the media and free speech on campus. His interests were forged into serious journalistic know-how as a reporting fellow with the Texas Tribune in 2023. Since then, his freelance work has run in numerous online publications, newspapers and magazines including Texas Monthly and High Country News. In 2025, he was recognized as an energy journalism fellow by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, which selected him as one of 20 up-and-coming reporters around the world.

Originally from a tiny mountain town in Alpine County, California, Peters now reports from Austin, Texas, where he earned a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Outside of the newsroom, he plays guitar in a local rock band, runs marathons, bakes sourdough bread and enjoys spending free time with his wife and their cats.