Ohio's policy sequence is the story. The state restricted wind and solar development through local-option legislation that gave communities veto power over renewable siting — a framework that looked like rural self-determination and functioned as a renewable blockade. Then the same state government spent years courting data centers with , landing Ohio in the top five nationally by data center count. The result is a grid that cannot absorb AI-scale electricity demand with anything other than the fossil generation it already runs. The…