> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://core-sector.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # ▫️ Berkeley Lab Counted the Power Projects Waiting to Reach the Grid. - URL: https://core-sector.ghost.io/berkeley-lab-counted-the-power-projects-waiting-to-reach-the-grid/ - Published: 2026-08-26T13:33:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-28T17:03:47.000Z - Description: About 8,200 of them, and the median wait to switch on now runs past five years. - Author: Marcus Grant - Tags: deep dive, #beehiiv, #Migrated-1787936590251, #Import 2026-08-28 17:03 ![Logo core sector](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/header_1-t-1769531909-4.png) ## ▫️ THE CORE TOPIC Everything scarce gets rationed. The only open question is by which of the two available methods. Either the price rises until enough buyers step aside, or the price is held still and people wait instead. Both hand out the same limited supply. They differ in who ends up carrying the cost. American electricity is currently rationed the second way. At the end of 2025 roughly [8,200 projects were actively seeking](https://emp.lbl.gov/queues?utm%5Fsource=core-sector.beehiiv.com&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=berkeley-lab-counted-the-power-projects-waiting-to-reach-the-grid) connection to the transmission grid, representing 1,312 gigawatts of generation and 749 gigawatts of storage, and for projects finished in 2025 the median wait from application to switch-on ran past five years. No sum of money moves a project up that list. Position was fixed the day the request was filed. Warnings about what the next few years hold are arriving from every direction at the moment. Whatever the particular claim, the machinery underneath is always the same one. Something runs short, and the shortage reaches you either as a price or as a wait. ## ▫️ THE MECHANISM Two rationing methods, four differences that matter. - **A price sorts by willingness, a queue sorts by patience.** One asks who values the thing most in money. The other asks who can afford to wait longest, which is a different question with different winners. - **Queues appear wherever the price is not allowed to move.** In 1973 Congress ordered mandatory allocation of petroleum products [in amounts and at prices](https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/senate-bill/1570?utm%5Fsource=core-sector.beehiiv.com&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=berkeley-lab-counted-the-power-projects-waiting-to-reach-the-grid) set by regulation. Once the number is fixed by rule, the waiting does the work the price used to do. - **The wait is a real cost that nobody records.** Five years of a project sitting still is capital earning nothing, but it never appears as a price anywhere, so it never enters the argument. - **A queue conceals the shortage rather than signalling it.** A rising price advertises scarcity and pulls in new supply. A line just grows longer, and nothing announces it. So when somebody tells you a price is about to move sharply, strip away the specifics and one claim remains: a queue somewhere is about to give way. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/two_counters_-_logo-png-t-1787673036.jpg) ## ▫️ THE CASE FILE The plainest American demonstration ran in 1979\. Iranian output fell by [4.8 million barrels per day](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1978-79?utm%5Fsource=core-sector.beehiiv.com&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=berkeley-lab-counted-the-power-projects-waiting-to-reach-the-grid), around 7 percent of world production, after the revolution there. That shortfall was national. What followed was not. Reviewing the year afterwards, government auditors recorded that Washington-area motorists [had to sit in lines](https://www.gao.gov/products/emd-80-70?utm%5Fsource=core-sector.beehiiv.com&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=berkeley-lab-counted-the-power-projects-waiting-to-reach-the-grid) at service stations and change their driving habits, while other parts of the country had less severe supply problems. The barrels did not choose Washington. The allocation formula did. Same shortage, same country, same week, and the experience of it depended entirely on which set of rules governed the pump you happened to drive up to. ## ▫️ THE PRESSURE TEST - **Queues are not automatically a failure.** Emergency rooms and transplant lists allocate by need on purpose, and nobody proposes auctioning either. - **Prices ration by wealth.** Letting a market clear means the households with the least money step aside first, and that is a real cost. - **Not every wait is policy.** Some queues are physical. A transformer takes as long as it takes, and no price shortens the build. - **A place in line can itself be valuable.** Where positions are transferable, the early filing becomes an asset, and a second market forms. Which is why it matters what quotes and what does not. Ask what an ounce of gold is worth and the answer returns in a second, from a market that never stopped bidding. That says nothing about tomorrow. It says only that one holding reports where you stand, and the other tells you to keep waiting. ## ▫️ AUTHOR'S LENS | Most of my working life has been spent around the second method without anyone naming it. Allocations, priority lists, approved counterparties, who gets shown the deal first. None of it is priced, all of it decides outcomes.I have learned to ask which mechanism I am actually standing in. If the price can move, I read the price. If it cannot, I read the waiting list, because that is where the shortage went.Build the structure. Ignore the noise. | ![Marcus Grant](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/for_lens_-t-1769788746-3.png) | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ## ▫️ PAST ISSUES ![▪️ The Treasury Made an Announcement Wednesday. Gold Noticed Immediately.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/four_weights-1.jpg) ![▫️ The Senate Called Its Final Report "Crisis Averted." Others Called It Waste.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/the_idle_engine-jpeg.jpg) ![▫️ The SEC Took Three Months to Work Out What Broke the Market.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8c/09/8c09bf02-2863-4e2f-9427-328b96b722da/content/images/2026/08/one_narrow_chute-jpeg.jpg) ###### Click to access past briefings, conclusions, and charts. Analytics updated weekly for structural analysis and market understanding. [Click here](https://core-sector.beehiiv.com/?ref=core-sector.ghost.io)