Ground Truth: The Interconnection Queue

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.BLUE COLLAR AND BOUJIE — GROUND TRUTH Episode 1: The Interconnection QueueBoujie mentioned a number this week — 474 gigawatts of large-load connection requests backed up in Texas, roughly 90% of it tied to data centers. Wade takes it apart.WHAT'S COVEREDThe Number — Why "474 gigawatts" isn't the number you think it is, and what ERCOT itself is actually tracking versus what got audited, paused, and questioned along the way.The Machine — What an interconnection queue actually is, why "driveway vs. highway" explains more than most headlines do, and why a request and a delivery can share the same units and still not be the same thing.The Bottleneck — Why this isn't just a paperwork problem. A real look at the specialized labor shortage nobody mentions, and the difference between a money wall and a people-and-process wall — a distinction worth keeping for literally any ambitious plan you'll ever hear about.The History — Why Texas built its grid the way it did in the 1930s, what that decision has to do with a data center in 2026, and how the exact same independence that's pulling companies to Texas also nearly took the whole grid down in 2021.The Actual Lesson — The number is never the lie. The silence about which stage it's describing usually is.P.S. — Made with AI. Wade did the reading so you don't have to, though if you actually want to read ERCOT's own filings for fun, no judgment, but maybe talk to someone. Nothing here is financial, legal, or grid-engineering advice — for that last one, ERCOT genuinely does have people whose whole job this is.