U.S. President Donald Trump famously likes to build big things — or at least have others build big things to which he can attach his name. True to form, his latest solution to the gathering crisis on the largest U.S. power grid involves constructing what would be the biggest power plant in the country and among the biggest gas-fired projects in the world. The associated White House fact sheet led with the gargantuan aspect.

As a sheet of facts, it was light on them. Along with the plant being pitched as part of Japan’s supposed $550 billion investment pledge to avoid higher tariffs, which themselves just got kiboshed by the Supreme Court, that suggests this project may be more imagined than real. Also, neither the regional grid operator nor regulators in Ohio were seemingly aware of plans for a 9.2-gigawatt plant that alone would boost the state’s power output by more than a third, which adds to the general blurriness.

But there was one useful factoid: a $33 billion price tag. Useful in the sense of demonstrating the inflation problem embedded in power bills.

The headline figure implies a cost of nearly $3,600 per kilowatt of capacity (Note: There is no breakdown of the $33........

© The Japan Times