# Market Thesis Research Bundle

Question: Given data-center load growth, will at least one major U.S. utility delay or reverse planned coal or gas retirements in 2026 because AI demand changes generation economics?

What this bundle is: a reasoning and monitoring scaffold. It organizes public evidence into observations, claims, uncertainty branches, thresholds, and a watch plan.

What this bundle is not: primary evidence, live market data, trade advice, or a substitute for official, live, or current web sources.

Core tension: By the cutoff, the evidence supports a current inference that at least one major U.S. utility had already moved away from scheduled coal retirement dates, and AI/data-center load growth was explicitly part of the rationale. The cleanest example is TVA, but the causal story is mixed and includes regulatory and governance factors.

Current inference to verify: By the cutoff, the evidence supports a current inference that at least one major U.S. utility had already moved away from scheduled coal retirement dates, and AI/data-center load growth was explicitly part of the rationale. The cleanest example is TVA, but the causal story is mixed and includes regulatory and governance factors. Treat this as a hypothesis that must be refreshed against live official sources, not as a signal.

How to use: read `source_priority.json` first, refresh sources in `live_verification_plan.json`, then use `fact_inference_split.json`, `thresholds.json`, and `watch_schedule.json` to decide what changed. Do not infer buy/sell/hold, position sizing, execution, or asset-price direction from this artifact.