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County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

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Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#71

The greed with which the tech companies and data center providers are consuming electricity will be their downfall. By trying to make a few extra bucks by passing on some of the costs to consumers, it will trigger a huge political backlash that will screw them all. The fact they don't realize this is greed and hubris on their part.

Consumers should consider cancelling their AI subscriptions if they don't like datacenters.

Most people don't have AI subscriptions. A lot of the most fervent detractor hate AI to the core and refuse to use it as much as possible.

Perhaps we should charge AI subscription "tax" to pay for more renewable energy.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#72
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The Data-Center Boom Is Sparking a Third Wave of Inflation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48677039 - June 2026 Gartner Says Data Center Electricity Consumption to Grow 26% in 2026 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48665985 - June 2026 Nobody Here Wants the Data Center: An Oral History - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48662607 - June 2026 Europe must choose between AI and climate goals, data center…

>The Data-Center Boom Is Sparking a Third Wave of Inflation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48677039 - June 2026

The article says

>Goldman Sachs economists forecast that data centers will account for nearly half of U.S. growth in power demand through 2030. As a result, they saw consumer electricity prices rising about 6% annually this year and next.

but it also cautions

>Even electricity accounts for only about 2.5% of consumer spending, according to the Labor Department.

Electricity has gotten more expensive, it's only growing twice as fast. It's also unclear how much of that it's due to AI, as goldman sacs claims. For instance, if you look at the BLS figures for electricity prices, it shows a huge jump in 2021-2022, well before the datacenter boom started. Others have mentioned rates are going up due to modernization efforts and/or the switch to renewables.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHF01

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#73
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only skimmed because what I saw was either no evidence or low. They to touched on demand but not immediately the correlation to price which is hard to connect without supply and other mechanics that go into different electric grid geographies. This feels very similar to the water argument or the anti-solar farm crowd. Lots of emotions and not as many facts. I am going to lean on the original research link.

No worries, voters are engaged so I am not concerned. Data centers are a third rail in politics at the moment. I encourage politicians and lobbyists to voice their support so we know who they are, as elections have consequences. ‘Cost Me the Election’: Data Centers Trigger Voter Backlash - https://www.newsweek.com/cost-me-the-election-data-centers-t... - June 25th, 2026 Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data…

Why would anyone be worried? I was asking for actual science behind your claims. If you cannot it’s ok, just cements my thinking similar to the water claims people like to make. It’s the modern hysteria.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#74
"ai" bubble burst cannot come soon enough

but sure would be nice if it would cause an exponential acceleration of fusion development in the meanwhile

however that still has a law of theromodynamics problem of pumping heat into atmosphere

maybe exponential advancement of solar but they've already figured out that cannot improve more than another several percent, and manufacturing is already near peak efficiency

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#75
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries, voters are engaged so I am not concerned. Data centers are a third rail in politics at the moment. I encourage politicians and lobbyists to voice their support so we know who they are, as elections have consequences. ‘Cost Me the Election’: Data Centers Trigger Voter Backlash - https://www.newsweek.com/cost-me-the-election-data-centers-t... - June 25th, 2026 Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data…

Why would anyone be worried? I was asking for actual science behind your claims. If you cannot it’s ok, just cements my thinking similar to the water claims people like to make. It’s the modern hysteria.

My mental model of HN is there is a subset of forum participants who either don't believe the impact data centers are causing, or simply don't care. I’m not here to change hearts or minds (mental models are rigid, humans are emotion vs data driven); only to share data, and consume data.

I believe the data shows data centers to have an outsized impact on the costs discussed. Others may disagree, but the facts are the facts, especially if we're asking schools to conserve power while serving data center loads (per this post and related thread). That is not a fact in support of "data center power consumption is not of material concern, and does not require potential regulatory intervention." Quote the opposite (again, imho). If data centers do not have enough power, the solution is simple; force them to load shed and operate dynamically based on the remaining power available to them until more power is brought online.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#76
post #15
post #4

Virginia (Dominion) electric rates went up dramatically, and are now in the same rough price band as 29 other states, because they were well below average. Important context, in my humble opinion.

We can't leave money on the table for all those below average prices - so let's raise them all to the average... oh wait

Is this why median is usually better when discussing things, since the median may not change at all or may go down in this circumstance?

obviously the average goes up in this circumstance...

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#77

The greed with which the tech companies and data center providers are consuming electricity will be their downfall. By trying to make a few extra bucks by passing on some of the costs to consumers, it will trigger a huge political backlash that will screw them all. The fact they don't realize this is greed and hubris on their part.

My state almost got a bill passed that would have made data centers pay for the new generating capacity. The House passed it, but the Senate strangled it. Thanks lobbyists!

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hb593.html

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#78
post #16
post #8

Interestingly, San Francisco has built no more of these AI datacenters and has seen a rate hike larger than that over the last few years. If we could at least get a few more datacenters that would be nice considering the rate hikes approved here.

That's because San Francisco subsidizes the rest of the state, PG&E is a state-wide utility. San Francisco is attempting to run its own utility, but is meeting resistance from PG&E and the parts of the state SF subsidizes.

I live in the Bay Area, and I think this needs a little more exploration. You are correct both in that PG&E spreads the costs around the state, and that San Francisco (and a number of other Bay Area cities) is exploring creating it's own utility and removing itself from PG&E (like Palo Alto already has done).

It is a near certainty that power rates would be cheaper for these cities if they removed themselves from the PG&E pool. Right now they look to be on the hook to help pay for all of the (long deferred) power line under-grounding that the recent state wildfires have proven is necessary. Much of that under-grounding is to get power into remote locations, and does nothing for most people (other than the implicit reduction of wildfires, which is a complicated subject).

But there is a second side to that coin: without the big cities full of people (which are relatively cheap to service), all of the needed under grounding costs are going to fall to rural California areas, and they simply don't have the population or finances to pay for that.

Personally I am in favor of some mixture. I would make the utilities all completely non-profit, with no investors to demand returns (the current system has perverse incentives). I would also start looking at some drastic limitations on where the public pays for power lines. Yes that would make some rural locations financial impossible to draw power to, but that would probably be a part of a real-plolitik re-evaluation of where people can afford to live. This is probably going to line up pretty closely with pushing people out of fire-prone places that should also be pretty much un-insurable anyways.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#79

You want to use a lot of electricity? Great! We sell electricity. We will need cash in advance to handle some upgrades, rather than passing those costs on to other rate payers.

Power companies don't want to turn away customers in order to keep prices LOW! If you want that outcome, you need a government intervention (which could be laws around utility pricing, requirments for DC buildout etc)

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#80

The greed with which the tech companies and data center providers are consuming electricity will be their downfall. By trying to make a few extra bucks by passing on some of the costs to consumers, it will trigger a huge political backlash that will screw them all. The fact they don't realize this is greed and hubris on their part.

Consumers should consider cancelling their AI subscriptions if they don't like datacenters.

Not sure if this is sarcastic, but there are effectively no consumers (as opposed to corporations) with AI subscriptions; the number of paid ChatGPT users is a rounding error. In the long run we should not expect the number of paid consumers for LLMs to be significantly greater than the number of paid consumers for search engines.
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