61–70 of 132 posts
It's important to ground the increase in raw numbers. The total revenue for electricity generation was $514b in 2024. So this was a 4-5% increase in costs. And if it is being invested in better generation and our aging infrastructure, that seems fine.
> But what if the power company needs to upgrade the substation to handle the increased needs of the data center? Or secure additional sources of electricity? In these cases, the investments are part of the electricity grid that everyone uses. These costs will likely be shared among all customers. Okay but this is a policy choice. It doesn’t have to be that way.
In the US this isn't even true. The costs of grid upgrades are paid new capacity up front, which actually means there is a queue for grid connections twice the US total production, with no costs to ongoing customers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really tired of reading comments like this"this is a policy choice" when these companies are straight up bribing politicians or exploiting their conflicts of interest to make this their policy. The public doesn't have a choice when all our leaders are bought and paid for by oligarchs and their businesses.
Comments like this are even more tiring. Everyone knows that there are moneyed interests in politics. But decisions on these issues are made at a local level and so are the most addressable by local political actions.
It's important to ground the increase in raw numbers. The total revenue for electricity generation was $514b in 2024. So this was a 4-5% increase in costs. And if it is being invested in better generation and our aging infrastructure, that seems fine.
Sure, but why should regular people pay for the upgrades needed to power data centers? The tech companies can surely afford that easily given their record profits for the past decade?
It's important to ground the increase in raw numbers. The total revenue for electricity generation was $514b in 2024. So this was a 4-5% increase in costs. And if it is being invested in better generation and our aging infrastructure, that seems fine.
The fact they gave a raw number instead of a percent of a quantity that is a change hinted that this was the case. $23B is more impressive than 4%.
Data centers should at the very least build their own renewable energy generation. It would set the right incentives in place and encourage investment in clean energy generation solutions. It would also present a very compelling problem to direct all that new AI compute towards solving.
I'm 100% on board with charging data centers more for their power usage. They can afford to pay the extra costs. They would much rather pay in dollars vs. in time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really tired of reading comments like this"this is a policy choice" when these companies are straight up bribing politicians or exploiting their conflicts of interest to make this their policy. The public doesn't have a choice when all our leaders are bought and paid for by oligarchs and their businesses.
Comments like this are even more tiring. Everyone knows that there are moneyed interests in politics. But decisions on these issues are made at a local level and so are the most addressable by local political actions.
And I mean this as in, local government ostensibly representing the community are also the land owners and contractors selling to developers, who can't be voted out of office until next year at the earliest and whose contracts and permits can't be revoked by a subsequent administration.
How exactly are you supposed to stop that?
It's important to ground the increase in raw numbers. The total revenue for electricity generation was $514b in 2024. So this was a 4-5% increase in costs. And if it is being invested in better generation and our aging infrastructure, that seems fine.
It's important to ground the increase in raw numbers. The total revenue for electricity generation was $514b in 2024. So this was a 4-5% increase in costs. And if it is being invested in better generation and our aging infrastructure, that seems fine.
If.