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Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

fortune.com

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Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#91

Post by hereme888 »

gruez wrote: post #24

Isn't almost all of the datacenter build out for inference, rather than training? If so, what's the issue? If the electricity demand is coming from actual use, then why are people getting mad at datacenters or AI companies, rather than the actual people driving the demand? It's like getting mad at Amazon for how much they increased fuel prices, which they surely did, given all the fuel that their trucks/planes burn.…

Bruh.... I've climbed those acai trees with locals in Brazil, and when I saw the thickness and richness of real, purely ground acai, and the dilute garbage (cough sambazon cough) they sell in the US, and mentioned how much it costs in the US.... the guy froze and thought he misheard me. A local friend turned and warned me "don't tell them that, because it'll create frustration and anger he can't do anything about."

They just run to the local store after manually grinding it in their machines, and get peanuts for a bag that would sell for >$100 in the US.

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#92

Post by mukbangpervert »

daedrdev wrote: post #44
m-hodges wrote: post #4

> 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.

Your post is largely false, and quite confused.

Grid upgrade costs are frequently socialized onto existing customers, especially for larger upgrades. Your central premise that interconnect charges cover everything is false.

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#93

Post by blackqueeriroh »

duped wrote: post #68
abduhl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my area there is quite a lot of mobilized anti-data center action that is completely ineffective. There is no legal way to remove corrupt local politicians from office that prevents the harm from being done. 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 an…

You’re not. You’re reaping the consequences of your previous decisions as a community.

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#95

Post by doikor »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #86
mukbangpervert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how about this framing (using your own numbers): for every dollar a datacenter is charged for electricity, regular hard-working Americans get charged $2.

Well, I think some of those hardworking Americans would be happy to pay some of those $2 because otherwise all the SaaS services and other services, platforms, and tools running in datacenters wouldn’t be accessible to them. Or did I read this wrong and somewhere it said only datacenters running inference or training for LLMs?

The thing people are pissed about is giving better rates to datacenters.

Compare this to most of Europe (and Texas if I understood correctly) where the detacenters buy their electricity from the same market as everyone else (in Europe the spot market or futures) meaning they effectively pay the same price as everyone else.

It’s when they do some back room deal with the local public utility to get 50% off and offload the real costs to the public when people get angry.

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#96

Post by [deleted] »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #86
mukbangpervert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how about this framing (using your own numbers): for every dollar a datacenter is charged for electricity, regular hard-working Americans get charged $2.

Well, I think some of those hardworking Americans would be happy to pay some of those $2 because otherwise all the SaaS services and other services, platforms, and tools running in datacenters wouldn’t be accessible to them. Or did I read this wrong and somewhere it said only datacenters running inference or training for LLMs?

[deleted]

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#98

Post by datadrivenangel »

mukbangpervert wrote: post #85
njovin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First they gave all the water away for free to big ag, and now they're doing the same with the power.

When they gave water to big ag, we got to buy food. With this, we pay extra to lose our jobs.

The ag water was used to grow hay which was shipped to China and Brazil...

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#99

Post by km3r »

rapidaneurism wrote: post #87
ip26 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “affordable” housing thing seems like such a misdirection. I can’t help but daydream that some moneyed interest somewhere fans those flames, as it looks like a dead end that can absorb endless fervor. You know what you do if you want an affordable car? You buy used. I think most people understand Ford is never going to build another a car that costs $10k brand new, and the last new car near that price barely sold…

If a gornment changed policy to make houses depreciate like cars, it would not be a government for long. And the car analogy is n9t fitting, unless we talk about cars bundled with the parking spot. But then they would not depreciate that much, and the banger with a parking spot in Manhattan would cost more than the Ferrari that could only park in shitsville.

The property a home sits on and the property a car sits on would depreciate the same.

But in reality neither has to depreciate, just stop growing at these insane rates. Below the cost of inflation, until the average worker can afford a home again.

Re: Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B

#100

Post by beepbooptheory »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #88
khriss wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because they like shopping on Amazon and watching Netflix?

But like, just hypothetically here, what if they don't? Isn't that the framing here?

Like, don't get me wrong, if we want to start talking about more centralized organization of the economy that operates on the calculated total benefit it provides to people in general, I am personally all for that. But something tells me that is not quite the argument you are wanting to make here, right?

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