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EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

epa.gov

41–50 of 264 posts

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#41
post #27

What a disgrace. Abysmal leadership in this country.

This seems pretty inline with our leadership tho. This country has always put profits above people.

Allowing more carbon dioxide sources is going to be distinctly harmful to profits in the mid-term. As with racial bias, strict gender roles, anti-vaxxing, and being anti-science, being pro-carbon burn is ultimately a foolish anti-truth stance as silly and ill-outcomed as any three year old insisting that they can stay up all night.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#42
post #19

How the fuck does anyone still support these world destroying assholes.

Everyone is doing it all around you. We can mostly blame the people who make AI but we also have to blame everyone who’s using it. We can boycott AI until they make it safe and clean to use. Until then, everyone’s to blame that uses it or builds it.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#43

There are big benefits to having power generation grid connected. It is more reliable (due to many possible generation sources). It is more eco-friendly (solar in daytime, wind when the wind blows). It is more cost efficient (no need to overbuild for peak usage, generators don't sit idle when computers are off for maintenance). Yet our electricity grid has such a mass of regulations attached that people are choosing…

That's partly a result of having 50 states writing laws for themselves instead having all statues living under federal laws for everything. The line between what is acceptable to be regulated by federal laws and what is not is something I, not being a lawyer, have never studied. Power and water type utilities does feel like it might be something that could benefit from same rules/regulations every where, but basing r…

For the most part power grids are federally regulated. The exception is Texas because they are self-contained and don't cross state lines

States rights is not why there are issues with the power grid

EDIT: I should add, states DO also regulate electric utilities but generally that is around local issues like charging rates to customers. the bulk electric system (transmission and generation) is largely the domain of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#44

EPA guidance source document https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-07/epa-issue...

Thank you. This seems like a pretty straight-forward clarification of current law. The current thread title (OP said taken from Reuters) saying this side-steps the law seems misleading.

Are they clarifying? It reads to me like they are making up an exception for data centers out of thin air.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#45
What's frustrating is that the title in this thread is very misleading. This is the way the laws have been: Separate laws for generators feeding into the grid.

Why this is, I don't know. I suspect it's because the vast, vast, majority of non-connected generators were, (until now,) backup generators that only ran occasionally. I even have a "fancy" portable generator in my garage that probably emits way more pollution per kwh than a typical fossil fuel plant, but I probably only run it ~10 hours a year at most.

What's more disappointing is that this loophole is being promoted instead of closed; but everyone here seems to think that laws were weakened.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#46
post #32

Let this sink in. Nobody cares about you and your children. They don’t care about the planet. These people are sociopaths. A lot of you work for these people. And a lot of you should stop working for these people. And if you’re using AI, you should stop using AI and you should make your boycott vocal. This is not about Trump. This is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is about people who have the money who cont…

I don't really care about 'future & children', but even I find this absurd.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#47

Its for the greater good. Net benefit would still be in data centers favour, as AI replaces useless office workers, it will lower carbon footprint of all those people commuting by car / needing to work in cities. More people living in nature in the country side, doing something productive in the new economy, growing their food. Just invest in banks, to ride out the transition.

None of what you say is true to real life

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#48

> Clean Air Act (CAA) Acid Rain Program (ARP) does not apply to power generation facilities that are not connected to a public electricity grid, commonly referred to as “islanded” power generation facilities. This of course makes no sense whatever, as whether or not a power generator is connected to the grid has nothing to do with its environmental impact.

Pretty insane, expect data center to be data center + coal power plant soon, why bother with generators or the pesky local grid.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#49
post #41
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems pretty inline with our leadership tho. This country has always put profits above people.

Allowing more carbon dioxide sources is going to be distinctly harmful to profits in the mid-term. As with racial bias, strict gender roles, anti-vaxxing, and being anti-science, being pro-carbon burn is ultimately a foolish anti-truth stance as silly and ill-outcomed as any three year old insisting that they can stay up all night.

Do the octogenarians in power not remember when they couldn’t breathe because of the lead in the gas in the 60s and the lack of emissions controls on everything? Do they yearn for the mines and coal dust of early industrial England?

Everybody loves clean air and water but apparently forget why they have it in the first place.

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