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50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

fortune.com

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Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#101

Post by jmyeet »

infecto wrote: post #13

This is an interesting problem. I have been wanting to dig deeper on some of the complaints around water and power. This one is unique though. Doesn’t read much like a problem so much with data center growth as it does with Liberty mismanaging their business/assets. For almost 20 years liberty acted as nothing more than a transmission operator with very weak agreements on power generation. They should have been figur…

If the residents of Tahoe owned their electricity provider, we wouldn't be having this problem. This was the norm up utnil the late 20th century and then we started selling off all the utilities for "efficiency". These public-private "partnerships" (or just straight privatization with a regulated industry) allow investors to keep profits while pushing losses onto the public.

Private equity is getting into utilities because it's a captive market, the service is highly inelastic and the owners are generally allowed to push all capex onto customer bills without recourse.

So your "interesting problem" is simply not seeing this as what it is: profit extraction.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#102

Post by maxk42 »

zzzeek wrote: post #88
xnx wrote: post #18

Related coverage without invoking the AI bogeyman: "Liberty Utilities needs to replace 75% of Tahoe power supply as NV Energy deal ends soon" https://mynews4.com/news/local/liberty-utilities-needs-to-re...

from the article: "NV Energy plans to end its contract with Liberty in May 2027, citing growing demand and its own resource constraints." the "growing demand" is the AI datacenters (the linked story goes into detail). it's the direct result, so while it might feel soothing that this other story doesnt actually mention "AI" it's mostly just an omission. (edit) the issue is that there's a sudden tight timeline and yes…

Tahoe is not a town. It is a region containing many towns. Most of it will continue to have power (mostly through NV Energy). This is a single utility that has failed to plan for this planned transition for 17 years. Invoking the data center bogeyman for political sympathy is the only thing going on here. Liberty has failed repeatedly to address this problem for nearly two decades and it's beyond time they were cut loose. I have sympathy for the people who have to suffer from their failure but this is not NV Energy's fault nor is it related to data centers at all: NV energy has been rapidly expanding capacity faster than growth in consumption and has 19 active geothermal plants in the area with more on the way as well as wind and solar.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#103

Post by Noaidi »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #98
tadfisher wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. The default economic system is anarchy, also known as sharing and mutual aid. You see this even in the reddest of US states, where disaster victims help each other, and a huge pastime is sharing food via potlucks. But all evidence points to anarchical/egalitarian cultures as the baseline mechanism of human organization from prehistory. Externalities don't exist in anarchic systems, because there is no…

Haiti is in Anarchy. All sharing and mutual aid is shadowed by resource and power struggle. It is even worse than communism and fascism.

> Haiti is in Anarchy

This is what people say when they have no idea what people mean by the POLITICAL system of Anarchism (Libertarian Socialism).

Anarchism, the political system, is not "chaos". That is propaganda that started during the 1930's. If you want to learn about it, real the Anarchist FAQ.

(I have a degrees in American History and Economics if that matters).

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#104

Post by Noaidi »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #99
Noaidi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that capitalism off loads the cost of externalities onto the unwitting public is nothing new. This is just the most recent and obvious version. Air anbd water pollution are the old ones. They make the pollution and the public pays for it with superfund sites or increased health care costs. The solution is having the consumer pay for the externalities when they use the product. But this would make AI so much…

The last two sentences are drawing downvotes to an otherwise sensible comment.

I agree. But is it a false statement?

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#105

Post by fc417fc802 »

tadfisher wrote: post #96
jshen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's people that do that, not capitalism. This happens in every system that has existed in human history.

Absolutely not. The default economic system is anarchy, also known as sharing and mutual aid. You see this even in the reddest of US states, where disaster victims help each other, and a huge pastime is sharing food via potlucks. But all evidence points to anarchical/egalitarian cultures as the baseline mechanism of human organization from prehistory. Externalities don't exist in anarchic systems, because there is no…

> Externalities don't exist in anarchic systems

Sure they do. I do a thing, it benefits me but causes a problem for my neighbor in the process, I say "oh well fuck him", that's a textbook externality.

> they have equal power to retaliate in kind

A convenient fiction often engaged in by proponents of anarchy. In practice if you compare pairs of people at random you will find almost none that can reasonably be described as equal. Equality is something imposed by the law in an attempt to improve our lives on average.

Anarchy lasts exactly as long as it takes people to start banding together and no longer.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#106

Post by 1970-01-01 »

rickharrison wrote: post #66
freediddy wrote: post #14

This is like the movie Chinatown, where people were fighting over water, but now it's all about electricity. It sounds like Lake Tahoe residents kicked the can down the road and didn't care about electricity for so long that now they have to pay the piper. I think it's entire just that they have to bear the costs of their own electricity.

What exactly am I supposed to do as a resident to change how a state government regulated utility operates? Please respond with something other than "Vote", which I already do.

Blogs, newsletters, websites are nearly zero dollars per month cost. Expose their corruption via 1st amendment rights and get others to vote them out with you.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#107

Post by moritzwarhier »

hannahstrawbrry wrote: post #90
moritzwarhier wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i understand your point, however your "driver's seat" metaphor blurs the accountability of political representation IMO. Are voters in the "driver's seat"? Local governments? What I see as a valuable point is that federal governments with subsidies that "distort" markets for public goods and externality regulation, worsen the "tragedy of the commons". Explaining many things to a naive person, or a kid, boils down to…

It's because the accountability isn't clear cut. Many hands have touched those levers of power over the last 20 years this specific problem has incubated, not all of them governmental.

I see, maybe I am underestimating local factors and individual responsibility here. After all, democracy depends on people to vote, and wealthy people generally are free to move and can more easily buy property, even if unsafe. So the individual financial or survival risk of relying on "society" (for example, insurance, firefighting, infrastructure etc) also anti-proportional to wealth/ a beach house is not the same as a rented flat or hard-earned small apartment in some precarious space.

Still sounds like an instance of redistribution problems to me.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#108

Post by zzzeek »

maxk42 wrote: post #102
zzzeek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from the article: "NV Energy plans to end its contract with Liberty in May 2027, citing growing demand and its own resource constraints." the "growing demand" is the AI datacenters (the linked story goes into detail). it's the direct result, so while it might feel soothing that this other story doesnt actually mention "AI" it's mostly just an omission. (edit) the issue is that there's a sudden tight timeline and yes…

Tahoe is not a town. It is a region containing many towns. Most of it will continue to have power (mostly through NV Energy). This is a single utility that has failed to plan for this planned transition for 17 years. Invoking the data center bogeyman for political sympathy is the only thing going on here. Liberty has failed repeatedly to address this problem for nearly two decades and it's beyond time they were cut l…

I have no problem with new datacenters being built, but if the Fortune article is to be believed, it's that the suddenly tight timeline is due to the rapid increase in need for these facilities.

my post is more about how we really need to be seeking energy sources from all possible corners, and we have a government that is literally paying billions to contractors to cancel wind projects.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#109

Post by 1970-01-01 »

freediddy wrote: post #14

This is like the movie Chinatown, where people were fighting over water, but now it's all about electricity. It sounds like Lake Tahoe residents kicked the can down the road and didn't care about electricity for so long that now they have to pay the piper. I think it's entire just that they have to bear the costs of their own electricity.

DCs are as thristy as they are hungry. Once the lake gets low enough, they'll fight over the water supply too.

Re: 50K Tahoe residents need power as utility eyes redirecting lines to data centers

#110

Post by colechristensen »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #55
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, not really. Few years ago everybody was talking about the inadequacies of our aging electricity distribution infrastructure and how it was a shame it wasn't being fixed and the risks it entails. Now folks are wailing about the terrible AI come for our electricity and how awful the burden of the upgrades are. When the upgrades were for solar they were good, when upgrades are for AI they're bad. It's almost like pe…

> When the upgrades were for solar they were good, when upgrades are for AI they're bad. Do you look at every issue in this 50,000 foot view with no nuance or even basic details, or is just certain ones?

Is it not clear that I'm criticizing the people who have that attitude?
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