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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

#121

Post by linkregister »

doikor wrote: post #95
blackqueeriroh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there an example of this happening? Isn't the problem that datacenters are drawing electricity at the market rate and driving the cost up, rather than paying a surcharge for the difference?

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

#122

Post by TitaRusell »

doikor wrote: post #95
blackqueeriroh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Building a data center in my country is so expensive only Microsoft and Google do it.

The paperwork and environmental laws just aren't worth it.

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

#123

Post by CrimsonRain »

pyaamb wrote: post #36

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.

Why not all factories? And hospitals? Schools? Offices?

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

#124

Post by abduhl »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #63
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.

So what? You're saying local officials can't be corrupted by campaign donations? Because that's a hot take.

I’m saying local officials are the ones where your vote counts the most.

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

#125

Post by gravypod »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #89
gravypod wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing all costs into externalities is also not ideal. Right now, some state's systems, force residential consumers to pay for new infrastructure for new demand while only minimal costs are paid by the new customer.

All or minimal costs? You’ve provided two contradicting statements here.

When people ask for a commercial service hookup there is usually a charge to bring transformers and service lines to the building. This is a constant cost based on the load. The infrastructure to run the service lines out to a new commercial district are usually borne by the residential rate payers. It's how utility monopolies work in any of the states I've worked in.

So, you could think of it like this:

New customer: 100k-500k. Existing customers: 5% rate hike or 1M-100M/year in increased payments.

Per customer this may be minor but there are many customers.

The problem has been we have no system for proactive construction of new generation. Note: up until recently in the US demand has been mostly flat. We have been building significantly more power efficient systems so utilities did not know we would see a massive demand spike.

China somehow was able to harden against this and continued to improve infrastructure.

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

#126

Post by heisgone »

doikor wrote: post #95
blackqueeriroh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In Quebec, new data center will have to pay almost twice the price of what citizen are paying. it's 14 cents/kwh vs about 8 cents/kwh. Crypto center are set to pay 18 cents/kwh. That's the advantage of having a public utility.

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

#127

Post by hereme888 »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #108
hereme888 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."…

Most raw materials cost less than the final consumer-facing good made from those raw materials, because of all the costs that go into turning the raw materials into a useful product to sell to customers - why should ground acai be any different? If those people climbing acai trees in Brazil know what acai costs in the US or know that the product they have is better quality than what gets exported to the US, they can…

I think you vastly misunderstood the story. These people sold a finished, packaged product to local markets. You can't excuse paying them <$2 for a $100 worth of sambazon just because you switched labels and shipped/distributed to US markets.

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

#128

Post by mukbangpervert »

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?

True, I just left a hipster coffee shop in LA, and the liberals were whispering about their love of SaaS services, and their desire to socialize the costs of compute infrastructure.

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

#129

Post by TurdF3rguson »

abduhl wrote: post #124
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? You're saying local officials can't be corrupted by campaign donations? Because that's a hot take.

I’m saying local officials are the ones where your vote counts the most.

Sure but the corruption money offsets informed votes against with campaign spend. The economics of expecting to vote them out doesn't work.

Plus it feels like one party is getting flexible when it comes to corruption in their leaders. It's not as disqualifying as it was 15 years ago.

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