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County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

404media.co

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Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#141

Post by aftbit »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
jonas21 wrote: post #29

This is in Virgina, which passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020. This mandated that Dominion (the power company) transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Personally, I think this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, it means that Dominion has had to invest a lot in building out renewable projects that haven't come online yet. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab recently did an analysis on ele…

So don't allow data centers to connect until enough clean energy has been brought online to meet their needs without impacting cost or availability for retail ratepayers. It's easy really. Say no. It's so strange to me that the argument previously was "we don't have enough energy generation for EVs and heat pumps to electrify and decarbon" but data centers are thought of as must run load that everyone has to suffer i…

>It's so strange to me that the argument previously was "we don't have enough energy generation for EVs and heat pumps to electrify and decarbon" but data centers are thought of as must run load that everyone has to suffer in some way to enable

This is because the argument that we didn't have the grid capacity for EVs, heat pumps, and residential solar was never sincere. You could tell because the followup was never "and we should invest more in the grid" but rather the reactionary "and that's why we can't use EVs."

The same people would be opposed to data centers, if not for the fact that the AI buildout is making them all rich.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#142

Post by Grombobulous »

jonas21 wrote: post #29

This is in Virgina, which passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020. This mandated that Dominion (the power company) transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Personally, I think this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, it means that Dominion has had to invest a lot in building out renewable projects that haven't come online yet. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab recently did an analysis on ele…

I appreciate that you linked a paper to support your opinion on this matter, though I read the summary PDF a whole lot differently than you did. I’m not sure I’d blame renewables anywhere near as much as you did.

For one thing, energy demand hasn’t been increasing at the consumer level per capita. So you either have a growing population or growing commercial usage (like with data centers) or both driving energy demand.

Is there some literature that points to an idea that it’s faster to build a gas or coal power plant compared to a renewable one? My understanding is that solar is cheaper than gas, right? Even solar plus grid scale batteries are in a similar ballpark. And let’s not forget that other infrastructure like transmission lines and substations do not have any concept of renewable versus not.

The last thing I’ll point out is that we literally have to switch to renewables. There’s no long term versus short term, really, when we think about it. If we don’t make the switch we’ll actually put all of this planet in a lot bigger trouble than asking people to set their air conditioner thermostats a couple degrees higher.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#143

Post by [deleted] »

nonethewiser wrote: post #121
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that the 404 Media article does not mention anything about this. At least, searching for the word "Clean" did not return any results.

The article is shit. - electricity costs are rising - there are many data centers - claims data centers raise costs - never actually shows how these new data centers are driving up electricity costs Funny. They imply causation but never show it. If they had evidence that data centers caused this 25% increase, or a large percentage of it, dont you think they would show it? Actually, you could write the exact same arti…

[deleted]

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#144

Post by coryrc »

phil21 wrote: post #93
cduzz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past couple decades, the vast majority of electricity demands have gone down due to modern substitutions for things people want being way more efficient. People use LED / CFL bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs, heat pumps instead of resistive heating for water heaters and house heaters, etc. People have also deployed lots of solar to their houses. So by every normal measure, just by looking around outside and…

Residential energy reduction is one small piece of it. The de-industrializing of the US is a much larger reason we have been able to use cheap parlor tricks vs. actually building things for the past 40ish years. Those cheap tricks are now running out of easy gains, and the chickens are coming home to roost. At some point you run out of your grandfathers investment into future society and basic infrastructure. To anyo…

You mean boomers have been voting against any and every infrastructure investment besides more roads while they lived off the investments of their parents and grandparents? Worse generation in American history.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#147

Post by platevoltage »

Legend2440 wrote: post #123
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that the 404 Media article does not mention anything about this. At least, searching for the word "Clean" did not return any results.

I'm not surprised. 404 Media are anti-big tech and anti-AI activists. They are not shy about their agenda and do not claim to be unbiased.

I love tech, and I swear you Ai evangelists are making me anti-tech.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#148

Post by smallmancontrov »

legitster wrote: post #139
jonas21 wrote: post #29

This is in Virgina, which passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020. This mandated that Dominion (the power company) transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Personally, I think this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, it means that Dominion has had to invest a lot in building out renewable projects that haven't come online yet. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab recently did an analysis on ele…

In the long run, green energy and data centers are ultimately going to be complimentary. One of the biggest problems with investing in a renewable grid is curtailment and managing demand or production spikes. In California, they already have to turn off solar plants during peak hours to help manage overproduction. Even if you have massive quantities of energy storage, you don't have enough "inertia" in the grid to ke…

If data centers can outbid poor people, the poor peoples' air conditioning becomes the variable load. Nana sweats so that Zuck can tokenmaxx.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#149

Post by galleywest200 »

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #18
cmiles8 wrote: post #9

Do we scale back AI slop for a few days or pull power back from schools? Easy, kids can suffer, give them some ice water. The AI bubble can’t pop soon enough.

Maybe it would help remove useless and harmful tech from schools. Books don't need batteries.

Seems AI use at younger ages has detrimental effects. Let’s remove that from schools while we are at it.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#150

Post by platevoltage »

WarmWash wrote: post #52
freediddy wrote: post #49

The greed with which the tech companies and data center providers are consuming electricity will be their downfall. By trying to make a few extra bucks by passing on some of the costs to consumers, it will trigger a huge political backlash that will screw them all. The fact they don't realize this is greed and hubris on their part.

Consumers should consider cancelling their AI subscriptions if they don't like datacenters.

What if we never signed up?
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