Trump helping tech bros sell more data centers. A pledge is moronic. You pay for what you use since time immemorial. Don't need to redefine existing words with new meaning.
US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
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Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#42Does it include externalities (co2 emissions)? Increasing natural gas generation is of course disastrous policy with a major death toll from the climate disaster, there needs to be a rampdown of fossils use and production.
While we're at it, water use is another externality.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#43As long as they promised. Their word is golden
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#44You can read the actual pledge at [0]. The executive order regarding it is at [1]. There's some speculation in the comments about what is or isn't in the pledge. I recommend reading it yourself. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/ratepayer-protec... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/rate...
It is important to remember that clarifying the legal implications of "pledge" is entirely different than supporting and/or defending this instance of its usage.
One can do the former whilst repudiating the latter and remain logically consistent.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#45This is USA so we all know that those techs companies won't pay a cent back at the end, but the population will.
The tech companies don't really have any issue paying for the capacity, this is a negligible cost compared to the compute capital, they just want streamlined regulatory approvals to bring the plants online.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#46Some towns in my state are already complaining about the noise from turbines supplying on-site power to a data center that's been built here. They're keeping people up at night. I'm broadly supportive of a "techie go home" movement.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#47Does it include externalities (co2 emissions)? Increasing natural gas generation is of course disastrous policy with a major death toll from the climate disaster, there needs to be a rampdown of fossils use and production.
The only realistic way to "bear the cost" of CO2 emissions is paying for getting atmospheric carbon back into the ground. Right now that seems difficult to do at scale. The best way I know is making charcoal and burying it. Offsetting 1kWh needs on the order of 200g of wood turned into charcoal and buried.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#48You can read the actual pledge at [0]. The executive order regarding it is at [1]. There's some speculation in the comments about what is or isn't in the pledge. I recommend reading it yourself. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/ratepayer-protec... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/rate...
It all seems like a backdoor to let tech companies build power generation on site without all the red tape and sell the excess power to consumers. This indirectly allows them to offload some of the fixed operational costs onto consumers.
We just approved the first nuclear plant in 20 years to a company owned by Bill Gates and in a state that has basically nothing but farmland and a Microsoft datacenter.
This absolutely cannot backfire. /s
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#49I find the whole thing a little odd. They’re basically pledging to pay their electricity bills. So what? So does every business.
Saying they’re going to pay for generation and transmission adds little. That’s already baked into the charges! It’s like saying they’re going to finally pay for the farmers to grow the produce and the drivers to get the produce to market when they buy apples--as though spontaneous generation and teleportation was ever an option.
Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters
#50You can read the actual pledge at [0]. The executive order regarding it is at [1]. There's some speculation in the comments about what is or isn't in the pledge. I recommend reading it yourself. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/ratepayer-protec... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/rate...
It all seems like a backdoor to let tech companies build power generation on site without all the red tape and sell the excess power to consumers. This indirectly allows them to offload some of the fixed operational costs onto consumers. We just approved the first nuclear plant in 20 years to a company owned by Bill Gates and in a state that has basically nothing but farmland and a Microsoft datacenter. This absolute…
What’s wrong with this?