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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

#71

Post by arjie »

It’s not clear that these high wildfire risk places should be populated. They’re like the flood plains of Texas. I don’t think any utility under CPUC pricing can reasonably supply them for a long time. The price comes out of something: defensible space clearing, lack of power generation contracts, or all this pushed to another vendor.

The vagaries of American politics allow for failure and then bailout as a mechanism for these sorts of situations but I think we can see the writing on the wall. 50k residents at an average million dollars a resident is $50 b so it is not quite possible to have a buyout so I see why we just allow for the decline.

But any more we allow for the place to be inhabited, the greater the risk. Otherwise it’s just an incredibly regressive use of our resources: taxing a lot of working age people in the more urbanized areas to fund wealthy retirees in the forest.

The current tide of California politics favors that and we can do it so long as our economic productivity is powered by tech but a time will come after and it’s better now to do this than after when we will find ourselves unable to sustain productive capacity.

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

#72

Post by fennecbutt »

hannahstrawbrry wrote: post #61

A lot of these types of AI complaints feel like blaming a pothole for cracking your windshield in half even though you've been driving around with it full of chips and micro cracks for years. It's certainly exacerbated the issue to a point where it's impossible to ignore now but the warning signs have been there for years- utilities and municipalities failing to secure power and water resources for future residents,…

I think it's more that our governments only leap to patch up some of those chips and cracks when big biz rolls thru, even though "the little guy" has been raising it as an issue for decades.

But then again, democracy absolutely fails in that you have to already be rich to be a politician most of the time and people tend to vote extremely tribally by party rather than on policies (lest they accidentally vote for the wrong party!)

The truth is in many democracies none of the parties are prepared to do what needs to be done most of the time, nor is the average voter prepared to accept any form of compromise or abstain from uninformed, knee-jerk and tribally motivated reactions to proposed policy.

Aka we only have our dumb selves to blame.

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

#73

Post by fennecbutt »

happytoexplain wrote: post #32
ageitgey wrote: post #7

It's weird to read an article about how AI is ruining Lake Tahoe, with a map illustrating the problem, when the map itself has the world's most generic "100% generated by Claude" UI ever. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the article using the Claude map. It's just deeply funny somehow.

I'd love for us to get away from this trope of ever-increasing umbrella categories that you are discouraged from criticizing if you participate in it, very commonly marked by usage of the term "funny"/"hilarious" to imply hypocrisy. The world is big and complicated. "AI" is the biggest umbrella category we have ever seen in modern civilization. There's nothing inherently wrong with criticizing AI while using AI. Ther…

Agree and it has applied to pretty much everything for a long time.

It's why when I bitch about the UK, I get told if I don't like it why don't I leave.

It's like my dudes fail to grasp to concept of loving something and wanting it to be even better, to solve minor quibbles with it.

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

#74

Post by kevin_nisbet »

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.

Sometimes it's mostly about taking an interest, reading or understand the legislation, and making a really good case and argument to the government.

I don't think I can claim credit because I'm sure I wasn't the only one, but it took 3 or 4 emails to a couple of legislator offices to get some policy changes. In my case it might've just been small enough (no news coverage, basically only a small number of people were aware of a regulatory memo), the first time or two they just kicked the can down the road deferring the implementation, until ultimately they reversed course. And my part was just laying out a very strong case for why the particular situation was unfair, how many people would be impacted (voters), etc. Nothing confrontational, just laying out the argument.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

pengaru wrote: post #49
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.

I've noticed there's a pattern of behavior with folks living in the forested parts of California where they expect everyone else to subsidize their impractical choice on where to put a house. Extreme wildfire risks? let everyone else shoulder the cost, don't deny our fire insurance. Power delivery infra costs (and associated risks, see wildfires)? don't make us actually pay for this, we're all in this together guys!

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by hannahstrawbrry »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #68
hannahstrawbrry wrote: post #61

A lot of these types of AI complaints feel like blaming a pothole for cracking your windshield in half even though you've been driving around with it full of chips and micro cracks for years. It's certainly exacerbated the issue to a point where it's impossible to ignore now but the warning signs have been there for years- utilities and municipalities failing to secure power and water resources for future residents,…

The difference is whether the government or the people are complaining then, right? Or do you have something else in mind? To me it's a classic "commons" problem. All our wealth in the end comes from extracting common resources and "making the best" of it. Whether "the best" is to sustain population levels or to maximize private capital is a political question. As of now, demanding things like free access to clean wa…

I don't think it's that clear of a delineation especially in situations like this with utilities and governments wrestling over regulations. I believe that a lot of the folks who have been in the drivers seat and ignored the chips in the windshield that is the fabric of our society are happy to have something to direct blame towards no matter their affiliations or underlying beliefs about how resources ought to be managed, or even their own attitudes about AI usage.

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

#77

Post by etchalon »

infecto wrote: post #48
SoftTalker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that a lot of rural electrical cooperatives are "nothing more than a transmission operator" i.e. they own/manage/maintain the lines from their providers out to their customers, but don't have the capital or expertise to run generating plants.

“nothing more than a transmission operator with very weak agreements on power generation” don’t take the quote out of context now. I would bet most coops have fairly concrete contracts on generation. This one is unique because they were using usage from a grid they have no standing in. Weak agreement, folks should have been figuring it out 20 years ago.

Humans are bad at solving problems before they need to be solved.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by instagib »

I didn’t realize the scale of data centers in northern Nevada. Residential customers will mostly pay 70% for the transmission line costs. 12 data centers by 2033 with 5,900 MW of power.

“NV Energy is building Greenlink West, a 525-kV, $4.2 billion transmission line from Las Vegas to Yerington, expected online in May 2027. Schwarzrock said Liberty would be “first in the waiting line” when Greenlink opens, giving it access to a wider pool of energy providers. But that timeline matches the contract deadline exactly, leaving almost no margin for error. About 70% of the project’s costs will be borne by Southern Nevada customers. But this is nothing new, at least according to NV Energy.”

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

#80

Post by SoftTalker »

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.

If they are a Rural Electric Membership Corporation (REMC) you could vote for the board members, or run for office yourself.
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