81–90 of 214 posts
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Since this is HN let's be factually correct. Almond production is irrelevant in water usage. The bulk of it is going to animal agriculture.
I am finding that 42% of California water is agriculture and 8% of that is for almonds. 3% of state water usage on a luxury nut might not be moving the needle that much, but it does feel wasteful for a state that is perpetually hovering on drought conditions.
these out of state AI companies are fairly quickly going to realize that their lobbying for the CURRENT administration doesnt mean shit after the next election. they're going to have to learn to be a lot more thoughtful about the seething masses (that their products are forcing them to lose jobs to)...
You're assuming that we're going to see a transition to a new administration with different priorities in the near future.
but yes.. unless democracy breaks down completely.
It seems that big money can overrule local government regulators at will. Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. The regulators didn't even resist, but there has now been so much backlash that they'r…
Batteries are cheaper every week.
Time to build kWh Victory gardens.
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That's just not true. Here's the California grid from yesterday: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-09 Peak demand is 6 PM when everyone gets home from work and turns on the air conditioning. EDIT: Your chart shows the same thing? Demand is highest at 6 pm, not noon.
Ah, yes. California. Where large swathes of costal areas hover between 60ºF and 80ºF. We are talking about Nevada the weather of locality matters and where it can be supremely hot.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/el...
Maybe the AI guys should use the AI first to develop fusion reactors they can then use to power the data centers. I honestly think they should pay fully for the infrastructure that provides power for them. It's not fair to have regular users pay for this.
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Those closest to the beltway…
Apparently not. Maryland residents didn’t sign any of these agreements in other states. Nor did their elected representatives. They were just presented with the bill to support the infrastructure in the other states because, you know, they’re so cool. And it doesn’t get any closer to the beltway than Maryland. What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. Th…
The amount of power datacentres said they were going to use dropped significantly - well over half. So now the utility has far less it has to worry about in big time transmissions build outs.
All from making the people claiming they needed it put a modest amount of money forward. They have to pay $100k (for a 100-MW project) to do a load study. Then they have to agree that they will pay for the electricity they claim they're going to use, even if they end up not using it (i.e., the data centre doesn't get built out and they end up using 0.)
If their credit rating is not strong enough, they have to pledge security or else put up the money.
A lot of data centre operators wouldn't cough up the $10k or $100k needed for the load study. Everything got a lot easier.
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Apparently not. Maryland residents didn’t sign any of these agreements in other states. Nor did their elected representatives. They were just presented with the bill to support the infrastructure in the other states because, you know, they’re so cool. And it doesn’t get any closer to the beltway than Maryland. What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. Th…
It's for "the grid", of which Maryland is a part, so it supposedly derives some benefit. And since the grid is being updated to accommodate new paying customers, Maryland will benefit from lower future prices. Right? Right?
I'll be the first to complain about Texas being on its own energy grid and the dumpster fire of resultant things that happen because of it, but it is worthwhile to call out that this sort of thing is not possible in Texas because of that.
Texans just get surprise thousand dollar+ bills for one night of usage as the demand charge allows... if they get any power at all
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Yep. 10000 gallons per query, spews out toxic water, contaminates the water supply, uses more power than an entire state, and on and on. I'm convinced it's a psyop to prevent the US's progress in tech. It's so over the top crazy and obviously false, but everyone I know is falling for it.
They might be wrong on this one, but check the history on cancer alley, or the legalized massive PFAS dumping in rivers the world over, that has now polluted the earth so thoroughly you cannot escape going over the maximum recommended body serum. Same for microplastics. It is absolutely justified to be extremely suspicious of big corporate. They've earned it.