Raise taxes on the working class.
Poor people, naturally
The question was “who should”, not “who will”.
Poor people should pay because they keep voting for servants of the ruling class.
deleted by creator
The data center provider. Why is this even a question?
So our utility came out and said they have to raise residential rates by a rather large amount, largely because so many data centers are demanding so much power they need to upgrade, so residential rates have to fund that…
If you read the article, it’s because power companies are monopolies and so we’ve regulated them rather harshly. They are often compelled to build infrastructure to meet demand, for example. We don’t make the provider of a steel mill, housing builder, etc pay (generally).
And that’s weird, right? It’s one area of the market where we do a planned economy, and all states manage it differently. Now it’s being stress tested in a new way.
Datacenter. The end.
Datacenters build their own micro power plants for uptime anyway. This is a line item and an investment. Little Timmy’s parents need to feed little Timmy… Not finance some techbro or deluded CLevel’s fomo into the next big bubble.
It’s interesting to me that we don’t do this for all industries. Like, if a big auto manufacturer or textile company sets up shop, the local power company is compelled to build more power plants for them (sometimes the power company eats the cost, sometimes a deal with the provider, etc. See the article). Monopolies are weird.
Most industries create jobs. Datacenters do not.
Just like Google in Lenior, NC. They played the local government with the idea they would boost the local economy and create jobs. The only job a local can get there is janitorial and there is like 10 of those and they don’t pay that much.
Wow, you can’t even apply to be smart hands? That’s nuts to me.
You’d be supprised to see how many industries probably have some sort of backups in place for power … But it’s typically more costly to run and they may not have plans in place for extended outages. At the end of the day it comes down to money.
What’s frustrating about the current situation with the power companies is people just are unaware they are getting bled or don’t have options for recourse… Whereas monopolies and large companies are getting (fuck if I know why) white glove treatment and discounts. It makes little sense to be deferential to these massive companies - as while they promise jobs, economic benifits, and the moon itself… Data shows this rarely materializes. Its baffling.
I just don’t understand why this is a difficult question. Make the data centers fund their own power needs. End of story.
Yes. They can pay to build their own sources of power of their own choosing. Or put more resources into doing data centers more efficiently, their choice.
Make the data centers build their own power plants. Then they get all the risk and all the reward.
Make them put the power plant right next to the data center, that way they’re not stressing out the rest of the grid. And that way the exact same community that gets the benefits of hosting the data center also gets the environmental costs of the power plant.
Make the data centers build their own power plants. Then they get all the risk and all the reward.
In theory it’s great. In practice it’s “oops we had a big spill and went out of business, guess the EPA will have to use taxpayer money”.
Just because they’re a data center doesn’t mean they’re suddenly immune to the regulations and processes a utility has to go through to build a generator.
Musk is running filthy methane generators in Memphis to power his datacenter. No permits, nada.
That’s the thing, they only have any interest in “innovative new uses for AI”, they aren’t interested in delivering power, so they’re going to do a shitty job of it, they’re going to make a mess that we’ll all be left with.
Additionally, if they connect their power to the grid at all, then they need to work seamlessly or the entire grid is at risk. Again, the aspect of their business they don’t care about at all has to work seamlessly…
Don’t get me started on nuclear, just no. They don’t get to play with isotopes.
The risks here are huge, the potential consequences are disastrous to both the economy and the environment. And the potential rewards are what? Lining the pockets of AI grifters? Pushing expensive technology that nobody wants?
It’s actually not as simple as that, assuming they’re connected to the grid. Power transmission is costly too, which needs to be accounted for, not just the power consumption/generation. Them being off-grid also isn’t really reasonable because they’d need a lot of redundant power sources and backups, which would be better as part of the grid.
They should still be paying for all this, but estimating the real cost is non-trivial.
I find the different ways places answer this question really interesting. By this, I mean the systems we’ve had in place, the committees and applications and rules, for power providing the whole time.
It is interesting because power is a privately owned monopoly that we regulate to the extreme; so we get all sorts of weird relationships and arrangements. Now we see them all getting stress tested.
Well put.
When unemployment is low in the construction sector, we can’t have them pay. When they pay, they’ll outbid us for workers who were previously building homes and public infrastructure. We’d either have to outbid cloud for these workers, or we’d pay by having higher housing prices and crumbling infrastructure, which incurs other social costs. Real resources are finite. The only way for us to not pay is for them to not build the power plants and datacenters. In a truly democratic system we’d be able to say no. In this system, capital outvotes us.
E: I’m not arguing that the corpos shouldn’t pay. They should. I’m arguing the economic effect doesn’t stop with that payment and we’re still fucked.
The resources are finite whether the taxpayers pay for the construction or the corporation that needs the electric upgrade pays.
Yes and my point is that even if the corpo pays, which it absolutely should, that’s not the end of the economic effect when that resource is used to the limit at the moment. We will end up paying too.
Wouldn’t the market just expand to absorb the extra demand?
The demand for construction workers? If so, it could, if there’s enough unemployment. Otherwise workers from some other industry would have to shift to construction. Creating a shortage in that industry. Switching industries is a more difficult process than getting an unemployed worker to work in construction though. But if there’s already a labour shortage in the construction industry, then that answers the question. There isn’t enough unemployment or shifting from other industries to fill the demand. And there seems to be one.
If there’s underemployment in construction or higher unemployment, then yeah, the construction labour market would likely expand without much effect in housing and infrastructure.
Then they will build coal plants.
Mandate renewable energy and van open loop water cooling. Can’t afford it? You don’t need a datacenter then
This is where requirements as part of the data center zoning and purchase agreements comes in.
Agreed.
The people who want more power. Ie, the data center.
You want it? You bought it.
Obviously the public so that a few may get rich
As pointed out in the article, because datacenters are pretty fast to build, new power plants need to start construction roughly 1 year before the datacenter starts construction. But that leaves the utilities with alle the risk, unless a robust agreement is in place with the datacenter. What happens if several power plants start construction, but the AI bubbles bursts, and the datacenters are cancelled?
(Made my day that somebody read the article! I feel like these technical pieces flounder in obscurity.)
Then we get the actual capacity we need at the prices we can afford. Our power grid is disappointing. All that “extra capacity” could stop the random brown outs, rate spikes, and provide some extra capacity for the future.
Are you suggesting we use government resources to benefit the masses? Whose side are you on anyway?
Damn the man, save the Empire.
But that leaves the utilities with alle the risk,
Not if you make the data center pay for it.
If a consumer wants a utility upgrade, the consumer pays all costs upfront. I know this because my neighbor works for the power company and was trying to get gas lines run to our neighborhood. The cost the power company would charge us was hundreds of thousands which even divided by the number of homes meant it would never pay off vs outlr existing cost for propane delivery.
Oh no! A struggling utility! I wonder where excess money is flowing? What could possibly fund these upgrades? -[insert generalized doom & gloom] -
https://energyandpolicy.org/as-customers-struggled-utility-ceos-pay-spiked-last-year/
Oh that’s interesting. I hadn’t realized the energy sector saw a C-suite pay spike too. Looking around, it seems like they were at or above pay for CEOs elsewhere. Crazy.
We’ve really seen deregulation under all the administrations, eh?
Deregulation would mean these things can’t use public infrastructure.
EDIT: Actually this seems a very fine idea.
Can you explain that sentence?
Well, infrastructure is built by the government in an environment where its use is regulated, and for essential things.
Electricity for data centers isn’t essential. They should build their own parallel grids, a bit like Google and Facebook and such build their own infrastructure.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t develop, but correct management from the governments here would be making them pay for their toys in full. That will also be optimal - they know best which infrastructure and how much they need. No loading the common grid with non-essential things that hurt lights, heating and basic connectivity.
EDIT: Perhaps even a centralized, but separate second grid, for that.
deleted by creator
According to betteridge’s law: No.
A funny application of the law. Seems a little silly as an answer here.
