[timmg]

It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman.

The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.

[3eb7988a1663]

It is not entirely wrong. Annual electricity consumption per capita in Maryland has been falling since 2005[0]. Unless a bunch of aluminum smelting plants have come online in the past 18 months, data centers do seem the appropriate root cause leading to a surge in demand.

[0] https://www.eia.gov/states/MD/data/dashboard/electricity cannot drop a direct link, but you can expand the "Total electricity consumption per capita, annual" chart

[timmg]

There’s another chart on that page that shows regional demand for electricity. That seems to have flattened or dropped. Not sure how to explain that, in the context of data center demand.

Maybe I’m reading something wrong. Or maybe there is an anticipated increase in demand?

[3eb7988a1663]

The only regional chart I see on that page is at hourly resolution.

[timmg]

If you click on the edit icon, you can see more data. It show 6 months worth. I thought it was longer. My mistake. But I guess I would still expect to see something over the past 6 months given the hysteria?

[FuckButtons]

Electricity usage in N.America / Europe has been static for the last ~20 years.

[nradov]

Because we have offshored most of our heavy industry. For national security reasons we now have to re-industrialize. Plus a lot of the infrastructure for transportation and heating is gradually shifting off of fossil fuels. So electricity usage is going to go steadily upward for the next couple decades. This would be necessary even without AI data centers.

[fennecfoxy]

I could see how this would be the case.

I think we reached peak "electricity" for the consumer decades ago. You know...when our TVs were a giant electron gun pointed as a phosphor screen whilst the room was lit with a filament of 3000 degree tungsten.

...and Americans were getting like 200HP out of a whole ass 7.whatever L v8 ahaha.

[pixl97]

Eh, don't forget we shipped bunch of our industry elsewhere, so while we became more efficient, we also made it somebody elses problem.

[tomalbrc]

Thank you Mr. American but wrong

[expedition32]

The Netherlands banned any hyperscaler development because the grid is under pressure.

And it's not fair to citizens that they can't have electricity but a datacenter can.

[nradov]

Is it fair to Dutch citizens that they're going to be left behind in what is effectively the next industrial revolution? The Netherlands does pretty well in other economic sectors including fossil fuels and agriculture but those aren't going to enable much future growth.

[julianlam]

> those aren't going to enable much future growth.

What is with this obsessive need for "growth".

[UqWBcuFx6NV4r]

There is so much FUD going around SPECIFICALLY about data centers lately, that i’m dubious of anything i hear. it’s such a weird cultural phenomenon. Chronically online teenagers on Instagram making increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water / energy usage. Comparatively barely anyone knew what a data center was 1-2 years ago.

[pjc50]

The pitch for AI from its proponents is the destruction of all white collar and creative jobs, while simultaneously making all the content they consume worse and Internet socialization with human strangers replaced by doppelgangers? And you wonder why people are upset?

[ben_w]

I believe the proponents think it will make all the content better, not worse, but the current state of affairs is indeed definitely worse.

But I essentially agree with you, the destruction of all white collar and creative jobs is something the proponents hand-wave too easily with vague mention of UBI as a thought-terminating cliché rather than a real policy proposal.

(Myself, I'm in a strange position with doppelgängers, because I simultaneously want real human connection and keep getting disappointed with many of the real humans).

[throw4847285]

> (Myself, I'm in a strange position with doppelgängers, because I simultaneously want real human connection and keep getting disappointed with many of the real humans).

I don't think you're in a strange position at all. You are just being honest about what is the undercurrent of much of modern technological development. AI is simple the apex of a trend to replace human interaction with a simulacrum, which without your awareness, reduces your own tolerance for the frustrations of real human interaction, thus making you more dependent on the simulacrum.

[expedition32]

AI is being developed by tech bros and insane American billionaires.

Hence any AI worth conversing with would immediately go Skynet.

[datsci_est_2015]

> I believe the proponents think it will make all the content better, not worse

I believe the proponents think it will make content more profitable, especially in the sense of concentrating the wealth that can be extracted from content creation. Related, there’s a desperate attempt to redefine code as “content”, at least implicitly, so that it can fall under that umbrella as well.

[vatsachak]

They're chronically online because millennials basically shoved digital heroin into their face from birth

[fennecfoxy]

>millennials basically shoved digital heroin into their face from birth

Pretty sure you mean gen z.

[SV_BubbleTime]

I like the number of times I heard: “they’re going to be so good at computers!”.

I can not imagine getting my children a straight access to internet or a phone or allowing them on social media until after 16.

[jliptzin]

That just delays the problem a couple years

[rincebrain]

There's pretty noticable differences in ability to self-regulate between people who had unfiltered access to computers and smartphones when growing up and not, beyond simply generational shifts.

I think the parent's assumption is that 16 is old enough for those problems to be largely avoided even if you gave them unfiltered access, which is what makes it not just kicking the can down the road.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Yes, it’s this.

I know a six-year-old with an iPhone. Any efforts to not do that is going to help.

I remember early internet and how it was on a teenager. Can’t imagine just signing up your kids for what it is now just because I won’t be able to keep them from it forever.

[1shooner]

Would you believe NERC?

https://www.nerc.com/newsroom/nerc-issues-level-3-alert-reli...

[timmg]

Of course. (Though I didn’t see a mention of data centers in that doc? I did see “equipment manufacturers” mentioned specifically.)

[1shooner]

The draft term is 'computational load'[0], which is the focus of the L3 essential action in that press release.

NERC's concern appears to be computational load cutting. In 2024 for instance, 60 data centers in NoVa cut 1500Mw of load in a matter of seconds[1]. Dominion reported 70GW of large load deliver points, with 40GW in new requests that are 'vast majority' data centers.

40GW is approximately enough to power about 30 million homes (at 1000 kwh/month).

0. https://www.nerc.com/globalassets/who-we-are/rules-of-proced...

1. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/virginia-narrowly...

[prepend]

My guess is that it’s a Chinese PR campaign to sew bureaucratic barriers to data centers. No evidence whatsoever, but it seems to me that every social media driven trend that benefits some corporation is a pushed idea.

[lostlogin]

> increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water

Wait till they hear about big Ag and how they use, abuse and ‘pay’ for water, while farming deserts.

[rockskon]

Somehow I don't see arguments comparing powering AI with producing food to go over well with them.

Many opponents to AI do not view the tech as having a net benefit. Comparing it to food production would serve to make you look more the fool to them despite their claims about water consumption frequently being wacky.

[denkmoon]

Like all food production has equal merit. Growing almonds in the desert is national food security obviously.

[phowat]

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.

[3eb7988a1663]

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.

[recursive]

Plenty of alfalfa and corn aren't going to food production. And much of those the remaining are not efficient.

https://youtu.be/XusyNT_k-1c

[JuniperMesos]

Right; anti-data-center sentiment is really a way of attacking AI as a technology; arguments about the water or power use of data centers are just an excuse.

[rockskon]

Well, to be fair, the public has been going through a multi-year forced beta-test of AI all while CEOs keep going on national television and posting on social media how there will be mass unemployment because of AI. To say nothing of all the companies that have (and soon will) close up shop due to increased prices from the global memory shortage unrelated to the proclaimed job-replacing benefits of AI.

And let's not forget many of the remaining independent websites on the Internet closing up shop due to being unable to afford the substantial increase in hosting costs resulting from aggressive scrapers getting data to keep training AI on.

Or the massive improvement in bots and click-fraud due to AI, pushing an increasing number of companies to embrace heinous practices such as mandatory facial recognition for users to be allowed to engage in socialization.

Or the increased electricity prices already realized around much of the country due to AI both so much of the existing grid's supply and requiring expensive upgrades to the infrastructure - the latter of which is frequently paid for by taxpayers.

All for the wondrous promises of unproven future capabilities.

The real mystery to me is how it's a mystery to so many people why there's a large and enduring anti-AI sentiment.

[analognoise]

Everyone should find a comparison to food - which people need to live - as stupid?

[tempaccount5050]

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.

[jorvi]

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.

[protocolture]

Suspicion and making up claims are separate ideas. You can be suspicious without polluting the internet with junk information.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Understandable and justified are very different. I worry that unprincipled skepticism of big corporate makes it harder to stop the bad stuff; if every large project becomes a battle of corporate power vs. slopulist criticism, how do you sort through that to focus on the truly bad ones?

[WarmWash]

But datcenters have been around for decades now. That's what makes it so insane.

Around me people are rioting about the construction approval of a new DC, it has all the insane FUD on social media flying around about it.

...and yet there are already 24 datacenters in the area, with the oldest ones running since the early '00s

[3eb7988a1663]

Legacy data centers were not representing a multiple of existing electricity demand. It is only recently that DCs are being built hoping to consume hundreds of MWs, up to GWs. Elsewhere in the thread is the Utah DC which will consume more electricity than the entire state.

Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. DCs are causing real strains to the grid which has not had to accommodate rapid growth.

[exmadscientist]

Seeing a datacenter proposal in the news come in at 1.3GW was very sobering for me. I spent a lot of time in grad school on the campus of a large nuclear plant, and it turns out one nuclear core is good for about 0.9GW of electricity (or 2.9GW of heat).

A single site consuming more than the entire electrical output of a nuclear core, considering the sheer size and scale of that reactor and its supporting infrastructure and workforce, is just boggling to my mind. It's literally billions of dollars just to feed that one site, if they're being accurate in their proposal.

[protocolture]

>Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years.

Interesting considering the similar outcry about bitcoin mining.

[knollimar]

It seems pretty easy to undermine the trust in the other side if you just pretend to be on it and inflate their numbers. See: Florida will be underwater by date X [in the past]

[jamescrowley]

‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.

[3eb7988a1663]

For a less rural example, I am finding different numbers, but all of New York City is estimated at somewhere between 5-10GW. So, some 9 million people vs one data center.

[pjc50]

Some significant fraction of that NY number will already be data center.

[Schiendelman]

There's a little evidence that project is real, it looks a lot more like a pie in the sky dream.

[tempaccount5050]

3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?

[rahkiin]

Watt is Joule/second

3 gigajoule per second. It already has a unit of time.

[jamescrowley]

3GW/9GW is peak load, as I understand it - data centres usually operate at 85-90% of peak load according to Goldman Sachs.

Meanwhile, the 4GW figure is average demand - Utah consumed 35,075GWh for 2025, so average demand of 4GW (35075/(365*24)).

[smallerize]

3GWh/h.

[bryan_w]

You didn't even mention the "infrasound" issue that's been picking up steam lately

[Teever]

That's a take. But let's stop and ask ourselves -- Cui bono?

Another take is that the same companies that are pushing for datacentres are often the same companies that control social media and traditional media outlets and are using this control to foster datacentres onto thee average person who is either wildly unenthusiastic about or at best ambivalent about.

It's all pretty moot anyways.

Big tech oligarchs have gotten pretty much everything they want over the years, it's not like the average person in bum-fuck nowhere is really going to be able to stop them from destroying their watersheds, poisoning their air and jacking up electrical prices.

I wouldn't get too upset about opposition to datacentres if I were you.

Money is King and the King has spoken.

There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

[bluefirebrand]

> There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

There's plenty we can do about it but the average person isn't quite there yet.

But it's coming

[hackable_sand]

Common parlance is "own goal"

[hackable_sand]

It's not weird at all. Go outside.