[xvedejas]

In a working economy, an increase in demand for electricity would be met with an increase in investment and capacity, and (at least in the long-term) would benefit all electricity buyers. I'm sure there are market failures going on here in many places but it's not necessarily the case that you and the companies be on opposing sides. There are positive-sum solutions to a lot of these problems, if people are willing to consider them.

[acdha]

The problem is that we don’t correctly price pollution: it’d be one thing if this boom meant acres of solar panels and wind turbines getting greenlit but in practice it means keeping some dirty plants online and building out new pollution capacity, sometimes completely illegally like what happened in Memphis.

All of this would go away overnight if we taxed carbon.

[xvedejas]

Isn't most new capacity solar these days?

[collabs]

That we know of?

Do you trust these tech bros to be truthful?

> Just south of the Tennessee-Mississippi state line sits dozens of unpermitted gas turbines that power xAI’s Colossus 2 data center while releasing smog-forming pollution, soot, and hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde. The tech company set up the de facto power plant with no permits, no public input, and no notice to nearby communities that will have to deal with the consequences.

https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

[xvedejas]

Sounds like a slam-dunk case for SELC?

[csharpminor]

“So glad we found a home for all of the Claudes!”

[forlorn_mammoth]

> in the long term

being the key phrase. Until we get to that long term, the less price sensitve buyer can buy up all available goods.

for example, all of the gas turbines needed to generate electricity.

so it is impossible to invest in capacity for non-datacenter uses, because the raw ingredients have already been bought up by the data centers.

effectively, at current rate of investment, > 90% of investment into new power generation goes to data centers. That doesn't leave much for any kind of other economic growth, since all of our economic growth depends on electricity.

[Joker_vD]

It's quite amusing how easily people fall into the trap of Malthusianism when talking about water/electricity consumption of certain industries.

[amanaplanacanal]

Don't all states have public utility commissions that regulate electricity provisioning? I don't know if the market has much to do with anything since it's all government regulation.