[toomuchtodo]

So don't allow data centers to connect until enough clean energy has been brought online to meet their needs without impacting cost or availability for retail ratepayers. It's easy really. Say no.

It's so strange to me that the argument previously was "we don't have enough energy generation for EVs and heat pumps to electrify and decarbon" but data centers are thought of as must run load that everyone has to suffer in some way to enable (through increased rates or risk of blackouts), when they have very little positive impact for everyone except a small minority investing in them.

> It's easy to blame datacenters, but there are a lot of factors at play here.

It is because they are the problem. We need as much clean energy as quickly as possible to mitigate climate change, we do not need data centers, broadly speaking.

(if you replaced all of the farmland/ag land, the size of the state of Oregon, harvested for ethanol with solar, you would have more electrical generation than all current US electrical generation combined as of this comment; this is simply a question of will, proven by China's solar PV deployment rates [installing ~90-100GW of solar PV per month])

[aftbit]

>It's so strange to me that the argument previously was "we don't have enough energy generation for EVs and heat pumps to electrify and decarbon" but data centers are thought of as must run load that everyone has to suffer in some way to enable

This is because the argument that we didn't have the grid capacity for EVs, heat pumps, and residential solar was never sincere. You could tell because the followup was never "and we should invest more in the grid" but rather the reactionary "and that's why we can't use EVs."

The same people would be opposed to data centers, if not for the fact that the AI buildout is making them all rich.

[Kamq]

Their post said that load growth had a mitigating effect on prices. Not letting the data centers come online would, presumably, result in higher prices.

That seems slightly weird, but that sounds like there's some large fixed costs that they can spread over the entire subscriber base, so the extra data centers are picking up some of those fixed costs.

[toomuchtodo]

Agreed that in some situations, on some US electric grids (ISOs/TSOs), data centers are absorbing their electrical supply costs that would otherwise be externalities. This is good, I fully support this. This is not uniform unfortunately, and remains to be solved for in totality imho. I take no issue if we get to a point where the AI bubble pops and we're left with net new electrical infrastructure that continues to provide benefit decades into the future while the data centers sit silent (similar to the "fiber boom bust glut" at the turn of the century). I take issue with the AI bubble costs being pushed citizens already, broadly speaking, unable to make ends meet merely out of a desire to speculate (and no one can be sure how long this exuberance and hype cycle is going to last; as long as it lasts, humans who need electricity at a reasonable cost are at risk).

TLDR Humans need electricity to live, data center loads are a luxury that can wait for power to be provided, when available.

[baggy_trough]

Is there any reason to single out data centers, other than that they are the degrowther bugaboo of the year? Such a rule should apply to any industrial use such as a new factory, if it is to exist at all, which it shouldn't.

[officeplant]

>Such a rule should apply to any industrial use such as a new factory, if it is to exist at all, which it shouldn't.

A factory produces tangible goods, and tends to get less hate because of that reality.