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  MostlyStable
  Increased demand drives up prices under a fixed supply regime. Power is, in many places of the US, something approaching a fixed supply regime. This is not a physical requirement of the universe. It is a policy choice that we have made. I would argue that it is not the data centers driving up power prices, it is our policies around how difficult it is to provision new power (or build almost anything at all) in the US.Congress could fix this problem tomorrow. And in fact there is a bipartisan bill (BAAJA) that would go a long ways (although not all the way) towards fixing it. Now yes even if we fix these policies there would be a time lag on new generation being connected, but there is no reason to leave this problem in place.
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  Aurornis
  The authors shared a replication package with all of the data, which more researchers should do: https://zenodo.org/records/23019736I find their methodology misleading, though. They're basically taking the cost of transmission infrastructure upgrades and then assigning the cost of those upgrades proportional to peak energy demand of the customer base, not the cost of the infrastructure upgrade.So if, for example, they estimate that residential customer demand will grow by 10%, then they suggest residential customers should only be paying for 10% of transmission infrastructure upgrades.That's not how infrastructure upgrades work, though. Connecting 100,000 new residential addresses and areas can cost more than a couple data centers that are close to the power station.The problem is they don't have access to, or at least they didn't look very hard, to find the actual data about transmission line upgrades and how much data centers actually pay to get connected. Contrary to what I see in a lot of the comments here, big customers do actually get billed for their infrastructure upgrade costs after utilities do their analyses. This paper is ignoring the utilities' analyses and substitutes their own highly simplified proportional-to-peak-demand estimates, and that's how they get their headline number.One very surprising discovery was that they show data center construction incentives to actually be a good deal:> State incentives for data centers have provided returns on the investments, if inconsistently, the researchers found. Some states, such as California, reaped $180 in worker income for every dollar spent, while Virginia increased income $2 for every dollar invested. The researchers determined that the presence of an existing, qualified workforce was a stronger indicator of high returns than the amount of incentive spending.That's not what I expected to read.This is a topic where details basically don't matter for public opinion, though, so I'm not sure it matters. It aligns with what people
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  hathawsh
  I struggle to understand why data centers are seen as a problem rather than an opportunity. Cities and counties can charge a high property tax to data centers and the residents can benefit. They might even give residents a dividend from the data center property tax. What's wrong with that plan?
• bshaughn
  My power bill has gone up significantly (in Chicago) because we have a really good grid, and relatively cheap power production costs due to investments our tax dollars have gone towards (fun fact 25% of illinois power comes from nuclear, the highest in the country).Now, I and all my neighbors are being financially punished for these investments, because so many data centers are being built out due to this infrastructure. I have friends who are engineers at the power distribution company who are denied raises and putting in 80+ hour weeks without over time.I say all this, not to diminish the low income Americans bearing the cost of these data centers, but to point out that its all of us. Its insane how few people are actually benefiting from this, and how simply taxing these data centers appropriately would fix it.I am not familiar with the actual contracts these companies have, nor the tax policies and breaks they are getting, but its clear to me they are not paying enough. I wouldn't be surprised if these servers are over clocked to hell and back simply because the water and power is cheap.
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  arjie
  Datacenters are this generation’s nuclear power plants. Our kids will look back and wonder what we were thinking.
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  austin-cheney
  Yes, absolutely. What do local residents get out of the data centers?I remember earlier this year somebody posted the results of a large survey that concluded most people would rather have a nuclear power plant in their backyard than a data center. Of course everybody would rather have nuclear power plant in their backyard because then they get cheap, clean, reliable electricity. They get nothing from the data center except competition for basic utilities.I also remember how the person couldn't believe the results and found them astonishing. WTF. This just reinforced for me how so many people in technology are either narcissistic, short sighted (exceptionally naive), or have some sort of qualified mental health defect.
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  j45
  It's important to remember that datacenter news is about the countries they're built in.Not all buildings are built or powered the same way in all countries based on the weather of their location.American lenses about American Datacenters will be about whats happening in America, not other places.
• tonymet
  the amount of power needed by datacenters is nothing compared to generation gap. These stories cover up the root cause: in nearly every market, no baseload generation has been added for 15+ years, and is generally declining.Rates aren't going up because of datacenters. They are going up because no investment has been made for more than 15 years, and we have been offsetting the "crunch" with creative workarounds.
• northman84
  [flagged]
• mbgerring
  The good news is that plenty of people and companies have been working the problem of upgrading the US electrical grid for more than a decade before this, and all it would take is a small amount of permitting reform and a fraction of the capital deployed for the AI buildout. Plus you get reduced CO2 emissions for free, especially if we wait for the next Congress to do permitting reform.
• AuthAuth
  Residents should have voted better. If you've got a politician who isnt making DCs pay for their utilities thats on your poor choice of politician. Its a basic thing that has been solved almost everywhere already. I dont want to go on another 'i hate farmers rant' but seriously these people kick themselves in the nuts repeatedly and then have the gall to blame people in the city who were trying to get these policies implemented.
• innocent_name
  I love how America's first intuition when a booming technology/industry appears is to racketeer as much as possible until it dies. My favorite quote:>California hasn't built its bullet train because the state has required 130,000 pages of environmental reports, making absurd demands like:• counting bumblebees one by one • rebuilding woodrat stick huts • hiring specialized dogs to sniff lizard scat
• jonhohle
  I’m lucky enough (/s) to have a regulated, for-profit power company as the only option for electricity. They made $430M in profit this past year and are asking the corporation commission to raise our rates “only” 14% this year. Meanwhile, the cost of electricity they pay to purchase from residential solar is approaching zero.
• daishi55
  All such headlines of this formula “x phenomenon disproportionately affects poor people” always shy away from naming the real problem.The real problem has nothing to do with datacenters. The problem is that in our capitalist society, money equals political influence. So, these negative externalities get put on the people least able to buy political influence. It’s so obvious it’s almost embarrassing to say it out loud, but that’s what it is.So don’t whine about data centers unless you are seriously ready to do something about capitalism. I’ll be right there with you when you get to that point.
• anon
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• josefritzishere
  [dead]
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  pseudonimous-pr
  Here's an interesting coincidence. During 2010-2023, data centers growth was all in crypto farms, a truly ridiculous massive waste of energy. However, that growth played against the West. It diverted capital into ruinous tulip bubbles. It created an alternative to the Western-led financial system and trivialized bypassing sanctions. Yet it got fairly little mainstream coverage.Now there's a tech race. Data centers are a necessary evil for the West to win it. And suddenly they're getting massive negative coverage. Just today I saw articles about both the far left and far right prioritizing the issue.