Too big to fail is the goal. If the world is powered by openai but it aint making a profit in 2028 they can just put their "were a utility like water" facemask on and get bailed out.
At least in the USA, I think if consumers realized their power bills going up every year are tied to these new data centers, there would be more opposition to data centers going up politically.
https://apnews.com/article/electricity-prices-data-centers-a...
I don't know if the electricity markets work differently in other countries.
The US needs sufficient energy surplus to power industry. US energy production has been essentially flat for the past 25 years and the country has forgot how to bring new capacity online. Chinese energy production is up over 6x over the same period. China has more clean energy generation capacity today than their entire capacity a little over a decade ago.
Instead of panicking about data center electricity usage we need to be worrying about getting back to a state where we regularly bring new (clean) generation capacity online.
Taxpayers subsidize data centers in many other ways. These are prestige projects for politicians, so they often get long-term tax breaks and other preferential treatment.
I think it's part vanity, part a misunderstanding about the economic benefits of a datacenter (which are nearly nil, as they employ very few people and produce nothing for the local market), and part just a desire to score brownie points with wealthy corporations, which might mean donations, campaign support, or other perks for the politician who makes it happen.
That's not the main problem. That's the convenient scapegoat so we don't get mad about the real problem. Power bills have been going up for years. We're just not good at generating and serving sufficient energy. Our grid sucks, our utilities suck and can do whatever they want, and we can't build anything. And the grid problems get worse as we add renewables as they have to manage more complex generation profiles. (I'm all for renewables, love solar.)
The power bill going up is because the US, and the West in general, bet on renewables and a low energy future.
Neither of those things turn out to be a good fit for the new economy. The only thing left for people who derided nuclear for the last 40 years is to hope this is a bubble that sends us back to the 17th century when it pops. Anything else means we have to invest trillions in nuclear right now.
stevenwoo|4 months ago
omcnoe|4 months ago
Instead of panicking about data center electricity usage we need to be worrying about getting back to a state where we regularly bring new (clean) generation capacity online.
MountDoom|4 months ago
I think it's part vanity, part a misunderstanding about the economic benefits of a datacenter (which are nearly nil, as they employ very few people and produce nothing for the local market), and part just a desire to score brownie points with wealthy corporations, which might mean donations, campaign support, or other perks for the politician who makes it happen.
chermi|4 months ago
fooker|4 months ago
We could easily build ..say.. 10 nuclear reactors and halve the utility bills with amortization.
noosphr|4 months ago
Neither of those things turn out to be a good fit for the new economy. The only thing left for people who derided nuclear for the last 40 years is to hope this is a bubble that sends us back to the 17th century when it pops. Anything else means we have to invest trillions in nuclear right now.
kortilla|4 months ago
avs733|4 months ago
throwaway290|4 months ago
jacquesm|4 months ago
lemonlearnings|4 months ago