15 ms·
Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation
- tempodox 1y agoNo wonder if everyone and their dog is building data centers for “AI”.
- BrtByte 1y agoAt some point, the system needs to ask: who should pay for all this demand growth? Right now, it sure isn't the ones profiting from it.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoInflation climbing more than twice as fast as (official) inflation.
- mensetmanusman 1y agoRemember, the hidden cost for solar is all the capital upgrades on the grid required to manage it.
- numitus 1y agoThe problem is, as my wife says, accounting is a very creative field. Depending on how you calculate it, the cost of renewable energy can vary by a factor of ten. I suppose that if it were profitable, big businesses would have a monopoly on green energy and installed solar panels and batteries instead of offering them to homeowners.
- thelastgallon 1y agoThis comment is golden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 Saving a click: More people need to realize that utilities are not at all like normal businesses, so to spell it out in more detail for those that don't know: Normal businesses make more money when they cut costs. Utilities (typically) get to charge a fixed upsell percentage and so they make more money when they increase their costs.
- chaostheory 1y agoEveryone already knows they’re not normal businesses when the state grants them a monopoly.
- koolba 1y agoAnd that’s exactly what the ACA did to health insurance too with its “profit percentage caps”. Your insurer can only make more money if the price of healthcare goes up. And if they are predominantly passing the cost on to you, they pretty much want that to happen.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThat must be great for pharmaceutical companies/doctors/hospitals/pharmacists since they can just arbitrarily increase prices and charge whatever they want and the managed care organization will pay it. And MCO’s are incentivized to approve all claims, so doctors and patients won’t complain about denied coverage.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- supertrope 1y agoThey got around that rule by buying out pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), hospitals, doctor's offices, and pharmacies. While the health insurance side of UnitedHealthCare is capped at 20% or 15% overhead, they can realize their earnings by marking up the price of drugs through their pharmacy subsidiary OptumRx. They steer customers toward OptumRx by structuring their health insurance to favor that pharmacy. CVS bought Aetna [health insurance]. CVS also owns CVS Caremark a PBM. If your employer picked Aetna as your health insurance you must fill your meds at a CVS.
- michaelrpeskin 1y agoObamacare/ACA has this too. The "Medical Loss Ratio" or "80/20" rule says that 80% of premiums have to be paid as claims. There's no downward pressure on claims payments because they raise rates and take 20% of a bigger number.
- cyb0rg1 1y ago[flagged]
- newyankee 1y agoIn an ideal world this should incentivise more people with single family homes and capital to invest in Solar + batteries and even with tariffs I am sure the breakeven time will still be less than 10 years (also after accounting for the fact that utilities will not be paying a lot for your electricity though time of use pricing and batteries may help a bit)
- bevr1337 1y agoAn ideal world doesn't look like land owners building moats. I work in energy/home automation. I'm burnt out.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoWe don't live in an ideal world though but in a world run by the incentives of the capital/asset owning class.
- bevr1337 1y ago> In an ideal world this should incentivise... > An ideal world... > We don't live in an ideal world though... Yes. That was thoroughly established in the original comment and my reply. Have you come to look for an argument? Or to show off how pragmatic you are? What's your point besides "shit sucks?" If that's your point, I'm glad to commiserate. Shit sucks.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>Have you come to look for an argument? Nope I just gave my opinion, but judging from your spiteful reply it's clearly you looking for an argument but I won't bite.
- mindslight 1y agoWhat's the target market of your business? I'm doing a DIY solar setup, plus a bunch of liberty-respecting automation, and often lament that there aren't better ways to make such things serviceable by contractors (when I'm gone, etc). It feels like every commercial offering I've seen is for extremely rich people's "dream houses", deploying expensive niche-commercial solutions in a very top-down manner (lots of homeruns of narrow-purpose cables to multiple racks in a centralized control room, etc).
- antithesizer 1y agogood thing we all got con'd into buying electric stovetops a few years ago :)
- jihadjihad 1y agoAn Energy Star certified electric range will consume around 200 kWh per year. Even at California-level rates it’d be less than $10 a month to power it. And induction, which of course is electric as well, would be cheaper still.
- derriz 1y agoThat cheaper natural gas is extracting a price in terms of health for you and your family: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-health-risks-of-gas-stoves-explained/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-health-risks-...
- supertrope 1y agoThe furnace or heat pump is a much larger energy consumer than the stove. Complaining about gas stove bans is just a distraction from the much larger prize of heating fuel demand. People can see and feel their stove. They don't think about their furnace much except when they get their natural gas bill or it stops working. Gas utilities are afraid of a death spiral of people switching to all electric appliances, infrastructure costs being spread over a smaller customer base, which incentivizes more people to switch.
- jodrellblank 1y agoLeaking gas pipelines cause a disproportionately large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. It's much more efficient and environmentally friendly to pipe gas to a combined-cycle gas turbine power station and then move the electric power to people, than to run an electricity grid anyway and also thousands of miles of aging and leaky gas pipelines so that people can burn gas inefficiently in their homes (with most of the heat wasted into the room and out the window/fume-hood).
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago[flagged]
- burnerRhodo 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mindslight 1y agoCreating and exacerbating a whole host of problems with some idea that an AI-God will then rescue us isn't "impressive" - it's mentally ill. These are the same types of people from the articles about LLM psychosis, except these people are in positions of power so we all get to suffer their delusions. Except for Trump himself who is closer to being the LLM side of the dynamic.
- burnerRhodo 1y agoI mean... Us humans have done that countless times in history. Cannons, Tanks, Nukes, Space... One thing history proves is that if one side can develop a next gen weapon that you can't defend against, your civilization ceases to exist. Every single one of those advancements caused more problems than they solved. We don't need AGI for "AI" to be more dangerous. Just some kind of super trojan would do.
- mindslight 1y agoIt seems like you're still assuming an AI-God, in the form of a supremely-powerful weapon. As it stands, the genAI capabilities of the US and China seem relatively on par. So it's not clear that incremental gains necessitate throwing everything possible at this one thing.
- breakyerself 1y agoWhen it comes to energy the efficiency of a generation system is pretty much meaningless metric. Price per kilowatt hour is what rules the roost. Renewables particularly solar have become the cheapest form of electricity in history. This is driving demand for storage which is driving exponential cost reductions in that field as well. Grid scale renewable + storage installations are now becoming competitive with natural gas. Coal is an obsolete energy source. That people in this administration are trying to weelend at Bernie's this corpse of an industry gives me serious doubts about the praise you lap on them.
- exabrial 1y agoI'm beyond ok with this! Let backpressure into the market! It's the ultimate incentive for promoting energy efficiency.
- fzeroracer 1y agoAre you familiar with the Flour War? I suggest reading up on the history of that and what happens when you try to let the invisible hand control things considered essential.
- grepfru_it 1y agoOur rates went up but now they are offering free nights. Cost of battery tech has dropped, so now I am powering my house with batteries during the day and charge them at night. The downside is vendors come and go, so the battery you buy today may not be the same offered tomorrow.
- baggy_trough 1y agoI thought we were supposed to be replacing natural gas appliances with electric ones, but it's become ruinously expensive to do so. Not only are they more expensive to operate due to high electricity rates, the panel upgrades for higher power draw are outrageous.
- danans 1y ago> Not only are they more expensive to operate due to high electricity rates, Most electric appliances are much cheaper to operate, even in places with expensive electricity like MA and CA. This is especially true for appliances like heat pumps due to their >100% "efficiency", and if you are somewhere with cheap clean electricity (Pacific Northwest) they are a no-brainer. > the panel upgrades for higher power draw are outrageous. With smart splitters and some planning, panel upgrades can often be avoided: https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/articles/electrical-panel/how-to-electrify-home-100-amp https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/articles/electrical-panel/...
- quesera 1y ago
- xnx 1y agoIt's good for the price of things to increase when demand increases. We don't want outages instead of price increases, and we don't want costs to increase independent of demand.
- bongodongobob 1y agoIt's good when you are talking about tulips or ice cream or something. Not necessities like electricity/water/food etc.
- baggy_trough 1y agoIt's good for all things, except highly regulated monopolies like electricity, trash, and water.
- RhysU 1y agoYou would prefer the price of electricity be held constant until the day the monopoly rage quits? That day, no one can get power for any price.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoI would prefer an knowledgeable, effective and non-corrupted PSC regulate the utility in a manner that keeps the utility viable, so it can serve customers first and shareholders last.
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoThe day the monopoly rage quits, use the government's goon squads to take over the infrastructure.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago> It's good for all things, except ... Humans and absolutes tend to be a pretty bad combo. It is my experience that no system is good for all things. While some systems trend better than others, they are only good until they are not - and there will always be a 'not'. Similarly, every 'not' is different. When we get there we're wise to consider it with experience + evidence and a willingness to do what those indicate.
- Pikamander2 1y agoDirect link to the source material: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm TL;DR - For July 2024 to July 2025, the inflation rate for "all items" was 2.7% while the rate for "electricity" was 5.5%.
- thelastgallon 1y agoThis is great news. If costs climb rapidly, homeowners will switch to solar + battery + ( EV, heat pump water heater, induction stove) and disconnect from grid. Grid disconnects will cause costs to rise even more, a virtuous cycle.
- ghaff 1y agoYou're talking about big capital upgrades that very few people will make in existing homes. I sure won't.
- thelastgallon 1y agoCapital upgrades don't require capital, only monthly installments. US has the most advance financial packaging infrastructure that can package anything into a monthly payment. It will be a straight up comparison between (electricity bill from grid + gas for 2 ICE cars + natural gas bill) vs (solar + 2 EVs + heat pump water heater + induction stove). Also, most decisions are not financial but emotional (virtue signaling + status seeking + salesman's ability). Most poor people end up taking incredibly bad financial decisions because a salesman is able to sell. In Texas, if you can talk God/football/beer, and are not a complete idiot, you can sell anything. The people who bought 100K+ Tesla's before 2024 were not going by finance, nor are the people buying Teslas in 2025. A trillion dollar company is born just out of virtue signaling.
- ghaff 1y agoAnd most of the monthly installments for things like solar are basically scams. The more you see the solar salesmen at your door or camped out in the front of Home Depot the scammier they tend to be. But it sounds like you might agree. I did get induction to replace a propane cooktop recently but that's only because I had to get a new range after a fire and induction probably made more sense than it did a few years back.
- nine_k 1y agoGet a loan from your friendly credit union on better terms. It requires having a clue though, and being able to organize contractors, and / or do things yourself.
- walterbell 1y ago"US utilities plot big rise in electricity rates as data centre demand booms", 90 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523686 "AI Data Centers May Consume More Electricity Than [Residents of] Entire Cities" (2024), 80 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42221756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42221756 "Meta data center electricity consumption hits 14,975 GWh" (2024), 60 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41421627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41421627
- anonfordays 1y ago>Earlier this year, the utility that serves both Thomas and Salvi, Florida Power & Light, applied for a rate increase that would have boosted bills for a typical South Florida resident by about 13% over the next four years. That is quite a bit less than inflation over the past four years.
- hnburnsy 1y agoFlorida rates average 14.98 ¢/kWh and FPL's average rates are 12.12¢/kWh, both below the US average of 17.47 ¢/kWh.
- crmd 1y agoOne of my favorite things here in New York City is how Con Ed gets approval to pass infrastructure upgrade costs directly to consumers, but at the end of the financing period the asset is mysteriously owned by their board of directors, not the public who paid for it.
- BrtByte 1y agoAnd good luck getting transparency on those asset transfers or executive benefits. It's all buried in regulatory filings that nobody reads except lawyers and lobbyists
- SoftTalker 1y agoIf a private company builds infrastructure with their profits, should it be owned by the customers "who paid for it"?
- 8fingerlouie 1y agoMy local electricity infrastructure provider is a private company, with the twist that all residents within their area are also automatically shareholders. They operate "for profit", but profits are distributed amongst shareholders in the form of reduced bills, ie last year we didn't get bills for electricity transport for december, and the year before that there were no bills from august through december. The "for profit" part pays infrastructure upgrades, so some years we pay the normal prices if there is infrastructure work being done, which in the end benefits all shareholders, meaning me (and other users).
- RileyJames 1y agoDo you live in Auckland? It sounds similar to the system I encountered there. I don’t remember all the details, I was only renting for a year. It didn’t sound like it was NZ wide.
- CubicalBatch 1y agoI live in Texas and I also have this system
- justlikereddit 1y agoWe're living In the Green Energy revolution. Solar power and wind power is literally free energy. Did these guys not get the memo?
- andybak 1y agoThe trouble with sarcasm is that it's hard to discern the point you actually wanted to make. Presuming you had one.
- blendo 1y agoThe duck curve tells us prices are lower at noon due to tons of new solar, but what about the rate of price change? Are electricity prices at noon climbing faster, or less fast, than prices at 6pm?
- nullc 1y agoMy rates off-peak have increased faster than the on-peak rates, presumably because the on-peak rates were already sky high. In the last couple years peak has gone from ~0.36 to ~0.56, while off-peak went from ~0.12 to ~0.27.
- streptomycin 1y agoHere in NJ a lot of people are complaining about electricity price increases. Upon looking into it, it seems that the reason is mostly a combination of population growth, shutting down old power plants, and not building enough new power plants. Most people seem to blame price gouging from the electricity companies, but the electricity companies seem to be extremely tightly regulated and don't have much wiggle room with how they set their prices. Haven't heard much talk about actually solving the problem and building more power plants, so probably we're going to see more articles like this in the future.
- BoredPositron 1y agoI wonder who could built and operate these plants...
- gosub100 1y agoDefinitely not the government, given how wasteful and inefficient they are.
- BoredPositron 1y agoI thought about the providers that are closing down power plants right now. But just out of interest who exactly is the "government" in arguments like this? Because no matter which party is controlling the government the sentiment never seems to change... always seemed like an of remark with no meaning besides yelling at clouds.
- ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago>Because no matter which party is controlling the government the sentiment never seems to change... always seemed like an of remark with no meaning besides yelling at clouds. There are certain folks who, regardless of the issue, never fail to roll up their metaphorical newspaper, brandish it and hiss, "Gub'mint bad! Bad gub'mint!". It's almost pavlovian. While some of those folks are likely sociopathic ancaps[0], the vast majority are just willfully ignorant people whose marionette strings are being pulled by the cynical scumbags intent on enriching themselves and the rest of the world be damned! And more's the pity. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
- Shorel 1y agoBecause of LLMs, right?
- sMarsIntruder 1y agoThat’s the new enemy.
- nxm 1y agoFor context: $0.18/kWh in US vs. $0.32/kWh in France and $0.36/kWh Germany. The administration is making an attempt to address the issue of every growing demand for more electricity and remove barriers for additional power to come on-line. "To compete globally, we must expand energy production and reduce energy costs for American families and businesses." https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-wright-acts-unleash-golden-era-american-energy-dominance https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-wright-acts-unleas...
- ranguna 1y ago0.16€/kWh in a western European country. 0.60$/kWh in California.
- jijijijij 1y agoSome states have vastly higher energy costs, tho, don't they? Bit weird to compare the whole US to selected European countries, which represent completely different energy strategies and subsidy policies, while also being heavily affected by the war in Ukraine.
- thehappypm 1y agoYeah, new england for example has high energy costs because of 1) a lack of local energy sources and 2) reluctance to build new gas pipelines.
- fred_is_fred 1y agoIt's $0.11 kWh here and we have plenty of renewables and a growing population. OTOH I have city owned utilities and not a public company.
- kgwgk 1y ago> selected European countries The two largest in the EU by population (20% and 15%) and GDP (24% and 16%).
- jijijijij 1y ago
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoRelated: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44905595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44905595 The U.S. grid is so weak, the AI race may be over https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44910562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44910562
- petarb 1y agoIn California our rate in 2019 with PG&E was $0.20/kWh - in 2025 it’s $0.38/kWh. CA keeps giving them the ability to raise prices and under deliver
- TkTech 1y agoJust as a comparison, here in Montréal I pay $0.051USD/kWh and we're at 99.2% renewables. Large customers pay even less.
- thehappypm 1y agoah, Quebec. So much energy but nobody can buy it! Ontario can’t.. New England wants it but keeps hitting NIMBYism.. NY wants it but needs new infrastructure
- toomuchtodo 1y agoProbably easier at this point to just run an underwater HVDC cable from Quebec down the US eastern seaboard and let anyone hook up who is willing to pay into the consortium.
- newyankee 1y agoWeird that such obvious solutions not being considered. Quebec probably would have had even been a great pumped storage site powering entire New England and Eastern Canada, but the incentives to think big are not aligned it seems.
- thehappypm 1y agoIn my opinion, the best thing to do would be for Quebec to start being a data center world hub. They have enough energy to power all the world’s data centers, and they would essentially be exporting their energy by way of offseting demand elsewhere.
- supertrope 1y agoNew England desperately needs more power lines and natural gas pipelines. Electric prices have doubled in NE due to rising natural gas prices and power plants being mostly NG. The existing pipelines are fully booked so extra has to come via ship (compressed natural gas). They bid on the global market against other rich buyers like Germany who were scrambling after the war began.
- belorn 1y agoHow is the consumption fees moving compared to grid fees? In Sweden, grid fees has increased significant, while consumption fees is actually one of the lowest on a 5 year history. Grid fees is what pays for grid stability and transmission, which has increased in complexity and demand in direct relation to how much variability that wind and solar create in the grid.
- ethan_smith 1y agoGrid fees are indeed rising faster in many regions as they reflect the true infrastructure costs of managing variable renewable integration, peak demand from data centers, and decades of deferred grid maintenance.
- 486sx33 1y ago[dead]
- jmward01 1y agoWe have been in aggressive, irrational, denial of alternative energy for my entire life but denying something doesn't make it not true. It is beyond obvious that wind, solar and battery technology are, even now, just starting to show their eventual potential and even at their current levels are far better solutions in many if not most cases than fossil fuel based options at industrial energy production (and many other uses too). We are on a hockey puck graph for all of them because they are inevitable and vastly better. The only thing our head in the sand push against these technologies is doing is ensuring that we will be decades behind China and the rest of the world in our ability to provide cheap energy to industry and emerging opportunities. You want manufacturing in the US? Create cheap energy sources. You say 'the sun only shines half the day' then build your factories to take advantage of peak availability. China knows this. They are putting so much solar into their grid that they will clearly get to a point where they have a glut of energy that will only go to one purpose, building amazing things for practically free. Meanwhile the US will keep saying 'See! This stuff doesn't work' as it actively sabotages itself just to prove the point.
- card_zero 1y agoA hockey puck graph? So ... circular?
- golemiprague 1y agoThe problem is that in the west green energy became a religion while in China it was just a practical solution when it made sense. They didn't have a problem to build a coal based facility or a sun based facility, depends on the needs and cost. Now that green energy makes more sense, naturally they ustilise more of it. In the west though it was all about doom's day predictions, culture wars and cancelations. So it all became a religion war rather than a mere technical consideration.
- jodrellblank 1y agoWhy is that "the problem"? Religions are quite popular and successful in the West
- 1y ago
- pluc 1y agoI'm sure no one on HN is gonna blame AI for it
- idiotsecant 1y agoThere is a pending energy affordability crisis. There is no appetite to tell AI data centers no, the only solution is adding increasingly expensive MW to the grid. The cost of those extremely expensive MW will not be picked up by the big tech players alone. We will all subsidize them. We've spent the last 50 years hiding our head in the sand and avoiding infrastructure spending and now that the chickens have come home to roost we will spend the declining years of empire squeezing as much blood out of our peasants as we can.
- jackdawipper 1y agoall the problems come back to one thing: governments.
- ranguna 1y agoCorruption*
- babyshake 1y agoKnowing full well how annoying it may be to ask this question in this thread...wouldn't rising electricity prices generally create upward pressure on the price of Bitcoin due to mining/supply dynamics?
- greenie_beans 1y agothe price of electricity only goes up, despite what techno optimists tell you: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 i'm curious why? like truly curious. libertarians would probably say "regulations" and anti-capitalists would probably say "capitalism" etc. you would think with solar costs going down that this trend would be different. market dogma would say that the demand went up? thinking out loud, somebody plz ELI5
- yifanl 1y agocapitalism.
- Crye 1y agoFor what it's worth adjusted for inflation, electricity prices have dropped over the last 30 years. We're now seeing a reversal of that trend. To be seen the magnitude and duration of that trend. Electricity Prices Adjusted for Inflation https://share.google/dhmpNiMkGIpXa7bwu https://share.google/dhmpNiMkGIpXa7bwu
- discordance 1y agoHere in Australia, the government is providing subsidies to households for buying batteries (backed by solar). After paying $15k (after subsidies) for a 40kWh battery, our battery is filled by roof solar and grid provided renewable energy, when needed, at very cheap rates (6c/kWh). I pay $1 a day for grid connectivity. Our total annual energy bill will be approximately $500 for the foreseeable future.
- BrtByte 1y agoA great example of what's possible when policy actually aligns with long-term sustainability goals
- simplisticelk 1y agoThis is actually very regressive policy because it only rewards people who 1) own their own home and 2) can afford a significant capital investment. And under current retail rate structures it shifts the burden of maintaining the grid onto those who can't afford to make these investments and who will end up seeing there rates rise unless the cost of grid connectivity is increased. It's also economically questionable because it's simply much cheaper to build and manage a smaller number of large batteries then thousands of home batteries. I understand why these schemes are politically attractive; people like to own their own stuff. But there is a very real chance this increases the cost of energy here.
- discordance 1y agoI'm curious how you see this potentially increasing the cost of energy? Why can't we do both large systems and small distributed systems? I see the following benefits: 1. Stabilises the grid 2. Smooths peak demands. Check the Price and Demand graph here: https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-... 3. Increases supply -> energy prices decrease? 4. Accelerated move away from coal generation and towards renewables. 5. Job creation (solar and storage installation) Drawbacks: 1. Renters, lower income houses and apartment dwellers don't have access the subsidies 2. Exposure to dodgy installers and systems just like we saw with the Australia solar scheme.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rapjr9 1y agoCould the oil companies be funding the AI companies in an attempt to keep fossil fuel demand high and make renewables seem like they are not reducing oil demand? This could be cost effective for the oil companies since they don't have to build the generation infrastructure to power AI. Who are the private investors in AI? If you do the math the projected electricity demand by data centers for 2030 means that electricity production in the USA would have to double compared to residential use! That is simply impossible using the current grid. Solar farms powering data centers requires less permitting and no grid connection which seems preferable and would allow data centers to be built in remote areas so the noise does not affect homes. Batteries would keep the data centers running at night. If AI demands so much power, let them build the generation capacity themselves. Also the math for the 2030 projections of the number of computer chips needed for AI are ridiculous, we would need ten new foundries in the US which is just not going to happen. The numbers I'm seeing related to AI ramp-up just make no physical sense.
- rapjr9 1y agoSeems I'm not the only one thinking along these lines: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/ai-is-power-hungry https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/ai-is-power-hungry https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-happens-if-ai-hits-an-energy https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-happens-if-ai-hits-a... Some of the comments there call out the lack of chip fabs and express a similar suspicion that this might be a ploy to increase fossil fuel demand.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoElectrification of transport and home heating already required a 2-3x increase in electricity supply. If your grid isn't planning for that until AI and still makes no mention of it in future plans then you should be asking questions. Check out the graph of China's electrification. https://preview.redd.it/china-is-electrifying-far-faster-than-any-other-major-v0-ezt0coqfletc1.jpeg https://preview.redd.it/china-is-electrifying-far-faster-tha...
- rapjr9 1y agoEveryone in the US is not going to buy a new car and a new home heating system within the next five years, but longer term that may be true. EV's can be charged off-peak to level the load without requiring new grid infrastructure. So it would seem utilities should now scrap their current long term plans and plan to build out new grid infrastructure much faster for data centers? Some grid projects take 5-10 years just to get approved. There are still years long backlogs in building new power transformers as well. The number of fabs required still seems excessive also. So overall the physical plants required for AI's projected trajectory do not seem possible, unless AI gets a lot more energy efficient and chips get much faster. Or those who want data centers build the power infrastructure themselves without competing with other electrifications.
- jimt1234 1y agoNPR? I thought Trump shut them down.
- bradley13 1y agoThis is a problem in many countries. A lot of it is attributable to misguided investments in renewables. I have solar, so I'm hardly an opponent, but the grid-scale investments have often been misguided. Energy is civilization, from muscle power through oxen, water wheels, steam, all the way to nuclear. Cheaper energy raises living standards. The reverse is also true.
- bob1029 1y agoI cut my power bill significantly by moving 70 miles from the ERCOT region to the MISO region. This wasn't the reason for the move, but it was a happy side effect. MISO/Entergy has some of the cheapest power out of all the US regions [0]. The heavy, fully-amortized coal mix combined with the Mississippi River makes for a hell of a combo. Barges can deliver fuel at a 2-3x lower cost than rail per ton-mile. [0] https://www.entergytexas.com/wp-content/uploads/eti_rs.pdf https://www.entergytexas.com/wp-content/uploads/eti_rs.pdf
- renewiltord 1y agoWe have to ask ourself "what's more important? Energy or the environment?" And as for me, I choose the latter. Some of you may have extraordinary bills but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
- geoffbp 1y agoI’m in south England, cost here is 24.05p/kWh plus standing charge 41.67p/day
- tobylane 1y agoA time and location break down of that first price. https://www.octopriceuk.app/tracker https://www.octopriceuk.app/tracker