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AI is booming so are household utility bills
- andsoitis 1y agoSo AI companies’ product, that they charge us for, also has a measurable impact on the electricity prices we, and presumably, all industries pay?
- k310 1y agoAll programs, tariffs and subsidies are ultimately paid for by Joe consumer, who has an increasing percentage of the load, and absolutely nobody to pass the it along to.
- Yeul 1y agoFuture generations? Just keep that national debt going up!
- floppiplopp 1y agoThe AI hype is probably collapsing soon. But that won't solve the issue. It's basically the only thing that drives the ponzi scheme, sorry, the "stock market growth". It'll end in tears for working people again.
- pingou 1y agoIf it really grows that much and households then consume a small fraction of the generated electricity, it would be easy to tax the electricity generated for AI and just make it free for household consumers.
- Fade_Dance 1y agoNot at all. Corporate earnings have been strong entirely disregarding the AI bubble. We will likely look back and see that much of the misguided AI investment was a headwind rather than a tailwind to things like EPS growth.
- ChiefNotAClue 1y agoAre there any utilities that have progressive rates electricity rates? Where the first X kWh are $0.12/kWh, the next Y kWh are $0.15/kWh, and then anything over Z kWh are $0.18/kWh, etc? Though it seems that nowadays, much of that cost goes to taxes and fees, rather than electricity rate itself.
- Klaster_1 1y agoGeorgia has this.
- pjc50 1y agoUK utilities and a lot of others have regressive rates: you pay a standing charge per day, so low users pay proportionally more per unit consumed.
- unmole 1y agoMost Indian discoms (power distribution companies) have progressive slab rates for households.
- wetoastfood 1y agoTexas has all sorts of options. Most power usage here is structured where individuals can select which Retail Electric Provider (REP) to use. They essentially wholesale energy from the grid. I had the (dis)pleasure of searching for a new contract after ours expired so have a refreshed memory of options: - flat rates - discounted for more or less spend - credits issued at X usage (which is only good at X specifically because its generally an expensive rate but it’s a marketing ploy for filter based searches). - free or discounted night time or weekends - etc. If you can imagine they charge a certain way, there is likely someone trying it.
- molteanu 1y agohttps://archive.ph/SaEDL https://archive.ph/SaEDL
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoWeeks old news Related: Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44931763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44931763 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