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It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman. The grid operator for the northeast, according
by timmg 5mo ago
It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman.
The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 5mo agoThere is so much FUD going around SPECIFICALLY about data centers lately, that i’m dubious of anything i hear. it’s such a weird cultural phenomenon. Chronically online teenagers on Instagram making increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water / energy usage. Comparatively barely anyone knew what a data center was 1-2 years ago.
- tempaccount5050 5mo agoYep. 10000 gallons per query, spews out toxic water, contaminates the water supply, uses more power than an entire state, and on and on. I'm convinced it's a psyop to prevent the US's progress in tech. It's so over the top crazy and obviously false, but everyone I know is falling for it.
- jamescrowley 5mo ago‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoFor a less rural example, I am finding different numbers, but all of New York City is estimated at somewhere between 5-10GW. So, some 9 million people vs one data center.
- pjc50 5mo agoSome significant fraction of that NY number will already be data center.
- tempaccount5050 5mo ago3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?
- smallerize 5mo ago3GWh/h.
- rahkiin 5mo agoWatt is Joule/second 3 gigajoule per second. It already has a unit of time.
- jamescrowley 5mo ago3GW/9GW is peak load, as I understand it - data centres usually operate at 85-90% of peak load according to Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, the 4GW figure is average demand - Utah consumed 35,075GWh for 2025, so average demand of 4GW (35075/(365*24)).
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Schiendelman 5mo agoThere's a little evidence that project is real, it looks a lot more like a pie in the sky dream.
- jorvi 5mo agoThey might be wrong on this one, but check the history on cancer alley, or the legalized massive PFAS dumping in rivers the world over, that has now polluted the earth so thoroughly you cannot escape going over the maximum recommended body serum. Same for microplastics. It is absolutely justified to be extremely suspicious of big corporate. They've earned it.
- knollimar 5mo agoIt seems pretty easy to undermine the trust in the other side if you just pretend to be on it and inflate their numbers. See: Florida will be underwater by date X [in the past]
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo agoUnderstandable and justified are very different. I worry that unprincipled skepticism of big corporate makes it harder to stop the bad stuff; if every large project becomes a battle of corporate power vs. slopulist criticism, how do you sort through that to focus on the truly bad ones?
- WarmWash 5mo agoBut datcenters have been around for decades now. That's what makes it so insane. Around me people are rioting about the construction approval of a new DC, it has all the insane FUD on social media flying around about it. ...and yet there are already 24 datacenters in the area, with the oldest ones running since the early '00s
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoLegacy data centers were not representing a multiple of existing electricity demand. It is only recently that DCs are being built hoping to consume hundreds of MWs, up to GWs. Elsewhere in the thread is the Utah DC which will consume more electricity than the entire state. Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. DCs are causing real strains to the grid which has not had to accommodate rapid growth.
- Teever 5mo agoThat's a take. But let's stop and ask ourselves -- Cui bono? Another take is that the same companies that are pushing for datacentres are often the same companies that control social media and traditional media outlets and are using this control to foster datacentres onto thee average person who is either wildly unenthusiastic about or at best ambivalent about. It's all pretty moot anyways. Big tech oligarchs have gotten pretty much everything they want over the years, it's not like the average person in bum-fuck nowhere is really going to be able to stop them from destroying their watersheds, poisoning their air and jacking up electrical prices. I wouldn't get too upset about opposition to datacentres if I were you. Money is King and the King has spoken. There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.
- khana 5mo ago[dead]
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago> There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it. There's plenty we can do about it but the average person isn't quite there yet. But it's coming
- hackable_sand 5mo agoCommon parlance is "own goal"
- bryan_w 5mo agoYou didn't even mention the "infrasound" issue that's been picking up steam lately
- lostlogin 5mo ago> increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water Wait till they hear about big Ag and how they use, abuse and ‘pay’ for water, while farming deserts.
- rockskon 5mo agoSomehow I don't see arguments comparing powering AI with producing food to go over well with them. Many opponents to AI do not view the tech as having a net benefit. Comparing it to food production would serve to make you look more the fool to them despite their claims about water consumption frequently being wacky.
- denkmoon 5mo agoLike all food production has equal merit. Growing almonds in the desert is national food security obviously.
- phowat 5mo agoSince this is HN let's be factually correct. Almond production is irrelevant in water usage. The bulk of it is going to animal agriculture.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoI am finding that 42% of California water is agriculture and 8% of that is for almonds. 3% of state water usage on a luxury nut might not be moving the needle that much, but it does feel wasteful for a state that is perpetually hovering on drought conditions.
- vatsachak 5mo agoThey're chronically online because millennials basically shoved digital heroin into their face from birth
- SV_BubbleTime 5mo agoI like the number of times I heard: “they’re going to be so good at computers!”. I can not imagine getting my children a straight access to internet or a phone or allowing them on social media until after 16.
- jliptzin 5mo agoThat just delays the problem a couple years
- rincebrain 5mo agoThere's pretty noticable differences in ability to self-regulate between people who had unfiltered access to computers and smartphones when growing up and not, beyond simply generational shifts. I think the parent's assumption is that 16 is old enough for those problems to be largely avoided even if you gave them unfiltered access, which is what makes it not just kicking the can down the road.
- SV_BubbleTime 5mo agoYes, it’s this. I know a six-year-old with an iPhone. Any efforts to not do that is going to help. I remember early internet and how it was on a teenager. Can’t imagine just signing up your kids for what it is now just because I won’t be able to keep them from it forever.
- fennecfoxy 5mo ago>millennials basically shoved digital heroin into their face from birth Pretty sure you mean gen z.
- 1shooner 5mo agoWould you believe NERC? https://www.nerc.com/newsroom/nerc-issues-level-3-alert-reliability-guideline-focused-on-large-load-challenges https://www.nerc.com/newsroom/nerc-issues-level-3-alert-reli...
- timmg 5mo agoOf course. (Though I didn’t see a mention of data centers in that doc? I did see “equipment manufacturers” mentioned specifically.)
- 1shooner 5mo agoThe draft term is 'computational load'[0], which is the focus of the L3 essential action in that press release. NERC's concern appears to be computational load cutting. In 2024 for instance, 60 data centers in NoVa cut 1500Mw of load in a matter of seconds[1]. Dominion reported 70GW of large load deliver points, with 40GW in new requests that are 'vast majority' data centers. 40GW is approximately enough to power about 30 million homes (at 1000 kwh/month). 0. https://www.nerc.com/globalassets/who-we-are/rules-of-procedure/proposed/appendix-2-clean---april-2026-posting.pdf https://www.nerc.com/globalassets/who-we-are/rules-of-proced... 1. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/virginia-narrowly-avoided-power-cuts-when-60-data-centers-dropped-off-the-grid-at-once/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/virginia-narrowly...
- hackable_sand 5mo agoIt's not weird at all. Go outside.
- pjc50 5mo agoThe pitch for AI from its proponents is the destruction of all white collar and creative jobs, while simultaneously making all the content they consume worse and Internet socialization with human strangers replaced by doppelgangers? And you wonder why people are upset?
- ben_w 5mo agoI believe the proponents think it will make all the content better, not worse, but the current state of affairs is indeed definitely worse. But I essentially agree with you, the destruction of all white collar and creative jobs is something the proponents hand-wave too easily with vague mention of UBI as a thought-terminating cliché rather than a real policy proposal. (Myself, I'm in a strange position with doppelgängers, because I simultaneously want real human connection and keep getting disappointed with many of the real humans).
- datsci_est_2015 5mo ago> I believe the proponents think it will make all the content better, not worse I believe the proponents think it will make content more profitable, especially in the sense of concentrating the wealth that can be extracted from content creation. Related, there’s a desperate attempt to redefine code as “content”, at least implicitly, so that it can fall under that umbrella as well.
- throw4847285 5mo ago> (Myself, I'm in a strange position with doppelgängers, because I simultaneously want real human connection and keep getting disappointed with many of the real humans). I don't think you're in a strange position at all. You are just being honest about what is the undercurrent of much of modern technological development. AI is simple the apex of a trend to replace human interaction with a simulacrum, which without your awareness, reduces your own tolerance for the frustrations of real human interaction, thus making you more dependent on the simulacrum.
- expedition32 5mo ago
- prepend 5mo agoMy guess is that it’s a Chinese PR campaign to sew bureaucratic barriers to data centers. No evidence whatsoever, but it seems to me that every social media driven trend that benefits some corporation is a pushed idea.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoIt is not entirely wrong. Annual electricity consumption per capita in Maryland has been falling since 2005[0]. Unless a bunch of aluminum smelting plants have come online in the past 18 months, data centers do seem the appropriate root cause leading to a surge in demand. [0] https://www.eia.gov/states/MD/data/dashboard/electricity https://www.eia.gov/states/MD/data/dashboard/electricity cannot drop a direct link, but you can expand the "Total electricity consumption per capita, annual" chart
- timmg 5mo agoThere’s another chart on that page that shows regional demand for electricity. That seems to have flattened or dropped. Not sure how to explain that, in the context of data center demand. Maybe I’m reading something wrong. Or maybe there is an anticipated increase in demand?
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoThe only regional chart I see on that page is at hourly resolution.
- timmg 5mo agoIf you click on the edit icon, you can see more data. It show 6 months worth. I thought it was longer. My mistake. But I guess I would still expect to see something over the past 6 months given the hysteria?
- FuckButtons 5mo agoElectricity usage in N.America / Europe has been static for the last ~20 years.
- tomalbrc 5mo agoThank you Mr. American but wrong
- fennecfoxy 5mo agoI could see how this would be the case. I think we reached peak "electricity" for the consumer decades ago. You know...when our TVs were a giant electron gun pointed as a phosphor screen whilst the room was lit with a filament of 3000 degree tungsten. ...and Americans were getting like 200HP out of a whole ass 7.whatever L v8 ahaha.
- pixl97 5mo agoEh, don't forget we shipped bunch of our industry elsewhere, so while we became more efficient, we also made it somebody elses problem.
- nradov 5mo agoBecause we have offshored most of our heavy industry. For national security reasons we now have to re-industrialize. Plus a lot of the infrastructure for transportation and heating is gradually shifting off of fossil fuels. So electricity usage is going to go steadily upward for the next couple decades. This would be necessary even without AI data centers.
- KurSix 5mo ago[flagged]
- expedition32 5mo agoThe Netherlands banned any hyperscaler development because the grid is under pressure. And it's not fair to citizens that they can't have electricity but a datacenter can.
- nradov 5mo agoIs it fair to Dutch citizens that they're going to be left behind in what is effectively the next industrial revolution? The Netherlands does pretty well in other economic sectors including fossil fuels and agriculture but those aren't going to enable much future growth.
- julianlam 5mo ago> those aren't going to enable much future growth. What is with this obsessive need for "growth".
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]