A Senate Democrat is proposing a bill that would require large data centers to secure their own power in a bid to reduce energy costs.

Well of course they should pay for their own power!! They’re private companies! What am I missing here?

“ Data centers must pay for the grid upgrades they require and can’t siphon power from existing power plants, according to the bill. It also directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to update its rules related to transmission lines — which transport electricity — to allow data centers to reduce demand during peak energy hours. “

This seems reasonable to me.

      • nullify3112@lemmy.world
        61·
        9 days ago

        Trying to think of a monkey’s paw situation :

        The AI companies would nuke cities to change the other side of the equation.

        Edit: that doesn’t work.

        They would nuke the solar panels not on their property. They don’t need to provide any renewable energy if they don’t draw in any.

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
      4·
      8 days ago

      I’d say make them fund the creation of power plants that will produce 200% of their 24 hour usage in 24 hours.

      They shouldn’t just make what they use. They should be improving the communities where they operate.

  • _stranger_@lemmy.world
    64·
    9 days ago

    Pay!? Make them BUILD 2x the capacity they need and give the rest away to the grid. Don’t let them get away with using money to escape the social consequences of their choices. The responsibility to ensure they have no impact should be forced to be theirs and theirs alone.

    Write laws that make them cease to exist if they don’t do this.

    • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      36·
      9 days ago

      Given we have the technology, any new construction should be required to be environmentally neutral at a minimum, ideally with ongoing improvement.

      If they need to use millions of gallons of groundwater? Great, go fucking wild, but directly fund managed aquifer recharge projects to replace that groundwater at an equal or greater rate.

      Increases in resource consumption should be covered entirely by the data center plus improvements to benefit the community.

      No longer should big business be used as a means to siphon the value of labor and natural resources and concentrate it for selfish use by the worst of humanity.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        6 days ago

        Concrete is recyclable, but usually isn’t because of sortation costs and concrete accounts for something like 7% of Global emissions.

    • wolfpack86@lemmy.world
      26·
      8 days ago

      They’re not paying for additive demand. If grid updates or plant expansions cost $1b then that’s distributed across all customers equally based on their consumption. So let’s say there’s 1m customers and the utility spread the costs over 10 years… $100 more per customer assuming equal consumption across.

      Schiff is proposing the data center itself is saddled with the $1b and all other customers bills are held flat.

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    25·
    8 days ago

    Not just pay for their own power, TAX THE FUCK OUT OF THEM.

    They’re in a hurry because there’s a FUCKTON of cash in it, we need to TAX them like we ACTUALLY KNOW THAT.

  • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
    23·
    9 days ago

    I don’t get it. Why aren’t they already paying for their power? Why is this bill necessary? It sounds like common fucking sense to me, so why isn’t that the default?

    So who’s paying for their power now?

    • Melllvar@startrek.websiteEnglish
      15·
      9 days ago

      They do pay for their power. The bill would require them to pay for grid upgrades that their usage makes necessary.

        • tburkhol@slrpnk.net
          9·
          8 days ago

          At least my provider, when they need to build a new plant or do capacity upgrades, they get the PSC to give them blanket increases in service charge or kWh-rate, on the basis that everybody contributes to the higher demand. Now we’ve got single customers claiming they want the full output of two or three power plants, and why should I pay the mortgage on those plants for 20 years? When the data center will be gone in 5?

    • bthest@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Well they’re very accident prone. Lots of dangerous rednecks out there in the deserts shooting wildly without knowing what’s beyond their targets. So much delicate equipment exposed to the rain of stray bullets. And it’d really suck to work there and find your car’s radiator coolant pouring out from a .30 caliber hole.

  • fox2263@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    9 days ago

    It amazes me that they don’t. You’d think it would be ideal in fact so they can be self sufficient.

    • tburkhol@slrpnk.net
      9·
      9 days ago

      It’s way more complicated to build a GW-scale power plant than a GW-scale data center, mostly because the power plant is subject to environmental studies, fuel supply, etc, so a DC looking for investors that can just say they’re going to build a big warehouse, fill it with computers, and get electricity, magically, from the local utility, gets to outsource the hardest problem, and stands a better chance of getting their funding (regardless of whether they actually build anything).

      I forget where I keep seeing that some huge fraction of proposed DCs will/are never built, suggesting that many of them are just investor scams. Showing their work on power supply would (presumably) make the scam harder to run.

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
    10·
    8 days ago

    If I’m not sharing the dollars, I’m not paying for the volts.

    Or the stuff that transmits/makes the volts.

    But data center owners will sue and it’ll go to the SC and they’ll rule corporations are citizens and therefore tax payers pay.