this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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Yeah the problems with all these data centers are largely solvable. The power usage part wouldn’t be an issue either if they were also investing in sufficient renewable sources to power these things, but instead when they don’t just dump the burden on whatever is already there they’re always reopening ancient coal plants or setting up gas turbines.
Another power issue in some areas is that these and many other enormous energy hogging facilities get cheaper power rates than residential customers.
They should be paying at least as much per kwh as I am, and in fact, I feel like they should be getting charged way more to encourage them to reduce their power consumption and/or convert to renewables. And in the meantime, use that "way more" to lower my bill or offer real financial subsidies for residential solar installations.
Yeah, necessities should always be cheaper for individuals than for businesses. Worst case if the business can’t pay for it: it shuts down. Worst case if an individual can’t pay for a need: the individual straight up dies.
There’s a lot of things I think should be the case that are more likely to happen though
There's still going to be an opportunity cost. You can build massive renewable sources, but powering a data center with it is a shit use compared to other things.
We do invest in local electrical capacity.we always build more capacity than we use.