this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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That description is like the type of thing I'd say, and other people would tell me how wrong I am.
"Just cut a hole in the roof, and get some machinery to lift the generators out, and then drop new ones in. Easy peasy!"
"It doesn't work like that! It's not legos. You can't just snap a new one in the old spot like plug and play!"
"Why not?"
"Because these are highly sensitive nuclear reactors where small mistakes kill a whole city! These things weigh 100 tons EACH!!!"
"I'm sure it'll be fiiiiiiiiine!"
And I'd be called an idiot for thinking you could just do this. Yet, in this timeline I never had this EXACT conversation, so I can't say I was "right", but I can totally see me having this conversation and being told I was wrong.
People always think I'm wrong, and that you can't do things just because they aren't regularly done.
My current thought is that if America wanted to absolutely dominate the globe in terms of GDP, they would install solar panels all along the nevada desert. All that prime solar space is being wasted.
Plop down a few million solar panels, and you could generate enough energy for the entire planet.
The bottleneck wouldn't be creating power. The bottleneck would be distributing it.
But you could easily put something big and important in the middle of the desert. Something that consumes more energy than you can imagine.
I'm thinking like a 2,000 foot tall voltron mech which is all electric, and powered by solar.
Then if we go to war, you just send these massive mechs. No atomic bomb needed. It just flattens the city, and comes home. Recharges, and goes back out. All they do is switch it's batteries.
What they going to do? Shoot missles at Voltron? Those missles won't even dent the armor.
The only reason we don't have voltron is because the solar power needed would spur a solar explosion, and everyone would be getting solar. Then power utilities wouldn't make money.
So we don't have Voltron because Thomas Edison's ghost is still a capitolist.
This was a wild ride.
So an AI data center?
I was thinking of Las Vegas, but that works too
By that logic these billionaires and AI companies should be putting their data centers in the ocean or something, completely submerged and water-cooled. But that would be too expensive, and have the awful side effect of actually being somewhat beneficial to the general populace, and we can't be having nice things around here. /S
We should absolutely be putting solar panels on every single building in Nevada, Arizona, and probably Utah too. I keep telling anyone who will listen that the Vegas Strip could be completely self-sufficient in terms of electricity if each casino just covered their roofs in solar panels.
They actually are putting data centers underwater now. Turns out having them sealed and pumped full of nitrogen lengthens the service life of the equipment considerably.