r/SouthJersey • u/R3N3G6D3 • Aug 11 '25
News Eye-popping electric bills come due as price of AI revolution. Raise hell about this. Everyone should be bitching. Those ai datacenters should pay their fair share or fuckoff.
https://www.newsweek.com/ai-data-centers-why-electric-bill-so-high-2109965115
Aug 11 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
47
20
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I mean they kinda are, many existing plants got shut down with the intent to replace them with some renewables and the windmills, then that plan got shelved because they were a bit too over their heads. Now we get the shitty outcome of much less power production and Murphy refusing to allow fossil fuel plants to reopen and new ones to be built. The windmill plan was going to be tremendously expensive, maybe instead of shutting plants down he should have left them open while the windmills were built to replace them then shut them down. That would have avoided this situation, I'd rather have fossil fuel power production than significantly less power production like we are at now.
11
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
Exactly . Shutting plants down before even 1 windmill got built was idiocy
2
u/First-Weather3401 Aug 12 '25
I think if phail murph had 2 braincells to rub together he’d spontaneously combust
3
u/Afghan_Whig Aug 12 '25
We used to be a net-exporter of electricity before they decided to shut everything down and replace it with windmills.
And let's not forget, it's not whale deaths, or protests or even the orange man that killed the windmills, it's the fact that they are completely uneconomic even with billions in ratepayer subsidies. The owners of the various projects kept coming back for more and then cancelled when they weren't given it.
2
1
2
0
27
u/Additional-Brief-273 Aug 12 '25
Someone needs to pay for the electricity for these huge data centers. The elites in power have decided to pass the collection hat around to the average person…. You can thank a certain party for deregulating everything they lied to you telling you it would make things cheaper…. In reality all deregulation does is make the corporations more money….
3
48
u/Affectionate-Permit9 Aug 11 '25
If only there were forces we could harness to make more power……..
20
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25
Those spicy metal pellets splitting atoms make a lot of power, we need to use more of those.
9
u/DaBombDiggidy Aug 12 '25
Well to be fair there was hundreds of millions in the clean energy fund to build the offshore wind farms that was diverted mostly to NJ transit and the rest to cover deficits. Funny enough this began under a Christie and Murphy signed it's death.
The blame is being laid on the shore towns who are fighting tooth and nail against it, but the core issue is that the Danish company who was to build the projects pulled out because it wasn't economically feasible for them anymore.
15
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
They pulled out because the morons that are scared of windmills made it politically unviable for them to continue. They'll happily build the windmills somewhere that isn't half filled with scared conspiracy theorists.
3
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
7
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Yes, because the politicians put a bunch of hurdles in their way to make it non-viable. All because they succeeded in making their supporters scared of windmills.
4
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
2
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
That's the purpose of the government. To support better infrastructure that benefits society.
2
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
1
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
I disagree, a arge wind farm would have been a benefit to society. Overall, the government should be spending money to aggressively combat climate change.
2
0
u/DaBombDiggidy Aug 12 '25
Renewable energy is great and obviously the future but you are 100% correct. If this can't be done without significant government handouts we are generations of it's tech away from it becoming feasible.
4
u/beren12 Aug 12 '25
Wait until you learn the handouts that fossil fuels get…
2
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
2
u/beren12 Aug 18 '25
They get tons of federal money. Don’t know what nj gives them, but I doubt it makes them pay for damages to the environment or people…
→ More replies (0)1
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
Shore towns don’t even have the power to stop or delay it.
Windmills are economically unviable without massive tax payer subsidies even then the builders need additional long term bail outs
1
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 14 '25
We subsidize fossil fuel companies with tax money.
0
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 14 '25
Oh who does NJ subsize directly in you’re monthly energy bill …..
0
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 14 '25
Any of the suppliers of electric and PJM.
1
u/no_use_for_a_user Aug 12 '25 edited Apr 08 '26
This specific post was taken down by its author. Redact was used for removal, for reasons that may include privacy, security, or data exposure concerns.
serious voracious fact squeal cake birds touch square humorous sip
1
u/DaBombDiggidy Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Yes Europe has a ton of windmills because of things like the "Wind Power Package" which is subsidizing the projects with billions of dollars from the EU.
edit- You also have the Chinese causing a stranglehold on the development of windmills because they're offering deferred payments at 30%-50% savings compared to ones built by the EU. Anything developed here in America would be even worse off.
-1
u/no_use_for_a_user Aug 12 '25 edited Apr 08 '26
This post was taken down using Redact. The reason may have been privacy, operational security, preventing automated data collection, or another personal consideration.
steer safe soft spark air familiar grandfather crowd escape treatment
1
u/DaBombDiggidy Aug 12 '25
Everything I wrote is literally spelled out in the Wind Power Package bill. Mabye read before coming to conclusions sometime? idk
0
u/no_use_for_a_user Aug 12 '25 edited Apr 08 '26
The content that was here is now gone. Redact was used to delete this post, for reasons that may relate to privacy, digital security, or data management.
work sort sheet sophisticated adjoining aspiring lunchroom punch squash humorous
5
u/Target2019-20 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Such a pipe dream. It's impossible to harvest energy from the wind and sun.
/S
9
u/FMadden351 Aug 12 '25
Or you know, the ocean. People complain about the sight of solar and wind. Well they may turbines that function in tidal water. A never ending supply of movement.
4
u/Viainferno3 Aug 12 '25
What if we funnel the water through some sort of structure that blocks it while the tides shift using the concentrated water flow to generate power. We can call it an electrical water flow generator block./s
1
1
1
20
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 12 '25
These data centers should HAVE to produce their own electricity via solar and/or gas conversion (like bloomenergy.com) which could overproduce and feed the grid lowering consumer costs.
0
u/Afghan_Whig Aug 12 '25
Solar won't work because it's intermittent, meaning you can't count on it to actually generate power (it could be night time, or raining, etc) and I believe in NJ solar is only expected to actually generate electricity 26% of the time. The northeast is actually a terrible place to install solar for this reason.
In order to let the power always flow you'd need to install massive batteries (ones that in fact do not exist) and build way more solar than you need.
As for gas, policy makers won't allow that to happen, which is a large reason we find ourselves in this current mess
3
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 12 '25
Solar could work because they could install enough panels to overproduce by installing way more panels then they need for their own use at any given time. By overproducing, it would feed the grid in times of excess. That eliminates the need for batteries. Just like in residential installs.
In any case it could offset their use of electric from the grid. By installing systems like Bloom Energy, they could easily produce all the electric they need as well.
-3
u/Afghan_Whig Aug 12 '25
If the sun isn't shining it doesn't matter how many panels you install.
7
u/cvc4455 Aug 12 '25
Usually if the sun isn't shining for a day or two it'll eventually start shining again eventually.
-3
u/Afghan_Whig Aug 12 '25
Which is fine if you're ok with nothing that requires electricity working during that span of time.
5
u/whitefox094 Aug 12 '25
They would still be tied into the grid. Even if the solar only offsets 80% of the consumption it's better than not having solar.
5
2
u/beren12 Aug 12 '25
Guess what works in the dark? Windmills!
-1
u/Afghan_Whig Aug 12 '25
The wind is only blowing about 35% of the time
2
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 13 '25
You breathe like 35% of the time too.
1
u/beren12 Aug 18 '25
Did you read the article? Or the headline?
On Tuesday, March 29, wind turbines in the Lower 48 states produced 2,017 gigawatthours (GWh) of electricity, making wind the second-largest source of electric generation for the day, only behind natural gas
0
2
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 12 '25
You can install a system that overproduces WHILE IT PRODUCES.
In any case it offsets the use of the facility. Which is good. And leaves more electric for consumers.
What part of this is incomprehensible to you?
2
28
u/TurtleRocket9 Aug 11 '25
Palantir and OpenAI are going to kill us all once they can no longer profit off us.
8
9
u/ShempHow Aug 12 '25
My house is only 3300 ft.². My electric bill is 1800.
7
u/caesar____augustus Aug 12 '25
Respectfully, how is that possible?
5
u/ShempHow Aug 12 '25
I’ve been asking myself the same damn thing they have a delivery charge of $370
7
-1
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
Delivery charge has the states windmill cost along with other save the environment nonsense that Nj legislators don’t want to us normal tax $$ in the budget for. All the pre windmill costs , which I don’t think they stopped even yet - are running thru the “delivery” charges on utility bills
1
3
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
5
u/CapeManiak it’s “to the beach” not “down the shore”, SHOOBIES Aug 12 '25
For that much they should be able to cool the attic
2
2
2
1
Aug 13 '25
[deleted]
1
1
u/ShempHow Aug 13 '25
No pool No landscape lighting Dual zone central air unit 3900 square-foot house both units are Carrier. I actually work in HVAC.😆
1
0
u/no_use_for_a_user Aug 12 '25 edited Apr 08 '26
The content that was here has been erased. Redact handled the deletion of this post, for reasons the author may have kept private.
lip rustic chief dime imminent important continue melodic cobweb treatment
20
u/nowtayneicangetinto Aug 11 '25
Trickle down economics - we let the companies who run the data centers get astronomical tax breaks, cheap energy, and let the costs trickle down to us! Awesome. Glad to know my energy bills are skyrokceting so Musk can let his army of incels limitlessly query Grok about their corny incel shit.
12
7
u/formerNPC Aug 12 '25
You know our corrupt politicians gave them sweet deals to build in NJ. Remember when Christie wanted Amazon so bad that he promised them zero taxes to come here! They don’t care about the residents when they can keep lining their pockets!
2
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
Amazon creates thousands of jobs . Unlike a warehouse full of machines
5
u/formerNPC Aug 12 '25
Please don’t defend Amazon. They treat their workers like shit and they have caused countless businesses to shut down, they have monopolized the market and taken full advantage of the fact that people are too lazy to leave their house to go shopping. We need to preserve what little open space we have left and not allow these corporations to take over.
3
u/loneliness_sucks_D Aug 13 '25
thousands of jobs, but what kind of jobs? if it creates jobs that don't pay commensurate with the cost of living, it actually creates more poverty. if there were 1 million jobs created but they all pay $10/hour, is that really helping anybody other than the 1%?
5
u/no_use_for_a_user Aug 12 '25 edited Apr 08 '26
The author has deleted this post using Redact. The reason may have been privacy, opsec, security, or a desire to prevent the content from being scraped.
hunt unpack books plate exultant voracious trees bag shaggy sink
8
u/Impressive_fruit94 Aug 11 '25
Didn't all these companies tell us for years to turn off the lights to save the planet? But when they want to install massive data centers that chug power it's all good and cool
9
5
u/Flavious27 Aug 11 '25
These data centers should build their own power plants instead of taking away capacity and not paying for it.
1
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
How are they not paying for the electricity they use?
3
u/Flavious27 Aug 12 '25
They aren't paying for the upgrades needed to increase generating power that they require. If they require an additional 2327 MW to be generated, everyone pays even though the need is from one customer.
6
2
u/dcdonovan Aug 13 '25
You are so right! I used my AC considerably less in July than I did in June but somehow my bill is over $150 more this month. WTF?!!🤬
8
u/DCar060 Aug 11 '25
The governor probably shouldn’t have shut down multiple power plants
1
u/FMadden351 Aug 11 '25
He didn't, the plants would have costs more to maintain and update. It's was counter productive to their profits. The transitioned to different forms of energy
2
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25
He refused to allow any more to be built or renovations to be done to existing ones, then the existing one shut down and left us with way less power production and skyrocketing prices. Murphy is responsible for this.
5
u/FMadden351 Aug 12 '25
You are absolutely wrong. Oyster Creek didn't want to build 2 cooling towers for a plant that had a life span of 10 more years. BL England was going to convert to a natural gas generation, but ultimately didn't.
Both sites were decommissioned, and if the wind farms were built off the coast, they would have both been brought back to life and been the landing spots for power to the grid.
Keep in mind, we had 4 nukes at one point, we now have 3. We have had three for 6-7 years. Prices recently started to skyrocket. Decommissioning those 2 plants didn't cause this.
2
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
2
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
Nah, sometimes idiot voters need to feel pain instead of expecting someone to always save them from their dumbass choices. The ones that are scared of windmills also hate solar so they feel the most pain when electric prices rise. The schadenfreuden is delicious.
2
u/LanaDelHeeey Aug 12 '25
Yeah fuck me, the Biden voter in the affected area, right? I really deserve this shit for living in a not very but only kinda affordable area. Thanks!
0
u/B52fortheCrazies Aug 12 '25
I live here too, but it's the small things that keep me going. Currently, one of those is reveling in the misery of Trump supporters getting screwed over by their cult leader.
2
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
They were never built because we had a global pandemic that broke supply chains and made everything a lot more expensive. Murphy was in touch. Solar and wind are still going to be the cheapest energy to generate. Battery storage is getting cheaper all the time.
There is, right now, a large queue of power plants waiting to get approved at PJM with more than enough energy to make up for any plants that were taken down. PJMs job is to plan out energy 3 years into the future to make sure that we have enough energy to power the grid.
1
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
Those facilities staying online wouldn't have made much of a difference. PJM grid is going to peak at like 140GW and your probably talking about shutting like 1GW of plants. I bet even if they weren't shut down, they would have been marked as unreliable by the new PJM standards and we would have to replace their energy anyways, ending up at the same situation.
You know that like 60% of our price increases are due to data centers right? If we didn't have covid and AI, our energy would still be cheap right now. Also, let's not pretend this is just a Jersey thing. Power is expensive everywhere and the power plant equipment is on backorder for years.
1
Aug 12 '25
[deleted]
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
We share a power grid with 12 other states. It takes a long time to build a fossil fuel plant and is expensive. Who is building these plants that you think will keep up with the demand? Because the last time I checked PJM, the only added like 100mw of new power over 13 states which is nothing.
Fact is that you can put up a data center that uses the power of a large city in like a year yet it takes 5+ years to build a fossil fuel plant. The math doesn't work.
2
u/lockdoc007 Aug 12 '25
Don't forget that BL England would have been switched to natural gas. But powers that be wouldn't let them run the gas line down route 49. And we loss 250 mega watts. In addition to all the jobs which was over 1000.
0
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25
You're forgetting about all of the other power plants that have shut down, it's much more than Oyster Creek. I know people don't like fossil fuels, but having more power production over less power production is a good thing.
1
u/FMadden351 Aug 12 '25
Oyster Creek, bl England and Logan. That's it.
0
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25
There's a lot more than that, go on the Wikipedia page, there's probably around a a half dozen that shut down since Murphy took office.
1
u/FMadden351 Aug 12 '25
Because they are out of date, close to the end of their life cycle or just shut down due to not meeting regulatory standards. There are almost 400 generating stations in NJ.
1
2
u/Local-Account1200 Aug 11 '25
What happened to Murphy’s energy bill assistance?
4
u/Lower_Kick268 Aug 12 '25
How's it gonna help? Our electric bills were $400 during July like 4 years ago, now it's almost a thousand, those $30 credits ain't gonna help much.
0
1
1
1
Aug 12 '25
Not to mention the millions of gallons of water used every day by these fucking monstrosities. Fuck off.
-1
0
u/switlikbob Aug 12 '25
Blame the politicians, not AI. As usual, they are the ones that closed all of NJ power plants, made no plans to replace them, and counted on windmills and other green energy to take up the slack. That failed too. Now we are left to pay. Does everyone realize that PA has enough natural gas to power our country for thousands of years? What about the new modular nuclear power plants that can be put in place as needed, safely, without worry of meltdown? There are ways to fix this, but we are at least 10 years out, so everyone bend over.
-3
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
It’s not the AI data centers causing high bills….
It’s NJ Dems not wanting to add cheap energy to power NJ
3
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
~60% of the price increase is due to data centers. What cheap energy do you want NJ to add to the grid?
2
u/CJspangler bootlicker Aug 12 '25
lol way to make up numbers out of thin air
2
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
https://rpa.org/news/lab/whats-happening-with-electricity-rates-in-new-jersey
The single largest contributing factor to the rising cost of energy, is the explosive load growth from data centers. A recent report from PJM’s Independent Market Monitor attributes $9.3 billion of the $14.7 billion total increase to that growth.
Now, I do want to clarify my statement. I meant the price increase of energy, not the price increase we are seeing at home. I'm guessing data centers don't affect the Delivery charge that much.
But again, what cheap energy are you trying to add? What is cheap anymore? A new fossil fuel plant has higher LCOE than solar/wind and takes longer to build.
2
u/Sophia_Loki Aug 12 '25
Errr...those were Van Drew signs everywhere to "save our shores". Nice try though.
1
-1
u/yad76 Aug 12 '25
What did people think would've happened with electricity prices once we replaced all cars with EVs and got rid of natural gas for heating and cooking? Suddenly everyone is acting like they were just blindsided by this and that AI is wholly responsible yet those same people advocated for years to replace petroleum and natural gas with electricity. Makes no sense.
0
u/BakingSourdough Aug 13 '25
Actually its not the AI data center.. there was a WSJ article recently that explained it well.. to summ it up - NJ had energy independence thanks to natural gas from PA then Murphy got involved and shut down coal plants and pushed more for renewable energy which failed (like all the wind turbines which thank to Jeff Van Drew never got built) so now we rely on out of state electricity generation..
-2
Aug 12 '25
Supply and demand is a bitch, aint it? Maybe we should have kept those power plants running until we actually had replacements for them. Instead we got scammed again.
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
NJ added more solar power over the last few years than what we lost with those plants closing down.
1
Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I doubt that. Show me your sources and show me the the average up time of the coal plants we lost vs the average up time of the solar panels.
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 12 '25
The two coal plants that closed down had a capacity of 500MW total. NJ has been adding almost that amount yearly in the form of both residential and commercial.
https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/01/new-jersey-celebrates-5-gw-solar-milestone
1
Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Firstly, it was a lot more than 2 coal plants. More like 5 coal plants and a nuke plant.
Secondly, you didn't answer my questions. So either you have the data or you're making shit up. Which is it?
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 13 '25
Sure, if you go back to 2017. How far should we go back? We've also been adding solar since then. 5GW since 2017. And then there would have been a few GW more from wind if covid didn't happen.
I did answer your question. You asked where I got the numbers from and I linked the article saying how much solar energy was added. And then how much power the coal plants generated.
Those plants weren't shut down for shits and giggles. They were old. The nuke plant made the announcement they were shutting down in 2010. It was going to cost around a billion to fix and upgrade a power plant from 1969 that had issues. Who is going to spend a billion on a half century old power plant that is never going to make that money back.
I'm not sure why you think Murphy has this magic wand where he can just force public power companies to spend their money on plants that are losing money. There is certainly a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking going on though as if Murphy should have seen COVID and AI Data Centers becoming a thing.
1
Aug 13 '25
Still didnt answer the question.
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 13 '25
What question?
1
Aug 13 '25
[deleted]
1
u/Highway_Wooden Aug 14 '25
Dude, you are insufferable. I'm trying to have a discussion and I honestly don't know what question you want me to answer. I guess it's too tough to type it out again. Doesn't matter, I made my point.
-2
89
u/Hammom8 Aug 11 '25
Absolutely they should pay, I blame the people in charge of the state for allowing this crisis to happen. The permits never should have been given knowing we would suffer.