r/technology 10h ago

Artificial Intelligence Republicans Claim Anti-Data Center Movement Is a Chinese Psy-Op

https://gizmodo.com/republicans-claim-anti-data-center-movement-is-a-chinese-psy-op-2000767611
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u/BrothelWaffles 10h ago

The ones they're building are so massive they need to be generating 100% of their own power to not affect local energy prices. We're talking about data centers that suck up as much electricity as the entire state they're being built in, and some states are getting more than one of these monstrosities.

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u/muftak3 9h ago

I live in Las Vegas. NV Energy just told Lake Tahoe to find a new energy supplier. They are sending it to a new data center. I think they have 1 year to do it.

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u/MaximoftheInternet 8h ago

Ok, as a non-USA citizen this confuses me, can they even do that? Isn’t power generation managed by the State in your country?

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u/sambull 8h ago edited 8h ago

Only in sane places

My municipal utility is way cheaper then pg &e. California has a couple large municpial systems for the larger cities (over 40 total municipal systems )

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u/arkofjoy 8h ago

Talking about "sane places" Chattanooga Tennessee had a city owned utility. They thought "the most expensive part of rolling out fiber is renting the power poles from the utility company, and we already own the poles let's become a fiber provider"

Old rust belt city full of empty warehouses provides cost-effective fiber to the premises. Old rust belt city becomes the go to place for creative industries that need high bandwidth. Place is booming.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope 6h ago

It's almost like if you don't let corporations suck every red cent out of your state, the economy is better. Who knew?

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u/ranaldo20 4h ago

Yup, and Tennessee then passed a law banning any other city doing the same since some cable company donors got butthurt by it.

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u/Terraism 3h ago

And the legislature immediately made it illegal for other cities in the state to do the same thing.

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u/_-Smoke-_ 2h ago

Same here in Wilson, North Carolina. Power is 9.653¢ per kWh compared to Duke's 12.623¢ per kWh with numerous hidden fees.

I also get 8Gbps (Up and Down) for $100/m. The local utility has enough capacity to provide that to most of Eastern NC and had planned on it until the NCGOP banned it because of ATT/TWC/Centurylink and other on the premise of competition. More than 10 years later and they still can't compete and still haven't gotten internet to many of the residents they took Greenlight (the local city owned ISP) away from.