It's Time for a Moratorium on Data Centers Sen. Bernie Sanders

[cliffside]

4:12 minutes

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[Cheezoholic]

2. 100% n/t

[cliffside]

3. As data centers for AI strain the power grid, bills rise for everyday customers

The huge demand for electricity from data centers driving the AI boom has fallout for everyday ratepayers. Regulators are concerned.

Full article/gift link

https://wapo.st/4aV0zpV

"... Companies such as Google and Amazon have ramped up construction of new data centers as they race to compete in artificial intelligence. The facilities’ extraordinary demand for electricity to power and cool computers inside can drive up the price local utilities pay for energy and require significant improvements to electric grid transmission systems.

... The tech firms and several of the power companies serving them strongly deny they are burdening others. They say higher utility bills are paying for overdue improvements to the power grid that benefit all customers. In some cases, they said in response to criticism from consumer and business advocates that they are committed to covering additional costs.

... In Virginia, which has aggressively recruited data center development, new centers alone are projected to increase demand for power up to 50 percent by 2030, according to the consulting firm Aurora Energy Research. Over the next 15 years, the state will need to add electricity supply equal to the amount used by the entire state of New Jersey, Aurora found.
The most recent forecast from Virginia’s biggest utility, Dominion Energy, projects that between now and 2035, residential electricity prices will grow at three times the annual rate they did over the last 16 years. Dominion executives say customer bills in the state are still lower than the national average, and the proposed cost increases for the coming decade are consistent with recent inflation rates..."

[in2herbs]

4. Not only that but they are intending to use federal land to build their data centers on. nt

[cliffside]

5. Thank you - DOE Announces Site Selection for AI Data Center and Energy Infrastructure Development on Federal Lands

https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-site-selection-ai-data-center-and-energy-infrastructure-development-federal

July 24, 2025

"The forthcoming solicitations will drive innovation in reliable energy technologies, contribute to lower energy costs, and strengthen American leadership in artificial intelligence..."

[cliffside]

6. Supersized data centers are coming. See how they will transform America.

Yesterday at 6:00 a.m. EST

Full article
https://wapo.st/3MBVN6M

"The Homer City facility will generate and consume as much power as all the homes in the Philadelphia urban area. It is among a generation of new supersized data centers sprouting across the country, the footprints of which are measured in miles, not feet.

...They are part of an AI moon shot, driven by an escalating U.S.-China war over dominance in the field. The projects are starting to transform landscapes and communities, sparking debates about what our energy systems and environment can sustain. The price includes increasing power costs for everyone and worrying surges in emissions and pollutants, according to government, industry and academic analyses.

... Estimates vary, but all show a dizzying rise of between 60 and 150 percent in energy consumption by 2030. On average, they project U.S. data centers will use about 430 trillion watt-hours by 2030. That is enough electricity to power nearly 16 Chicagos.
Some forecasts project it will keep growing from there.

“These things are industrial on a scale I have never seen in my life,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a House committee earlier this year..."

[jfz9580m]

7. That whole industry needs regulation

It’s way worse than the data centres. Extrapolating from their ways irl, this is not a crowd that is good at asking for permission. And they are shallow enough to think some ridiculous accelerationist leap with no connection to the world as it was 5,10,15,20 years ago is not something to negotiate over, but to force or thwart in ways you wouldn’t. Failing to get the concept of individual or community.

I am planning to file complaints: 1) locally in my country about all the encroachment and other outrageous stuff I am sure took place between Dec 2012 and the present here (exploiting my home/personal devices/health and other data…unfuckingbelievable. As if I would volunteer for stupid crap to get dragged into rubbish I have no interest in anywhere) and 2) against my last employer. But I am in it for the long run.

It’s not money I am interested in. It’s the right to learn for your own earning potential or recreation but without a forced interaction that one is supposed to delicately ignore.

Though hopefully oversight and such clear repudiation of what’s being done, will send them a message if it hasn’t done so. At least as long as any ill-conceived projects are axed now leaving only the system’s obligations. It’s not my job beyond giving info to people who will take it seriously purely as a public spirited citizen who thinks that it is not schizophrenic to see how scammy these guys are.

This is a snoopy enough crew anywhere that I am sure they would know even if they pretended not to. The banality of evil.
It’s too depressing.


Thank you..you guys here on DU for being a grassroots group I knew to whine to. It’s the only one I know. Some comment on atomization or something but whatever.

It’s such mechanical thinking and that’s not a compliment. That’s not good science.

I am building my own “web” in the sense that if that framing is to be applied to reality, it still would at each level be consistent with the nature of a thing or person. I have to go work but I am often indignant about just how bad these guys’ ideas are and how unforgettably stupid their worldviews are so that you have to actively relearn not to think like that or be trapped in an endless if else loop of who, what and why am I and mostly crossing off exhaustively what one is not as that is easier.

I mean I check the broad boxes -public sector, science etc but after that it’s not that straightforward. Anyway I have to go work.


I am sorry to be so odd in my posts. But this is not even my field. I am pragmatic within reason and I don’t want to do this superficial internet pattern finding and prediction etc.
There was so much personal collateral damage and how am I to fit generic legal stuff or professional or anything.

These Google etc guys. They are complete idiots. They cause so much damage.
Anyway..thanks DU.
I hate peopel thinking that the way I feel about Google is who I am. I really was just leading a lame life and wth man..