AI/Data centers and energy demands

3,077 Views | 32 Replies | Last: 1 mo ago by DiabloWags
Cal88
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Anarchistbear
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Take the power for war and surveillance
DiabloWags
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From Dina Katgara at Bloomberg News

Energy-hungry data centers across the border in Nevada are adding pressure to the market serving roughly 50,000 electricity customers on the California side of the lake. By the local utility's own sample-bill calculation, the cost of keeping the lights on at home has surged about 77% since late 2022 approaching twice the national residential average.

The squeeze could get worse next year, when Liberty Utilities, the region's main electric provider, is expected to lose its primary power supplier, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s NV Energy. The Nevada utility says the change was long planned, though it comes as data center development accelerates and competition for power intensifies.

"Already, for my little sandwich shop, there's times when it is over $1,500 a month," said Sean Mullin, owner of the Yellow Submarine shop in South Lake Tahoe. "If it goes up again, we'll probably have to raise prices again and it'll definitely hurt our bottom line."

NV Energy says data centers are not why Liberty is losing its supplier. The arrangement dates to Liberty's 2011 purchase of NV Energy's California assets, when the companies set up a temporary power-supply deal that was always intended to wind down, spokesperson Katie Jo Collier said. She said large new customers, including data centers, must pay for infrastructure needed to connect them to the grid.

Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are on track to spend as much as $725 billion this year, much of it tied to AI data-center equipment.

Nevada is one of the fastest-growing markets for data centers, helped by tax breaks and access to western power markets, according to the Desert Research Institute. The facilities require always-on electricity, and NV Energy, which serves about 90% of the state, has said proposed projects could require roughly three times the energy now used in the Las Vegas area.

Customers have approached NV Energy for more than 22,000 megawatts of potential load, with about 6,000 megawatts already under agreement. That committed amount is more than 40 times Liberty's peak demand in Tahoe, showing how quickly data centers can overwhelm smaller communities.

For Liberty customers, the timing has made the long-planned transition far more consequential. The utility must replace most of its power by May 2027 in a market that it has described as "extremely competitive."

Liberty will still use NV Energy's transmission system to move electricity into the Tahoe Basin. But it needs another supplier, either from within NV Energy's system or elsewhere in the west. That search is complicated by geography, because Liberty is not part of California's main power grid and has only limited ties to other electrical systems, leaving it dependent on transmission through Nevada.

For local businesses, the pressure is immediate. Darin Pepin, who runs Pep's Place, a takeout caf on Tahoe's North Shore, has watched his Liberty electric bills nearly triple, even after cutting hours and removing power-hungry appliances. The rising costs have forced him to raise prices four times in the past three years, and he expects to do so again before the summer tourist rush. He worries the increases will start to push away his core customers.

"There could easily become a point where the locals get priced out," Pepin said.

Sam Kozel, an energy consultant at E9 Insight and a Liberty customer in Tahoe, moved to the region in 2020. Since then, he said, his electricity rate has more than doubled. "It's a huge jump in a short period of time," Kozel said.

That imbalance is fueling concern that data centers are not just adding demand, but helping set the price smaller communities must pay for power.
"How much are we going to allow the rise of data centers in a power-constrained environment to drive pricing?" said Steve Frisch, president of the Sierra Business Council, warning that more communities across the country could soon face the same pressures.

Liberty, owned by Canada-based Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., has asked California regulators to fast-track its search for a new supplier. It expects proposals this summer and is prioritizing "customer affordability and renewable options," spokesperson Alison Vai said in an email.

The compressed timeline leaves Liberty seeking supply while larger, less price-sensitive buyers are also in the market. If it fails to secure a supplier before the current agreement expires, it would still have to keep the lights on, potentially through month-to-month arrangements, according to South Lake Tahoe Mayor Cody Bass.

For residents already grappling with Tahoe's high cost of living, the uncertainty is fueling alarm. An influx of wealth has transformed the region's housing market, pushing prices beyond the reach of many local workers, while higher utility costs threaten to add another burden.

"Further increases in electricity costs will drive out more families and hurt businesses as well," City Councilman Scott Robbins said.

The fast-moving process has stirred concern among residents and advocacy groups, who say the search for a new supplier could sideline public input. South Lake Tahoe has urged regulators to require more transparency, while some residents are pushing for a community-choice program or even a municipal utility.

For Tahoe, the issue is not whether electricity will be available, but how much it will cost as the AI boom reshapes power markets.

"We have to use this crisis as an opportunity to actually improve the system, rather than just plug the hole," Frisch said.




Lake Tahoe Power Crunch Shows AI's Growing Energy Toll in West
SBGold
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I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.
Cal88
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A massive new hyperscale data center project called Stratos is planned for Box Elder County, Utah. If built, it would demand up to 9 gigawatts of electricity, more than twice the total power consumption of the entire state.

But the real shock comes from the waste heat. According to Utah State University physics professor Robert Davies, the facility would generate an additional 7 to 8 gigawatts of heat, creating a total thermal output of roughly 16 gigawatts concentrated in one location.

That energy release, Davies calculated, is comparable to detonating 23 atomic bombs per day in Hansel Valley, a high desert basin near the shrinking Great Salt Lake that naturally traps heat like a bowl. The project's energy footprint would also be roughly equal to that of 40,000 Walmart Supercenters.

Local temperatures could rise by about 5F (2.8C) during the day and a staggering 28F (15.6C) at night. Ecologists warn that such dramatic warming would stress an already fragile ecosystem, worsen toxic dust from the drying lakebed, and disrupt plants, wildlife, and water resources.

As the backbone of artificial intelligence, data centers are essential for every AI query, image, and training run. The Stratos project now raises a critical question: Can the massive infrastructure behind AI expand without permanently transforming, and overheating, the communities and landscapes where it's built?

["'So much worse than I even thought': Utah's 'hyperscale' data center could create massive heat island near Great Salt Lake." The Salt Lake Tribune]
oski003
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Was the pollution and heat waste of AI addressed sufficiently in any of the Terminator movies?
Aunburdened
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Aunburdened
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Texas community passes one year moratorium against data center construction. Fight these parasites.
Cal88
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smh
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SBGold said:

I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.

on the bright side, hopefully we'll "age out" before the worst of the worst matures.
signed, born in the 1940s
not dead yet # funk trunk and i.c.e. too.
(allergic to AI)
Cal88
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" Utah has greenlit the Stratos Project, the largest data center in human history.

Any elected official who voted for or supported this environmental disaster should be removed from office. This is unacceptable."

40,000 acres (twice the size of Manhattan)
Will consume 9 Gigawatts of power, more electricity than the entire state of Utah
Built in the middle of a drought zone..."

Utah energy bills are going to spike up.
concordtom
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SBGold said:

I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.


As a rule of economics, all per capita income gains come from per capita productivity gains.

Robots and AI should undoubtedly create more of both. Therefore, I am for it!

There will be worker displacement, reallocations, and while that sucks for them, it's absolutely nothing new.

There will be ongoing questions related to who gets the gains, and we argue about that endlessly. Socialists? Capitalists? We haven't figured it out yet.

But again, I'd rather mankind take the gains AND the challenges than remain in the Stone Age.
concordtom
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smh said:

SBGold said:

I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.

on the bright side, hopefully we'll "age out" before the worst of the worst matures.
signed, born in the 1940s


An alternative perspective is to look forward to cures to the maladies of old age.

"Live long enough to live forever"

That's surely too much to hope for currently, but some day. The haves will get it. Be served by robots. The haves nots will die off.

In the meantime, maybe they've got something to cure my backache.
cal83dls79
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oski003 said:

Was the pollution and heat waste of AI addressed sufficiently in any of the Terminator movies?
per AI
"Terminators in the film franchise rely on highly advanced, miniaturized nuclear and hydrogen power sources. These fictional power cells can last for over a century under normal conditions and provide enough raw energy to power entire city blocks or cause massive detonations when ruptured in combat."

What it doesn't discuss are the climate policy failures leading up to this nuclear solution and human-less hellscape.
Priest of the Patty Hearst Shrine
concordtom
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Cal88 said:



" Utah has greenlit the Stratos Project, the largest data center in human history.

Any elected official who voted for or supported this environmental disaster should be removed from office. This is unacceptable."

40,000 acres (twice the size of Manhattan)
Will consume 9 Gigawatts of power, more electricity than the entire state of Utah
Built in the middle of a drought zone..."

Utah energy bills are going to spike up.



I heard about this, looked into it briefly.

Sounds like a total scam! They say they need 40,000 acres, which is larger than my Diablo state park if memory serves (35k?), but they provide no details on the installation.

I thought, maybe they will setup a massive solar array, but it would seem just as likely to me that once approvals are given they will strip mine or building a new city or use it as a bombing range. One never knows and certainly cannot trust.

Of course, they will say excitedly that time is off the essence, the sky is falling and we MUST approve the plan before horrible bad things happen.

It's all a smokescreen for their personal ambitions!!
concordtom
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Cal88 said:



Great questions. It appears his answer is "Because I'm big and I threaten you you to do my big project elsewhere."

This is race to the bottom acquiescence by granting municipalities.
Like Al Davis bending over the Oakland officials who feared he'd pick a different city - that did not work out for Oakland financially.
Like states that lower their state rates on certain things because they felt in competition with other states.
Like nations in competition with each other for business will drive down their corporate tax rates….

Tax authorities need to bond together and charge what they will. Else the big finds the advantages while the small carry the burden.
concordtom
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Why is Kevin O'Leary the man we see? He's not a data center architect! He's a showman! They need a showman to answer these questions and throw up the smokescreen.
Cal88
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concordtom said:

SBGold said:

I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.


As a rule of economics, all per capita income gains come from per capita productivity gains.

Robots and AI should undoubtedly create more of both. Therefore, I am for it!

There will be worker displacement, reallocations, and while that sucks for them, it's absolutely nothing new.

There will be ongoing questions related to who gets the gains, and we argue about that endlessly. Socialists? Capitalists? We haven't figured it out yet.

But again, I'd rather mankind take the gains AND the challenges than remain in the Stone Age.


That<s a pretty narrow-focused and mostly outdated 19th/20th century economic theory take.
Cal88
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There is going to be a whole lot of pushback against this agenda, the kids are not on board.

Schmidt almost booed off the stage on his commencement speech at Pac-8 expansion school Lute Olson U :

concordtom
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Cal88 said:

concordtom said:

SBGold said:

I really think AI is just going to ruin our way of life. I honestly think most things on the world wide web now are just AI generated. And most of it is AI slop.


As a rule of economics, all per capita income gains come from per capita productivity gains.

Robots and AI should undoubtedly create more of both. Therefore, I am for it!

There will be worker displacement, reallocations, and while that sucks for them, it's absolutely nothing new.

There will be ongoing questions related to who gets the gains, and we argue about that endlessly. Socialists? Capitalists? We haven't figured it out yet.

But again, I'd rather mankind take the gains AND the challenges than remain in the Stone Age.


That<s a pretty narrow-focused and mostly outdated 19th/20th century economic theory take.


Really?
Is it 21st Century thinking to be against Progress?
concordtom
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Cal88 said:

There is going to be a whole lot of pushback against this agenda, the kids are not on board.

Schmidt almost booed off the stage on his commencement speech at Pac-8 expansion school Lute Olson U :






bearister
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"Leading artificial intelligence researcher, Eliezer Yudkowsky says data centres may need to be dismantled to prevent AI threat to humanity & all life.

We may have to bomb rogue data centres to save humanity.
Leading artificial intelligence (AI) safety researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky is calling for urgent action to be taken in order to safeguard humanity's future. Yudkowsky is a research fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) and is widely known for popularising the concept of friendly artificial intelligence.

In a recent article published in Time Magazine, Yudkowsky has stated that humanity's future hangs in the balance and that immediate action must be taken to prevent a catastrophic event from occurring."
https://datacentremagazine.com/articles/rogue-data-centres-may-need-to-be-destroyed-ai-researcher

“Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside”
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“I love Cal deeply, by the way, what are the directions to The Portal from Sproul Plaza?”
Cal88
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BearlySane88
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Water as a resource is definitely an issue but weird framing when the post then goes on to say that agriculture accounts for 85% of the water usage.

Nationwide, data centers account for less than 1% of the total water withdrawals.
bearister
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" According to Utah State University physics professor Robert Davies….."

I know a guy who knows a guy that told me that dude is Ray Davies' estranged brother (an argument over the Dave Clark Five, allegedly).

“Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside”
—Jim Morrison

“I love Cal deeply, by the way, what are the directions to The Portal from Sproul Plaza?”
Cal88
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BearlySane88 said:

Water as a resource is definitely an issue but weird framing when the post then goes on to say that agriculture accounts for 85% of the water usage.

Nationwide, data centers account for less than 1% of the total water withdrawals.

The impact is more local, especially if those data centers are located in drought prone areas like the SW above.
Anarchistbear
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BearlySane88 said:

Water as a resource is definitely an issue but weird framing when the post then goes on to say that agriculture accounts for 85% of the water usage.

Nationwide, data centers account for less than 1% of the total water withdrawals.


PAC-10-BEAR
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Cal88 said:

There is going to be a whole lot of pushback against this agenda, the kids are not on board.

Schmidt almost booed off the stage on his commencement speech at Pac-8 expansion school Lute Olson U :

Even if there's massive pushback against AI technology in the U.S. that stalls development, China is going to develop it anyways and those same kids will eventually use it if they're not already.
Cal88
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PAC-10-BEAR said:

Cal88 said:

There is going to be a whole lot of pushback against this agenda, the kids are not on board.

Schmidt almost booed off the stage on his commencement speech at Pac-8 expansion school Lute Olson U :

Even if there's massive pushback against AI technology in the U.S. that stalls development, China is going to develop it anyways and those same kids will eventually use it if they're not already.

Different business models, China is going for open source and vertical applications.

The techbros business model might not materialize, and it's not like China is anywhere close in terms of number of data centers.

The top countries by data center count include: [1, 2]

Rank [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Country
Number of Data Centers

1st
United States
4,184

2nd
United Kingdom
515

3rd
Germany
514

4th
China
369

5th
France
345

6th
India
296

7th
Canada
287

8th
Australia
272

9th
Japan
257

10th
Italy
219
Cal88
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Cal88
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bearister
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They posed the follow AI prompt to Mythos:


In the Continental United States, which parcel of real property has the most ideal characteristics to support The Mother of All Data Centers?


Mythos response: Mar a Lago


Mythos response: "Mr. President, at this stage the process involves review and assessment of power capacity, fiber and connectivity and risk assessment. The goal will be to speed to demolition, earthwork, grading, subterranean infrastructure and construction of the structural shell as quickly as possible."
“Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside”
—Jim Morrison

“I love Cal deeply, by the way, what are the directions to The Portal from Sproul Plaza?”
DiabloWags
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