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What about a making it prerequisite? Demonstrate you have built the nuclear/solar/whatever capacity to cover your own energy before you're allowed to build a da

by icwtyjj 7mo ago

What about a making it prerequisite? Demonstrate you have built the nuclear/solar/whatever capacity to cover your own energy before you're allowed to build a datacenter?

_aavaa_ 7mo ago
> nuclear See you in 15 years I guess. Many site are already building their own capacity, but doing it (unfortunately) with gas turbines.
blibble 7mo ago
if it's connected to the grid and you make them buy capacity, they will write a contract to sell the same amount of capacity the moment it's approved and you've accomplished nothing and if you make them hold a certain position they'll simply sell in another subsidiary, or use derivatives the only way to deal with this type of parasitism is blanket refusal
dangus 7mo ago
I think this is the wrong way to go. Let them buy energy, but why aren’t utilities’ power rates more strictly regulated? Residential rates should be locked in with inflation, allow business rates to increase.
- oliwarner 7mo ago
  But you've just killed domestic manufacturing and any retail balancing on fine margins. The only way to remove additional grid demand (and therefore cost) is to simultaneously flood the supply. The DCs should absolutely pay for that.
  - dangus 7mo ago
    That’s fine with me, the government can just mandate utility capacity build-out. These are monopoly businesses where the government has full control over the policy of their operation. I would generally make the argument that data centers aren’t any different than manufacturing or retail businesses. Their demand should be considered equal in terms of priority - the government shouldn’t be artificially choosing industry preferences unless it has very good reason. Either you’re a business and you pay the business price or you’re an individual and you pay the individual price.
Manuel_D 7mo ago
Solar doesn't work well with 24/7 demand requirements, provisioning enough storage to fully even out intermittency drastically raises costs (most battery storage systems are for only 2-4 hours). Nuclear has extremely onerous regulatory requirements.

by icwtyjj 7mo ago

What about a making it prerequisite? Demonstrate you have built the nuclear/solar/whatever capacity to cover your own energy before you're allowed to build a datacenter?

_aavaa_ 7mo ago

> nuclear See you in 15 years I guess. Many site are already building their own capacity, but doing it (unfortunately) with gas turbines.

blibble 7mo ago

if it's connected to the grid and you make them buy capacity, they will write a contract to sell the same amount of capacity the moment it's approved and you've accomplished nothing and if you make them hold a certain position they'll simply sell in another subsidiary, or use derivatives the only way to deal with this type of parasitism is blanket refusal

dangus 7mo ago

I think this is the wrong way to go. Let them buy energy, but why aren’t utilities’ power rates more strictly regulated? Residential rates should be locked in with inflation, allow business rates to increase.

oliwarner 7mo ago
But you've just killed domestic manufacturing and any retail balancing on fine margins. The only way to remove additional grid demand (and therefore cost) is to simultaneously flood the supply. The DCs should absolutely pay for that.
- dangus 7mo ago
  That’s fine with me, the government can just mandate utility capacity build-out. These are monopoly businesses where the government has full control over the policy of their operation. I would generally make the argument that data centers aren’t any different than manufacturing or retail businesses. Their demand should be considered equal in terms of priority - the government shouldn’t be artificially choosing industry preferences unless it has very good reason. Either you’re a business and you pay the business price or you’re an individual and you pay the individual price.

Manuel_D 7mo ago

Solar doesn't work well with 24/7 demand requirements, provisioning enough storage to fully even out intermittency drastically raises costs (most battery storage systems are for only 2-4 hours). Nuclear has extremely onerous regulatory requirements.