alt Hacker News> Data centers paid only 38% of the grid costs tied to their growth.
Data centers pay for electricity under the tariffs utilities charge them. To the extent their demand increases wholesale electricity prices, it's the normal consequence of additional demand competing for constrained supply. In no other market is it standard for the person outbidding to also pay for continuing to provide the service to the person who was outbid. The only reason there is much incremental grid cost is because utilities are legally required to continue serving their residential customers. It seems extremely reasonable for residences to share in some of these costs when getting electricity at a significant discount from market price.
The notion that 'households' are paying for data center electricity is just not what is happening. Maybe residences should get discounted electricity, but again this is a policy question and I'm not sure the best use of the marginal federal dollar.
> Transmission investment driven by new demand grew 17x in five years.
Investment is not transmission built, I don't see how this disproves the well-documented countrywide transmission delays. If anything, it is an indication that we are transmission bottlenecked.
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Well, that is true, EVERY SINGLE INDUSTRY THAT USES POWER is paying for AI investments.
So it's way worse, aside from populist "but think of the poor!" it is also actively hurting entire economy, driving prices up everywhere.
The theory you can defend can be summarized by an apt name: locust capitalism.
Even if that supply is built, it will be more expensive because it is built at today's prices, not the prices of 20+ years ago when the community's previous generation capacity was built (possibly built with public money as a public utility). Should that additional cost of new generation be shared equally by the datacenter and the community? IMO it should be paid by the datacenter.