alt Hacker NewsIncreased demand drives up prices under a fixed supply regime. Power is, in many places of the US, something approaching a fixed supply regime. This is not a physical requirement of the universe. It is a policy choice that we have made. I would argue that it is not the data centers driving up power prices, it is our policies around how difficult it is to provision new power (or build almost anything at all) in the US.
Congress could fix this problem tomorrow. And in fact there is a bipartisan bill (BAAJA) that would go a long ways (although not all the way) towards fixing it. Now yes even if we fix these policies there would be a time lag on new generation being connected, but there is no reason to leave this problem in place.
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> Congress could fix this problem tomorrow.
Even if congress "fixed" this problem tomorrow it would still take years to build the increased capacity (as you note). Since we do essentially have a fixed supply regime the fast buildout of data centers we've seen over the last few years has indeed been the cause of increased power prices. I'll also add that several renewable power generation projects had been in the works and this administration killed them (even paying a lot of money to kill them).
There is new data center project 30 miles outside my city that plans to build a 1000MW natural gas power plant and a 500MW biomass plant that will take millions of acres of forest to sustain (to quite the developer it will burn 350-500 truckloads of logs per day).
If this is an example of the kind of buildout we want to streamline, I say no thanks.
There are rural parts of Massachusetts that have run out of natural gas and electric delivery bandwidth. The simplest solution is non-grid connected power and heat generation. Doing this requires no real change in regulation since the power sources are stand alone. Local building codes are the only regulations.
This is true on the assumption of inflexible demand. Flexible demand may change this, especially reducing non-market capacity payments, for instance.
https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/rethinking-l...
Thank you for doing the work of keeping in the know on this sort of topic and notifying us all of the bill. I'll check it out and send a letter to my congressmen if it checks out.
If BAAJA means that data center companies can install jet engine gas turbines to power their needs, people are not going to be happy.
I agree the permitting process has hindered building in America, but I'm not convinced the current regimes in charge can craft legislation that actually helps people. America keeps voting for something new because the last attempt hasn't changed the status quo.
NYT has an op-ed today encouraging BAAJA, but all the comments are ripping it for bias. Notably it seems to strip away protections for historic sites and takes away rights from Indian tribes. Imagine running HVDC lines through tribal lands, over the Grand Canyon or other historic landmarks - things that would be prevented today that would be legal tomorrow.
I haven't read it, and I do support some level of expediency with grid buildout, but it sounds like it opens the door to ruining cultural landmarks, no prevention of abuse for fossil fuel purposes. Finally, and I mean this honestly: If the administration supports it, it probably is something worth pausing to consider.
The main problem identified in this article is cost allocation, not rate of deployment. Data centers paid only 38% of the grid costs tied to their growth. Speeding up permitting would simply accelerate this subsidy to data centers, with households paying even more, sooner.
Your claim that supply is effectively fixed also seems false. Transmission investment driven by new demand grew 17x in five years. The problem is that capex deployed to serve data centers is being paid for by households, not that it cannot be deployed.
Real-world data also cuts against you. New York and New England are among the hardest places in the country to build energy infrastructure, yet the study found no clear price increase there from data centers.
The bill you cited would fix much of this, but it would do so via provisions forcing data centers to pay for the costs they cause, instead of forcing households to subsidize them.
If your point is “it’s policy,” fine. But the policy causing this is cost allocation, not permitting.
Your comment doesn’t engage with the article’s central finding at all: who pays.