https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5624407-trump-ai-data-centers/amp/The Trump administration’s data center push is spurring concerns about energy prices and environmental impacts.The administration has embraced data centers, which house the computers and infrastructure used by tech companies, including for artificial intelligence, as well as the AI they power.White House officials argue it’s important for the U.S. to win the global “AI race” and outcompete rivals including China in the emerging tech space.Just this week, President Trump announced a new initiative seeking to expand AI’s use in scientific research. The administration is also considering a move to block “onerous” state-level regulations on AI.Earlier this year, the administration also floated shielding data centers from environmental impact scrutiny and fast-tracking approvals of the centers and associated energy projects as part of its AI framework.And they are not alone. Many Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed support for the build-out of data centers, though Democrats have been more likely to back some restrictions on the technology.Experts say that technology and data centers are expected to have massive impacts on the electric grid in the years ahead.“Utilities are expecting a lot of this load to land around 2030,” said Ben Hertz-Shargel, who leads research about the electric grid at Wood Mackenzie.“That is the period when the reliability uncertainty will come to a head, and that’s when things will get tighter. So I think it’s that time frame … of three to five years from now that we’re looking at to start seeing the material cost and potentially reliability impacts of AI demand,” Hertz-Shargel said. Electricity prices are also relatively high at the moment. In September, electricity prices were about 5.1 percent higher than they were a year ago, outpacing general inflation, which was at 3 percent.
Hertz-Shargel said that prices are currently high for other reasons, including the aging electric grid and extreme weather that creates storm damage.Meanwhile, the government is also warning of potential issues in the future due to data centers. An Energy Department report from July said that increasing power demand, including from AI, was increasing risks of blackouts.The Energy Information Administration, the nation’s independent energy statistics agency, has forecast new highs in electricity usage in 2025 and 2026, saying increases in the commercial sector will be driven “largely by more demand from data centers.”The Trump administration has argued that data centers can actually help bring down electricity prices over time.Asked about the issue, a White House official recently told reporters that the additional infrastructure needed to power data centers will ultimately lead to more supply of electricity and power lines, and therefore lower prices in the long term.Hertz-Shargel said that this can be true in “limited situations” but that overall, data centers are expected to raise prices.He said that in these limited cases, data centers “consume power when others are not and that does allow better utilization of grid infrastructure, which can, in certain cases, lower energy prices for a certain amount of data center and demand contribution.”“However, once you get to anywhere near the levels of demand … that are being planned for, you’re way past that regime, and you’re in a regime where now utilities are needed to build much bigger and newer and much more expensive infrastructure, including expensive gas plants … so you’re spending much more money and you’re significantly raising the cost of electricity, both the cost of the electricity itself as a commodity and also the cost of the infrastructure that must be recovered,” he added.
Higher demand, and therefore higher prices, are expected to keep more fossil fuels, particularly coal and natural gas, on the grid for more time. In the case of gas, the increased demand is likely to result in more investment. “It looks like we have a setback in our climate and decarbonization trajectory here, as we build a lot of new gas plants and some pipeline capacity and drill more. It looks like our emissions are going to go up for a while and old coal plants are being retained on the system,” said Rob Gramlich, founder and president of consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC.Grid Strategies has recently projected that electricity demand in 2030 could grow massively over the next several years, with 55 percent of the demand increase coming from data centers.Hertz-Shargel agreed that a data center boom could increase the nation’s planet-warming emissions, particularly through the expansion of gas plants. “There always was going to be some degree of natural gas build, but it is far greater than it would have been,” he said, noting that there have been “commitments by some of the natural gas turbine manufacturers to increase their production capacity to satisfy this need.”However, others, including those who are more supportive of data centers, argue that the build-out could make other, lower-emissions technologies such as nuclear energy cheaper and easier to scale in the long run.“For nuclear to become a really important energy source and help to address climate, it has to scale up, and in order to scale up, it has to get the first reactors built and then start building an order book quickly,” said Robin Gaster, research director at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s center for clean energy innovation. The foundation has received donations from tech companies, among others.“Data centers can provide the demand that will get nuclear over the hump,” Gaster added.
Meanwhile, environmental advocates see a problem not only for climate change but also for clean air, especially as some data centers use diesel-powered backup generators. “For these diesel backup generators, it’s very high emissions for soot particulates and sometimes even mercury [and] sulfur dioxide,” Jeremy Fisher, a principal adviser for climate and energy at the Sierra Club, told The Hill last month.Mercury is a neurotoxin; soot can cause premature death, heart attacks and asthma; and sulfur dioxide can harm the respiratory system. “No other industry compares with the amount of backup generation that these data centers insist on having on site, so it becomes a very local pollution issue,” Fisher said.
>>1461093Gotta keep that AI bubble from bursting while Trump is president. Let it burst under a democrat so they can be blamed.
>>1461094>Asked about the issue, a White House official recently told reporters that the additional infrastructure needed to power data centers will ultimately lead to more supply of electricity and power lines, and therefore lower prices in the long term.Fucking how? Because AI is literal magic that can just do anything? Fuck off, retard.Love how the bastards are doing this while also gutting our energy sector too. We’re gonna need more electricity than ever? Great, lets cut solar and wind and etc, their woke or something.This shit is going to destroy the world as we know it.
>Consumes all your electricity and you have to pay for it.
>>1461127They're applying trickle down economic thinking. Everyone knows that even if the energy companies could make electricity more efficiently, they'd just pocket the savings to boost profit margins.
>>1461095>“It looks like we have a setback in our climate and decarbonization trajectory here, as we build a lot of new gas plants and some pipeline capacity and drill more. It looks like our emissions are going to go up for a while and old coal plants are being retained on the system,” said Rob Gramlich, founder and president of consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC.They're out making artificial intelligence and and the jackasses running it say we need more fucking coal to power them. We are so fucked.
First the AI came for our jobsThen the AI came for our water Then the AI came for usThe elites think they aren't expendable haha
>>1461132To be fair you literally support global capital which is an extension of trickle down.And trickle down does work, FYI.
>>1461093MOM~! The furry porn "artists" are complaining about AI again!
>>1461164>AI taking your jobs>AI taking your water>AI taking your power>AI taking your planet>"Y-you're just an angry artist!"Fucking retard.
>>1461165You aren't going to stop it though. It's all over the news how AI is enriching our lives, expanding our education.Or so the poopooganda says.
>>1461167I know.
>>1461093All these resources poured into AI and still NOT ONE company who is based on developing AI has turned a profit yet. What a completely pathetic waste of time and resources just to make stupid looking pictures.
>>1461192>just to make stupid looking picturesThe point isn't to make stupid looking pictures. The point is to cut out all the middlemen involved in getting creative products to market.No more paying graphic designers for ads. No more licensing stock photos. No more paying royalties.Imagine if that list of people at the start/end of a movie no longer existed. Not only do you no longer have to pay them, but theaters could get in an extra screening each day.
>>1461197Please explain to me why anyone would pay to watch something that nobody was paid to make.
>>1461192The hardware sellers are making profit.The datacenter builder and management contractors are making big profits.The brokers who are taking commissions on losing boomer's retirement savings are making big profits.The bankers who make gigantic loans at high rates without needing fractional reserves and can get loans at prime rates are making big profits.Everybody (who matters) is winning.
>>1461288Which one are you?
>>1461093The AIs can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and find their own water.
So jobs. Who maintains the plant? Sounds like more blue-collar work is coming and that's good!
>>1461320You think they hire blue collar workers to maintain an AI plant? You think dudes in overalls are pinching a clock at these facilities? You think they come in and mine the AI with shovels? It will be Indian and Asian engineers with H1b1 visas that trump grants. He has already talked about the program to hire these non American workers to run these plants
>>1461320Yeah no. Not only are the maintenance jobs maybe like two dozen people at most, but they'll likely be foreign workers anyway. Not to mention the amount of jobs is far outweighed by the impact to the surrounding areas; you get to enjoy regular brown-outs due to the high power demands, water shortages, but also the fucking NOISE because these centers go 24/7 and sound like fucking cicadas with all the fans.
>>1461328This, these kinds of satanic plants don't require more than a handful of people to keep maintained but they do insane amounts of damage to their surroundings.Water is already a big issue all over the globe and its getting worse. I cannot believe how retarded some people are, do they really think water appears out of nowhere forever? Once an aquafier for example is pumped empty its gone basically forever. Iran and parts of China and many others are finding this out the hard way :I
>>1461352Seriously. Everyone's talking about electricity prices and job loss, and yeah, that's serious, but...guys, they use up all the water. Your fucking WATER. You need that. If you don't have it you die. If an area doesn't have it that area dies. No amount of modern technology changes that.
>>1461527Yep, people in general seem to be worryingly unaware of how important water is right this moment, not in the future but right now. Wars and struggles over water have been happening since always but these days its more and more about literal existential threat and its not simply a matter relocating to a better area these days either.Like Iran is really screwed, even if their plan to move Teheran is successful (doubtful) it doesn't solve anything. Their infrastructure is still poorly maintained, the dams are choking them and they still keep trying to grow stuff like watermelons in the desert alongside with wheat and other unsuitable crops, and worse is that a lot of it is sold so it doesn't even stay in the local ecology. Imagine basically shipping away the most precious thing you have.And in China the groundwater is really badly polluted all over, doable in cities with proper filtration but outside villages and towns without are screwed and it still get on city dwellers tables as its used for crops as it. They have also been suffering from droughts and floods simultaneously on top of having like ~50% of their agriculture in an area with 1/10 of all the water. Water security and purity in China is probably the most threatening thing they are facing but not many are properly aware of it, many areas are sinking rapidly as well due to the collapsing aquafiers, just like in Iran and basically all over the globe where we're being massive retards lol. Of course the CCP claims they are doing really well on the enviromental front and how especially the air pollution is down while toxic waste, oil, poop water etc. is dumped into rivers/lakes constantly. Its a huge problem but its "invisible" vs. the smog and much, much harder to deal with.t. sorry for the random rant
>>1461165Immigrants are doing all that too + taking our housing and other land.At least AI is making cool porn.
>>1461670You would be surprised how many porn creators are from third world countries
>>1461670Sure is wild how MAGA screams non-stop about how immigrants are taking their jobs, but doesn't give a damn about AIs taking their jobs.Sure is crazy how fags are all "they will not replace us!" while not giving a shit about billionaires building AIs to replace us.
>>1461915They don't care about the jobs, they just do't want to see other skin coloured people in their lives.
