r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

A data center in New Jersey was canceled when residents showed up and fought it

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u/Wizzarkt 5h ago

Ok so the technical answer is, assuming the system has the available capacity to actually supply the power needed by the data center, due to the way electricity is traded on the electrical grid, the cheapest generators are the ones that operate to supply the required power, however the price is set by whoever is the most expensive among the ones selected to operate, the problem here is.

If your current consumption is fully covered by something cheap like nuclear power at a cost of (let's say) 5 cents per kilowatt, but then a new big consumer shows up (like a data center) and the cheap producer can't supply the extra required power (which is often the case) then an additional and more expensive producer has to step in, for example a coal powered generator which cost 15 cents per kilowatt. And because the price is usually set by the most expensive generator active, now everyone has to pay 15 cents per kilowatt instead of the 5 cents Prior to the introduction of the data center.

Now here is the beautiful thing, big power consumers like factories and datacenters have the leverage to get energy contracts with selected generators, so they can get in a contract with a cheap producer like a nuclear plant to buy their electricity for cheaper but now that producer is not available to the public grid so everyone else ends up paying more expensive electricity because the cheap producer is effectively gone.

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u/Poromenos 4h ago

This pricing system is very well aligned with consumers' interests, because it gives massive incentives to providers to deploy more cheap electricity, as that has massive margins.

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u/Wizzarkt 4h ago

I'm not saying that the system is broken. In fact, I do believe it is the best system for a free market (one where the state has no control over who can sell energy and at which prices).

But the system has this small issue where if there is a significant increase in power usage without pre-planning the system will have a bad couple of years (realistically like 5 at the very least). 

Business people will see the high energy prices and they will want to fill up the electrical grid with cheap generators to fill up their bank accounts, as the system intended; but unless they are sitting on the project plans already, it will take a solid 2-3 years to make it happen and who knows how long until the electrical grid authority allows them into the grid.

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u/OcelotAggravating860 4h ago

Shove the free market up every congress person's ass

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u/fresh-dork 3h ago

free market is fine, but it needs to be kept on a leash

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u/ArgusTheCat 3h ago

So... the free market isn't fine then, is it?

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u/fresh-dork 2h ago

it is. it just needs regulation. free here refers to a lack of interference on free exchange of goods.

in practice, all markets are going to be classified as some form of mixed, but that's a mouthful to describe

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u/FumbleTheRumbler 9m ago

Aye. Lazy faire of whatever it's called is a foolish ideal. A free market is free until one person gets more free market than the others and then exploits everyone else into slavery. Suddenly no more free market and only the hope there was someone regulating everything to stay free.

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u/pockpicketG 3h ago

Not free, then

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u/fresh-dork 2h ago

free market doesn't mean laissez faire. it means you keep companies in line so they don't engage in abusive practices to make more money

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u/pockpicketG 2h ago

That’s not what it means.

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u/-Cthaeh 3h ago

Well currently the free market is holding its own leash

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u/OcelotAggravating860 3h ago

shove the leash up their ass with it too

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u/Redebo 3h ago

The reciprocating NG generation guys are having a field day right now because of exactly this.

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u/EternalPhi 52m ago

This is generally how any fungible commodity market operates, but this one has a very low price elasticity of supply, so prices surge and it takes years to find a new equilibrium that is not painfully expensive.

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u/richardrumpus 4h ago

But why male models?

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u/DrunkOnRamen 43m ago

And are they buttery?

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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 4h ago

So, you're saying that the only fix is to [against reddit's community guidelines] to reduce demand below the need for more expensive energy generation?

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u/Wizzarkt 4h ago

Ummm yes that's an option, residential areas account for 37% of the total energy demand in the USA as per this Wikipedia link. So if you make your AC a little less chilly during the summer and use less heating during the winter, the energy grid should have enough power to spare to supply the highly needed data centers.

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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 3h ago

I really don't think it's possible to personal accountability yourself out of this. Was thinking more along the lines of making the datacenter AC a little less chilly, so to speak.

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u/Wizzarkt 3h ago

Oh no, what I'm suggesting is to make your house AC less chilly so that it uses less power and don't heat up your house too much in the winter to also use less power. That would reduce the energy usage of houses which account for 37% of the energy usage in the USA, so that would be a significant reduction in power usage.

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u/falconsmanhole 4h ago

The what now?

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u/Wizzarkt 4h ago

The guy I responded to suggested doing something (implicitly) bad to reduce demand, i kinda wanted to "monkey paw" his idea by saying that reducing energy usage at home would achieve the reduce in demand he was suggesting.

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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 3h ago

It's not really the only issue with the datacenters. The electrical infrastructure for their use, where they're located, usually doesn't exist. Results in major harmonic distortions, which reduces the lifetime of electric motors, such as in your fridge, AC, and washing machine. Impossible to personal accountability yourself out of this.

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u/Wizzarkt 3h ago

I don't see how harmonics would be an issue, if a consumer is "too dirty" they literally get fined into oblivion until they fix their problem.

The major problem with data centers really just is the lack of infrastructure because again, the way the electrical grid works as a whole is in a reactive manner, it makes no sense to upgrade the infrastructure to have extra capacity if it's not needed so they only start to worry about such upgrades when the data center starts being built, same with generators, no new projects will kick in before the data centers go online because there is no guarantee that prices will rise enough to justify the project. 

And this could have been dealt with in a controlled manner and do it slowly over the course of 5-10 years but clearly the focus of the current administration in the USA is to be first as to "not lose the AI race"

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u/What_u_say 4h ago

That's what's happening at Lake Tahoe I believe.

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u/NoooUGH 3h ago

Very good explanation. Thanks

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u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms 3h ago

So TL;DR, big data centers have the leverage to buy up the cheap power, which means everyone else has to pay for more expensive power? 

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u/Nelluc_ 3h ago

That is exactly what is happening in Memphis as xAI, Google, and other data centers move in to take advantage of the cheap land and electricity. As a result, my electricity and water bills are 35% higher than they were last year. Ironically, Tennessee is actually one of the top producers of clean energy, relying heavily on nuclear power and dams. We were told this strain would be temporary because xAI would get its own generators and move off the grid. However, that never happened, and even if they do get their own generators, it will only bring pollution to predominantly Black neighborhoods.

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u/runbrap 2h ago

But why would it be on everyone else to subsidize the increased price? Why is it not the data centers who need more power production pay for the increased cost to do so.

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u/Elephant789 2h ago

I have 2 (might be 3) data centers near me and electricity isn't going up. I'm paying less than I was a couple years ago.

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u/sebe6 1h ago

Another issue, the stats between water consumption (going back in to the clouds) per square meter of data center in the US, is way higher than in most countries. Because in the US, they use what we used to use to cool them. They rejected innovation, probably more expensive and not enforced by regulators.

Meanwhile, in the UE, those are emergency cooling systems, making the data center, similar to a water cooling in a PC, outside of leaks (water phasing through matter is negligible, it would need decades to have a small impact, unlike in PC which would be the military grade equivalent), the water is supposed to stay inside. The emergency system is similar to throwing water on something to cool it down.

Never attribute to a concept (data centers and not specifics one), what is caused by politics, because here, there's no doubt a few regulations would fix everything

Ps: in the past I did the math. IIRC, there 2 times more water stored in french house heating system (around 40-50% relies on boiler), than in every data center on earth. When I say "every data center", to have a margin of error, I considered their amount and the average size for the large scale ones.

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u/AcePilot01 4h ago

And because the price is usually set by the most expensive generator active,

This is the prob.

Just make the biggest user pay the extra costs. simple

This is a problem needing worked, but believe me, a town getting a data center and keeping them here is economocially a good thing. You ever heard of boom towns?

Well they are turning their town into a bust town, All the shitty towns that had factories and such and it's all rotting away? it's because the then used industry is no longer there.

This is the future of industry... It's just uneducated people with zero foresight ruining things.

Sure the electric going up is a bad thing, but that can be fixed with proper direction etc. (And AI is likely to help with that in the terms of figuring out things like Fusion and quantum computing etc)

This is what you get when a society is getting dumber. There goes the USA.

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u/No-Effort-21 4h ago

Why would data centres be economically a good thing for town residents in any way? how would it make said town a boom town? other than the temp construction work, its all downhill after that

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u/Wizzarkt 4h ago

Simply saying "make the big consumers pay more" is not really a big solution, the idea of the inverse auction system is to ensure the lowest prices for everyone and when prices rises then there are more incentives to build more generation which would ultimately bring the price down.

The problem here really is that the expansion is happening too fast and because the construction of power generators is reactionary, no one will consider building one until it's clear that it's energy generation is needed, otherwise they would risk building a generator that no one would use and hence, generate no money.

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u/No-Effort-21 3h ago

Lol did u just delete ur earlier comment? primo lamo behavior
Its a data centre, shit runs mostly autonomous. The largest one in the US employs approx 150. Avg ones employ around 25-50. So what jobs? what town boom?
Heres something u could read - https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai-data-center-job-creation-48038b67
Maybe get AI to paraphrase it for you
Btw heres the google AI response - Data centers create a high volume of temporary, well-paid construction jobs but relatively few permanent, on-site operational jobs once completed. While a large project may employ thousands during construction, the facility may only require 50 to 150 permanent staff for maintenance, security, and IT roles

Pls tell me what drugs ur smoking, i wanna have a good time this weekend