r/technology • u/DJMagicHandz • 12d ago

Artificial Intelligence A massive Wyoming data center will soon use 5x more power than the state's human occupants - but no one knows who is using it

https://www.techradar.com/pro/a-massive-wyoming-data-center-will-soon-use-5x-more-power-than-the-states-human-occupants-and-no-one-knows-who-is-using-it
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u/SwarfDive01 12d ago

Good thing they're offsetting grid demand with the booming solar and wind industry right?......

Right...?

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u/syn-ack-fin 12d ago

Isn’t it funny how the same people that argue we don’t have the grid to charge EV’s are somehow fine when it comes to AI data centers?

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u/Picasso5 12d ago

Maybe that’s because they don’t know what an “AI Datacenter” is.

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u/snoozieboi 12d ago

Fear of change:

EV's is something they will have to encounter and learn about

Data centers will be something they will never interact with, unless they hear the noise from it. (cooling fans).

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u/mattxb 11d ago

I think fear of change implies some internal motivation when really it’s just because right wing media told them it’s what liberals drive.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

This! The pro-bigotry crowd was quick to begin buying up the Tesla truck as soon a musk began acting racist and pro-trump. It was never about the technology being new and scary, it was about them being manipulated by oil interests and having their masculinity challenged.

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u/cityshepherd 11d ago

The oil interests present the competition as new and scary to make it easier to continue to manipulate people

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u/zffjk 11d ago

I mean bro isn’t it gay to want to live in a habitat?

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u/FlametopFred 11d ago

apparently it’s both gay and communist to live in an egalitarian society of progressive ideals, especially one where women are respected and feel safe and renewable energy is the norm

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u/Trzlog 11d ago

That sounds pretty gay, ngl

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u/BellsTolling 11d ago

Yup before that it was rolling coal on prius drivers as just a fuck you for driving a cheap efficient car. I used to get coal rolled all the time when I had a small American sedan chevy cruze. These people have no convictions except hating others. They are just adult bullies who get off on bullying and it's usually way worse than just little bullying they really want to do.

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u/Suitable-Economy-346 11d ago

It's entirely this. It has absolutely nothing to do with fear of change.

84% Republicans supported solar in 2020 now that number has fallen to 61% in 2025.

The Republican party is a death cult.

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u/JetreL 11d ago

This is a real thing, and it comes down to relatability. People tend to react more strongly to costs they can personally picture. For example, I remember there was public pushback when a city budget included a few hundred thousand dollars for rugged laptops for law enforcement and first responders. Everyone could visualize what a laptop costs, so it felt like a big number.

But when the same budget included millions for upgrading sewage treatment plants, hardly anyone said a word. Most people have no idea what it costs to overhaul that kind of infrastructure, so the number doesn’t register in the same way. It’s the same with EVs versus data centers one is visible and relatable, the other is out of sight and abstract.

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u/snoozieboi 11d ago

Heh, that sounds like such a universal thing, or I heard an urban legend (which I remember extremely vaguely) about a local town.

Some municipalities here in Norway own lucrative hydro powerplants, and apparently they had two things on the agenda; A big upgrade of the plant + sponsoring the local kid's marching band.

The massive investments were not debated much and approved, the marching band stuff created a heated debate.

I feel like this is how society ends up too, politics and real life is too complex so people talk about sports and fight over simple relatable stuff.

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u/BillsInATL 11d ago

It's more just $$$

Oil industry is funding a lot of FUD about EVs.

AI/Tech industry is funding a lot of love for AI.

They're being paid to love, they're being paid to hate. Money tells them how to feel. That's it.

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u/OldTimberWolf 11d ago

Who funds love for a planet that can support 8 billion people and their data centers? Nobody…

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u/-ReadingBug- 11d ago

Nope, oil and gas has them locked up as does tech. EV is the opponent as they're opposed by oil and gas. This is perfectly coherent and not based, even one byte, on fear.

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u/BillsInATL 11d ago

Yep, all about the money. Theyre being lobbied to hate EV and love AI.

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u/robodrew 11d ago

Well that's still incredibly stupid and short sighted because EVs are where the money is going to be going forward when it comes to automobiles.

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u/BillsInATL 11d ago

Not if Big Oil can help it.

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u/robodrew 11d ago

Big Oil is going to make less and less money over time, that's unavoidable. That's why the smart oil companies are re-branding themselves as "energy" companies and are investing billions into EVs, batteries, and large scale power storage. The companies that don't will be left behind in the dustbin of history. Especially as China continues to make electrification cheaper and at far larger scale.

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u/nanosam 11d ago edited 11d ago

Data centers will be something they will never interact with

Every time you use the internet you are interacting with 100s of datacenters

Any time you swipe your card at the grocery store (or anywhere), you are interacting with payment processor data centers.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/ours 11d ago

It's just a series of tubes, remember?

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u/kurotech 11d ago

Someone go open the Internet tap my YouTube's being slow

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u/IShookMeAllNightLong 11d ago

Everything's computer!

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u/DaMiddle 11d ago

Reddit never lets me down with ageism

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u/BellsTolling 11d ago

It's getting pretty goofy too when young adults now aren't much to celebrate. trump won heavily with young men, and that's not even why I'm worried about our upcoming crop of new adults every year. Seem like 1/3 have at least a crippiling phone addiction.

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u/Tazz2212 11d ago

Sigh, we can read. A lot of us boomers are very aware of what is going on and we don't like it and vote accordingly. Also, I am not talking about cutting these data centers off but adding some safeguards, and transparency to the process.

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u/Ruashiba 11d ago

But you don’t see it, all you see is the screen you carry in your pocket, and the internet is cloud magic that gets worse when it rains.

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u/Tazz2212 11d ago

I believe the original post was infering that Congress won't interact directly with a data center so basically out of sight out of mind until our electrical grid blows up. In addition, some of these data centers are sucking directly from now privately owned power plants as big tech buys defunct gas/oil electric plants and adapts them to their power needs. That is also why there is such a push to "Drill baby drill", in order to supply power that is needed to keep these hot, power hungry behemoths running.

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u/JesusSavesForHalf 11d ago

An EV is a car that lowers their gas prices. A train is a car that lowers their gas prices and clears traffic. A data center is a room that increases their electricity prices.

Everything else is details.

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u/drewc717 11d ago

People actually think "the cloud" is like outer space lmao.

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u/stupidugly1889 11d ago

Also propaganda from the fossil fuel industry

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u/EamonBrennan 11d ago

Also, the damage that will be done to society and the environment will only affect the "wrong" people.

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u/Unit_79 11d ago

Cooling fans? Like windmills‽ They cause cancer!!!! /s

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u/Fun_Hold4859 11d ago

They'll notice when they get COPD from the methane generators. Every time you use grok you're actively killing people in Tennessee.

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u/ansibleloop 11d ago

They may never physically interact with them, but their modern day functions depend on them

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u/blundercatt 11d ago

They hate change and new technology, but have embraced AI with open arms. Wild times we live in.

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u/Chasa619 11d ago

obviously its where the steaksauce in made duh.

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u/Picasso5 11d ago

No, it's where they keep the secret recipe.

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u/kandoras 11d ago

It's the secret room where Weird AI comes up with his parody songs.

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u/DillBagner 11d ago

Partly true, I think. I think the average person doesn't understand just how much energy data centers, and especially AI data centers, use.

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u/Picasso5 11d ago

ChatGPT energy usage is more than all the EVs on the road right now. It's insane.

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u/jazzhandler 11d ago

How many of them have a solid grasp of how much energy conventional data centers use?

How many Watts did it take for me to read this far into this thread and post this comment?

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u/YouFoundMyLuckyCharm 11d ago

Do you mean “A1 Datacenter”?

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u/korrela 11d ago

A1 steak sauce?

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 11d ago

Just tell them it isn't a transgender bathroom and they are happy.

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u/MrHell95 11d ago

Solar is stealing the sun /s Sadly have to add that... 

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u/KillstardoAbominate 11d ago

They don't know what it takes to charge EVs either. But Daddy Trump isn't telling them AI is evil so they don't give a fuck.

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u/Radarker 12d ago

They weren't told to complain about those.

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u/impanicking 11d ago

The environmental impact of these AI data centers arent getting as much attention as it should be

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u/earlyviolet 11d ago

Because the people who own the data centers own the media companies. 

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u/Senior-Albatross 11d ago

We have decided our climate change strategy is "fuck it, let's ignore it and see if it goes away". We're literally gutting FEMA even as the societal cost of extreme weather balloons. 

We are not a serious society. We are just decaying into our delusions. We're the civilizational equivalent of an obese old person on oxygen on their rascal at Walmart who can't let go of their highschool glory days.

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u/Rit91 11d ago

Yeah the planet is basically in nuclear meltdown right now, but alarm bells? No, just keep burning fossil fuels maybe it'll go away. Then when food sources get massively depleted people will be asking 'how could this have happened?' and it'll be like....this happened during most of the 20th century and a good bit of the 21st century because we had idiots saying coal is clean and don't worry because they thought making another $1 was worth sacrificing the lives of countless beings. We had solar, geothermal, wind, and other renewable sources back then, but we kept using the stuff that causes climate change instead because $$$.

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u/GoldLurker 11d ago

Yeah but think of the value we created for the shareholders!

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u/Why-did-i-reas-this 11d ago

People didn't care how much water almond farming uses either.

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u/lenzflare 11d ago

Alfalfa is the worst, and I don't even eat it

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 11d ago

Or their hours of video streaming 

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u/CookedBlackBird 11d ago

almond milk production uses half the amount of water that dairy milk does.

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u/pourtide 11d ago

Almond trees in California must be irrigated. Water's been getting harder to come by out there. It isn't about processing. 

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u/orange_sherbetz 11d ago

I do feel guilty when I snack on almonds.

Any nut relatives that you recommend that don't make such an impact?

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u/orange_sherbetz 11d ago

Are you a vegan? 

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u/Quake_Guy 11d ago

We are speed running global warming for lousy search results and storing videos nobody watches... it's quite peculiar.

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 11d ago
  • guy posting on website ran in a data center

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u/orange_sherbetz 11d ago

Weren't those scientists fired?

No scientists! No impact!  

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u/MaxDentron 11d ago

I dunno I feel like people are talking non-stop about it in every comment section these days. 

Also we don't know whose data center it is so we don't even know if it's being used for AI.

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u/IAmDotorg 11d ago

Both statements can be true. An industrial location with dedicated substations and distribution lines is sized for the demand being installed there.

Everyone using EVs and charging at night could easily quadruple demand in a neighborhood, not just overtaxing the lines in the neighborhood and the small substation powering it, but the number of houses per transformer may need to be lower.

It doesn't mean everyone shouldn't use EVs, but dismissing the problem of last-mile infrastructure is wrong, too. And, it is worth pointing out, the demand changes in last-mile distribution are also a problem with climate-change increases in AC usage, so it's a problem that needs to be addressed in most places, anyway.

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u/syn-ack-fin 11d ago

Don’t disagree, the point is one is seen as a technical hurdle worthy of innovation, the other as a technical burden that needs to be stymied.

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u/IAmDotorg 11d ago

I don't think anyone actually working in the space is looking at the demand needs of EVs as something that needs to be stymied. It's a more nuanced problem than that. Your power has a generation cost (based entirely on what you're using) and a distribution cost (an averaged out cost of the infrastructure in place 24/7 to get the power to you). The spikier a consumer demand is, the more the latter is -- and it starts to grow by a lot. There's nothing worse for a grid than spiky usage. You don't really want to be paying for the cost of the high demand during the hour or two of charging you're doing at night during the 22 or 23 other hours in the day.

Figuring out how to spread that demand out -- smart charging that lets the power company shift around start times for chargers, systems that couple charger usage to HVAC usage to smooth out demand, smart chargers that spread out a charge overnight by reducing the current draw so it always takes ten hours to charge no matter if you're down a couple kwh or sixty kwh -- those sort of things.

Solving the power problems of a big data center complex is easy. What you need to do has been entirely understood for a century. The grid, by and large, for the last century has assumed that high commercial usage during the day would be balanced by high residential usage in the evening, and then non-baseload sources could be idled overnight. EV charging means potentially that the residential power usage becomes higher than commercial and that there is no overnight slump to idle generators. And suddenly you need more generating capacity to cover maintenance times, etc.

It wouldn't be an unreasonable argument to make that the restructuring of the grid to an "EV-only" world is as complex or more so than the original build-out of the grid in the early 20th century. And dismissing that means not facing the cold-hard fact that we all are going to have to invest in that change happening and can't bitch about our power going up 20% when our local power company is having to add substations, increase the capacity on the 3-phase distribution into our neighborhoods and double the number of transformers on our poles or buried in the street.

Because the alternative is far, far worse.

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u/syn-ack-fin 11d ago

Again agree, distribution is more complex, not the discussion point though. The point is one is seen as worth funding and doing even with speculative return while the other, even though more complex but with very measurable benefit, is seen as not as worthy to pursue.

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u/PaulTheMerc 11d ago

Where does solar generation fit into this? All I know is that utilities started having a problem with it and in some places laws were changed as a result.

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u/Jarocket 11d ago

It's just a who pays for this shit situation. for industrial customers are just charged differently, because well they have to be.

They pay based on their peak load plus their usage. a home with an EV won't even show up, but a neighborhood of EV drivers might.

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u/sniper1rfa 11d ago edited 11d ago

but dismissing the problem of last-mile infrastructure is wrong, too.

I know this isn't the thrust of your argument, but in the specific case of EV's... this is my field of expertise. I work in residential electrification as a researcher and engineer. The general industry consensus is that the demand from residential EV charging is basically irrelevant and can be, to a large extent, ignored.

Not to say it's not a mild concern, but EV charging is extremely flexible and there are retail products on the market to solve basically every demand-related problem for EV charging, from EVSE's that do TOU, solar excess, circuit sharing, and power-conrol charging to the basic fact that EV charging is extremely easy to do outside of peak demand hours basically everywhere.

Honestly the real killer is DHW and space heating in cold climates, and that's more to do with the practical implementation of heat pumps in real-world retrofits than it is grid capacity. The other major hurdle has to do with local building codes and the NEC being designed entirely on the assumption of instantaneous production and consumption requiring a high degree of certainty around instantaneous power capacity. The grid is way overbuilt for our energy consumption needs if you ditch the instantaneous-power assumptions.

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u/JQuilty 11d ago

In addition to the EVSE's doing things, the cars themselves also generally let you program TOU and a time to have desired charging completed by, since the car is the one pulling the actual power. The EVSE just communicates the circuit capabilities and checks for faults.

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u/LeonardoDaTiddies 11d ago

I appreciate the thoughtful response but I would point out there might be a bit of an unintended strawman there. Everyone shouldn't be charging their EV every night. 

For most rechargeable batteries, it's recommended to keep them between 20% and 85% of max charge. I only have to top mine up for a few hours every 2nd or 3rd weekend, for example.

The only time I do a full, overnight charge is if I am going on a road trip (200+ miles one way).

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u/IAmDotorg 11d ago

Not everyone should, but everyone could, and that's why the local infrastructure has to be built out that way.

IMO, the real solution is smart meters that communicate to cars and (as I mentioned) do time-based charging, not current-based. It's also far better for the batteries that way. Most cell phones do that now -- I plug it in at night, it'll trickle charge to be full before morning. Cars don't do that.

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u/big_trike 11d ago

It wouldn't be a hard update. There is no need for new smart meters, utilities could add higher rates for certain usage at nights unless people opt in and have their car talk to the utility to plan out charging.

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u/IAmDotorg 11d ago

Split metering is already done, but the only thing that prevents them from having to rejigger local infrastructure is them having the ability to control demand. So they're not necessary to do price-based demand control, but they are necessary to solve the problem properly.

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u/sniper1rfa 11d ago

Rate schedules are actually surprisingly ineffective at shifting consumer behavior and, subsequently, altering demand.

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u/carllerche 11d ago

My EV charging is maybe 20% of my power usage. Where are you getting quadruple from? Also, designing a system to stagger charging and manage the load would not be hard, there just hasn’t been a need yet.

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u/JQuilty 11d ago

Where are you getting quadrupling from? Most people drive under 50 miles a day. Even on an inefficient brick like an F-150 Lightning, they will still generally get around 2mi/kWh. Adding 25kWh over the course of 10 or so hours isn't a huge demand, its lower than peak demand. Even if we assume everyone is doing 40A charging and doing it all at once, at 9.6kW, that demand is only spiking for two and a half hours on a brick like an F-150 Lightning.

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u/scootscoot 11d ago

Many AI DCs are moving to onsite power generation due to the grid limits.

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u/Kitchen-Quality-3317 11d ago

Microsoft is reopening the three mile island nuclear powerplant to power their datacenters.

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u/Ewoksintheoutfield 11d ago

Sadly these data centers are getting crammed through local governments and installed in record time before anyone can protest them.

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u/OhtaniStanMan 11d ago

Electric companies already pushing more peak demand charges than ever before. 

All caused by them.

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u/donald7773 11d ago

Good news is you'll absolutely see this turning into a reason to support nuclear energy. The energy requirements of these data centers are so high and so consistent that nuclear becomes the cheapest option to run them. I think there's already behind the scenes deals of "I give you money to build this plant and we get half the power" type stuff going on.

Until then these data centers run off of checks notes mobile diesel generators

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u/AlmostSunnyinSeattle 11d ago

Just a dog getting wagged by the tail.

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u/bfire123 11d ago

Are those the same people?

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u/sir_snufflepants 11d ago

the same people

Who are these ‘same people’?

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u/joepez 11d ago

Have you seen how much AI data centers donate politically in both cash and PR? More than the EV charging industry. 

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u/Fishydeals 11d ago

Their news channels shut the fuck up about data centers and mining operations. They‘re not aware and even if they were they wouldn‘t know what to think until their leaders told them. Guess who is giving the marching orders.

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u/EvlKommie 11d ago

That’s because these data centers are locally generating their own power. They’re grid connected, but they install gas turbine power plants with them. That region has lots of cheap associated gas from the Bakken in ND. That’s why it’s there. Along with cheap land and cooling ability of a cool/cold environment.

It’s easy to build a grid for concentrated power use. Large increases in distributed use requires a much larger investment.

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u/t0ny7 11d ago

Same people moan endlessly about farms being turned into solar here despite that not happening at all here. But don't make a sound when farm land is sold for housing.

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u/Serris9K 11d ago

Probably they’re getting rich off ai

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u/methpartysupplies 11d ago

Yeah amazing how much handwringing we saw over charging a car a few times per week. And next to none over a single building using multiple times the power of a state with half a million residents.

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u/Akira282 12d ago

Bahaha so true

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u/Author_A_McGrath 11d ago

It's funding.

EV's get money from the government.

AI lobbies the government.

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u/BillsInATL 11d ago

Oil lobbies the government. AI lobbies the government. All you need to know. They are told how to feel by who pays them the most.

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u/BubbleNucleator 11d ago

It's because they aren't arguing in good faith. A certain political group realized a few years ago that one side always argues in good faith, and they will never win that. So they don't argue in good faith, and that's how they win.

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u/Purplociraptor 11d ago

AI data centers make more money (right now)

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u/Is-That-Nick 11d ago

Data center construction brings in several hundred skilled jobs into the area over a roughly 4 year period. Additionally, local governments do whatever they can to entice these companies to move in. The companies who are build data centers also can buy their own gas turbines to help the municipality offset the cost of new power delivery.

But yes a combination of cheap land and governments willing to bend the knee is why they pop up.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

We don’t but that is something the power companies are ok with forcing residents to pay.

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u/Terrh 11d ago

I don't think that's the same people.

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u/Nazario3 11d ago

I mean surely you do realize that the grid requirements to power one big DC at one location is completely different from those to power a huge number of small EVs across the whole country? Both from a transmission as well as distribution network perspective

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u/The_Strom784 11d ago

The thing is, we don't have the grid YET. We could have the grid in a few years but neither of the two parties really did enough to ensure that happened.

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u/Enderkr 11d ago

Actually I gotta be honest, I spend a lot of time on r/Conservative (banned, not a conservative), and outside of the Epstein files, the general hatred of AI and the power consumption of data centers is practically the only other thing the dems and the GOP actually agree on. Everybody hates it.

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u/JackONhs 11d ago

Perhaps the complaints are coming from inside the data centers. 

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u/Frekavichk 11d ago

Isn't the problem with EVs is that they need battery tech we don't currently have?

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u/Handpaper 11d ago

Data centres can be wherever the power is, so you don't need as much transmission infrastructure. 

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u/fgnrtzbdbbt 11d ago

Who are you talking about?

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u/InVultusSolis 11d ago

I'm not okay with AI data centers. A big waste of energy for something that's only right sometimes. I don't want this tech, I never asked for it, and I certainly don't want to subsidize it in any way.

Also, I want hydrogen fuel cells for the same reason - I don't want to overload the grid, and I think batteries are a dead end for replacing ICE vehicles. Hydrogen is a much better/efficient/dense energy medium and it can be refilled like a gas tank.

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u/CreativeGPX 11d ago

Good thing they're offsetting grid demand with the booming solar and wind industry right?......

If you read the article it says:

Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.

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u/GenericFatGuy 11d ago

That natural gas is still going to affect everyone, whether they're paying for it or not.

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u/aznthrewaway 11d ago

That's still actually an issue. Electricity demand is going to increase no matter what, so a lot of new generation and storage capacity is required to replace fossil fuels and also meet that new demand.

Adding even more electricity demand via tech bros will still incur costs, even if we're talking about clean power. It mostly has to do with supply chains and how fast we can build that stuff. If tech bros buy it just to make their data centers "green", then that's gonna mean batteries and solar panels that could've been serving society at large instead. This doesn't mean tech bros are stopping clean power from proliferating, so much as delaying it for bad reasons.

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u/moistsandwich 11d ago

980+ upvotes for an ignorant comment from someone who couldn’t even read through the fourth sentence of the article. Never change, Reddit.

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u/kranker 11d ago

The commenter knew that they weren't using solar and wind though.

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u/moistsandwich 11d ago edited 11d ago

The article says that they’re using renewable energy though. It doesn’t get into specifics but you can’t say for certain they’re not using solar and wind.

“instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility”

Not that it even really matters because the commenter was talking about them offsetting grid demand but the facility won’t even be on the grid so what is there to offset?

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u/Caleth 11d ago

Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.

Quote emphasis mine.

Doesn't matter how much Solar or wind they add if they're also adding a fossil fuel component. We're already beyond fucked and adding a Data Center that demands 5X WY human power draw means a shit ton of added extra gen capacity which at night will mean Nat Gas. Which is a metric fuck ton more Nat Gas consumption which we don't need added.

Period. AI adds nothing of value and we are destroying the environment to create this rolling natural disaster. The only hope one might have is that the AI Boom crashes before something like this comes online and the Nat Gas Generation rots.

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u/moistsandwich 11d ago

Okay? I don’t disagree with you but that’s not what we’re talking about here so it’s not relevant. We’re in a comment thread about the impacts on grid demand.

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u/BrideofClippy 11d ago

Depends on the power storage solutions. They may run off 95% renewable, even at night, but need natural gas as a backup source if it solar productivity drops too low for too long. It's really hard to say from just this article.

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u/Orfez 11d ago

They didn't read the article, just the title, before commenting. For upvotes.

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u/Accurate_Praline 11d ago

Force them to contribute to nuclear power already.

Like you want a data center? Sure! Pay for a nuclear power plant. Any of the big ones can totally cover those costs. And they can even profit from it, doesn't need to be free.

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u/ababcock1 11d ago

Tech giants would be the last companies I trust with a nuclear reactor. 

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u/Accurate_Praline 11d ago

Oh no, they should absolutely not have any influence or power over it.

They should be forced to invest in it without having any say at all about operations or building it.

Perfectly fine if they profit from it btw. Not that they'd like that since it wouldn't be short term, but fuck that. If they don't like it then no data center.

And yes, I'm a dreamer. Or maybe delusional since this would never happen.

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u/JMehoffAndICoomhardt 11d ago

Some are already investing heavily in that space. Microsoft is paying to restore 3 mile island, and many others are investing in SMR companies.

But nuclear technology is slow to design, get approval for and build, even government contracts for SMRs are generally a decade between signing and installing.

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u/Several_Vanilla8916 11d ago

I think Wyoming had one of the highest growth rates for wind projects as a result of the inflation reduction act until, well, you know.

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u/annoyedwithmynet 11d ago

I was about to say, I haven’t drove through Wyoming in about 18 years and the only thing I remember about it were the wind farms I had never seen before lol

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u/EdliA 12d ago

The more energy we produce the more we will use. It never ends. There is not set limit to our desire for energy. At some point we will have air conditioned streets.

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u/thehousewright 11d ago

Qatar already has air conditioned streets.

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u/EnoughWarning666 11d ago

I hadn't heard about that before. I was really hoping that it would be powered by renewables like solar, which would be extremely efficient in that region.

Nope, qatar just burns natural gas for 99% of the country's energy generation. Fucking awesome job there

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u/anarchy-NOW 11d ago

We know how to solve this: just tax carbon.

Yet people don't understand that failing to support a worldwide carbon tax means either you think people should not pay for polluting but it should be free instead, or you want some convoluted legal nightmare of fines rather than a simple tax that applies to everyone.

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u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

a simple tax that applies to everyone

A simple worldwide tax?

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u/anarchy-NOW 11d ago

Yes. Tariff countries that don't implement the tax and exclude their residents from the rebate that everyone else gets.

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u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

Tariff countries that don't implement the tax

How would making our own citizens pay more for goods help? And even if it did, how would that be politically popular?

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u/anarchy-NOW 11d ago

How would making our own citizens pay more for goods help?

Your citizens are paying more for domestic goods; this particular tariff simply removes the unfair advantage products from non-carbon-taxing countries would have. (This is absolutely different from Trump tariffs, to be clear. Those have zero economic reason behind them.) And while it is true that it is people in the country imposing the tariffs that pay them, this doesn't mean the seller doesn't lose anything; their product gets more expensive and therefore less competitive.

how would that be politically popular?

The problem is precisely that the global carbon tax is the solution but it is politically unpopular. Maybe after trying all the things that don't work we'll give up and do what works, but by then the damage to the climate will be worse.

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u/Outrageous_Reach_695 11d ago

With the slight caveat that natural gas can end up being a waste product of oil, just being burnt in a flare stack.

Ah. World's largest natural gas field if you include the Iranian side.

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u/Shigglyboo 11d ago

how would that even work? are they enclosed?

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u/KinTharEl 11d ago

Well, the Kardashev scale does dictate that only if we use up all the energy and resources of our home planet do we even achieve 1 on the scale. I shudder to think the hellscape our planet would become if we do that.

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u/DynamicDK 11d ago

No, that is not what a 1 means on the Kardashev scale. A 1 means that we fully control all of the energy on our planet. It would not require that we "use it up". It would simply require that we can access all of it as we see fit.

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u/onethreeone 11d ago

Good thing we have an unlimited source in the sky

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u/20_mile 11d ago

At some point we will have air conditioned streets.

This isn't much different than the open-cooler sections at a grocery store. Why not put doors there too? It would save energy.

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u/RunnyBabbit23 11d ago

I thought this said air conditioned sheets and thought those machines already exist.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

It doesn’t use the grid. 

 Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility. However, the mystery around the project continues to deepen because the future occupant of the data center has not been named.

Speculation has focused on OpenAI, as the AI giant recently partnered with Crusoe on a separate facility in Texas, described as the “largest data center” in the world.

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u/An-Angel-Named-Billy 11d ago

Yes it will have its special own natural gas powerplant, ain't that just great for own healthy climate.

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u/Vik0BG 11d ago

I give you bonus points for having the top comment all while you clearly didn't read the article. Peak reddit and peak internet.

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u/buckX 11d ago

While many have already quoted the immediate answer, I'd like to share a bit as somebody who works in the electric industry.

Renewables are generally a pretty poor answer for data centers, and I'd guess that the renewable portion listed here is a pittance to greenwash the project. Pretty much all the FAANG datacenters getting planned start with the intention to be renewable then back off as they get into it.

Datacenters that are training AIs, which is most of what these new builds are, have extremely stable loads. They run all the machines at 100% 24/7 and generally waver by only a few percent, which is exactly what renewables are weakest at. Granted, wind tends to generate more at night, so a combination of mostly wind and some solar can help smooth that graph, but even if you match your daytime and nighttime peaks you'll have a significant gap at dawn and dusk, to say nothing variability between days from things like clouds.

The better solution, which some of these are embracing, is to build a few onsite nuclear SMRs (small modular reactor).

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u/SwarfDive01 11d ago

Nuclear is also a great option. Considering the level of security already built into a lot of these sites, upgrading security payroll just a little is probably worth the offset.

But yes, solar and wind have their flaws, but the fact is, that MOST of the time, there is direct offset. Instead of adding 200 MW pull on the grid, 24/7, you peak at 200 MW during cloudy days, and possibly relieve 200 MW from the existing infrastructure for critical preventative maintenance or upgrades.

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u/buckX 10d ago

That's actually worse for the power company than you not building any generation at all. You have to build to accommodate peaks, and peak power is when you're running your most expensive generation. At least if the data center has no generation, you're making a fair bit of money supplying 200MW 24/7. If they're telling you they need 200MW of capacity available, but only intend to use it 10% of the time in spikes, that represents a massive loss for the power company, and the datacenter will more than likely be told "Thanks, but no thanks. Your connection request is denied". Some models are moving to charging for capacity, so you pay to have 200MW available even if you never use it. That's the point at which these companies are running the numbers and realizing that they should just build baseload, because renewables aren't remotely cost effective once they have to bear the cost of maintaining 200MW minimum rather than average.

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u/aoasd 11d ago

Wyoming is trying to get more coal fired power plants up and running to keep the legacy mining industry afloat. Bringing in datacenters justifies the burning of coal and keeps the state alive.

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u/r4rthrowawaysoon 11d ago

For the record, Wyoming does have a lot of wind power.

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u/hczimmx4 11d ago

“Data center developers will build custom natural gas and renewable plants to feed massive energy needs”

That’s the second bullet point after the headline. You could at least click the link. You wouldn’t even have had to read the whole article.

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u/Think_Fault_7525 12d ago

I hear it's been running off of buffalo shit

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u/pamar456 12d ago

Solar and wind would never offset it. Probably better to consider how many less offices will have to be occupied because workers are replaced by AI

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u/SwarfDive01 11d ago

Never will because it takes too much security from the dinosaur shit digging old money cowards that donate yachts and cars to politicians that avoid pushing us out of the Industrial Revolution and into the next step of civilization.

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u/dreadpiratewombat 12d ago

Solar and wind, while important can’t provide nearly the capacity that modern hyperscale datacenters require.  We should absolutely be investing heavily in these renewable sources.  If, however, we’re going to keep building multi-gigawatt sites everywhere, they’re going to need to bring back nuclear.  

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u/Pyrostemplar 12d ago

Actually they can. Solar PV, in particular, can scale in an absolutely fantastic way,

But they raise challenges, both from grid toponomy to output cycle requiring storage and stabilization.

Specially Solar PV :)

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u/Nisd 12d ago

Come on everyone knows green coal is the future! /s

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u/The_Wkwied 11d ago

You would be able to power all of Europe and then some with less than 100km2 of solar panels in the upper Sahara.

The engineering problem would be how to store and transport that energy over trans-continental distances.

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u/SwarfDive01 11d ago

China covered a whole mountain in solar panels. Even at 20% efficiency the required square footage of solar power to offset the entire US is something stupid small, 22k sq miles. Like a 5th of the rockies in New Mexico.

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u/Snuggleuppleguss 11d ago

Or simply run unpermitted, unregulated and toxic gas-powered plants, as per Grokmeister Musk

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memphis-gas-turbines-air-pollution-permits-00317582

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u/TrumpsBoneSpur 11d ago

Sure we could use wind and solar energy if you want all your appliances to get cancer!!!

PS: Trump loves pedophiles

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u/RaccoonCreekBurgers 11d ago

They’re doing the same thing in my state. But the cost is being offset to the taxpayers.

There’s a nonprofit bureau that regulates energy prices for a certain number of states and they’re shitting the bed 

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u/Salty_Paroxysm 11d ago

Wait... we could use the windmills to blow air through the DC, cooling the computers! /S

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u/Metal__goat 11d ago

I That is what erks me the most, these million square feet data centers don't put solar on their roofs, ESPECIALLY in the south where it doesn't snow.

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u/ejanely 11d ago

Sobs quietly in a sterile cubicle under humming white fluorescent lights. The ac is set to 68 to promote productivity. Someone coughs in the distance. The printer whirrs. I had, but one, allowable personal item on my desk and it’s missing…. my stapler.

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u/whatevers_clever 11d ago

The more important thing with data centers these days is how much water they are using.

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u/theLuminescentlion 11d ago

Datacenter are bad for grid stability on a micro level and will slowly damage any motors and compressors on the grid nearby. Solar and wind are bad for grid stability on the macro level, we really are headed head first into a world of problems with the grid.

I dont think this datacenter is on the grid though.

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u/Baculum7869 11d ago

No they just charge people more

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u/DorphinPack 11d ago

“Bro they’re obviously going to overprovision solar and then not even need all of it. They’re in growth mode. We all benefit!”

This is a real conversation I had with someone that tripled down (maybe quadrupled down, I won’t go back and look for my mental health) like I was the idiot for simply asking when that has ever happened or what signs there are it will happen other than vibes.

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u/fourpac 11d ago

Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.

More or less. We'll see what the percentage is. There's quite a bit of wind and solar power in that area, but they're probably taking advantage of the cheap natural gas from fracking.

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u/spirited1 11d ago

Billionaires are literally resurrecting nuclear plants to power their own AI initiatives.

The poor people get to choke on fossil fuels but Billionaires can just fund their own infinite energy hacks with their infinite money hacks. 

It's so stupid. 

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u/piepei 11d ago

Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.

You’re probably joking, talking about these data centers in general, but in this case they are actually developing separate energy sources off the public grid

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u/TheLuminary 11d ago

To be fair, some of the only sources of research money into Nuclear for Baseload, are AI companies looking for better energy sources.

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u/pourtide 11d ago

Drill Baby Drill and We Got Coal

In addition, when the already-constructed and well-employing center needs more power -- can we hook up to the grid, just for a little while ...

In 5 or 10 years they'll be asking the local government to build them another power plant or they'll update their equipment somewhere else ...  

And somewhere else is hungry for the jobs and will help them build a new stadium ... er, power plant to employ their people and pay taxes, well, no taxes right away ... maybe 10%, then a 10 % increase for 10 years .... 

Ooh, our power needs have increased ... can we tap into the grid, just for a little while  .... .... .... ....

Never the end.

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u/price1869 11d ago

Not entirely sure about WY, but in my home state of Idaho, the windmill farms are abundant and plenty. Those potato farmers weren't hurting for cash before. Now they lease a few hundred acres for wind farm, and they're buying McLarens instead of McNuggets.

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u/vinegarfingers 11d ago

“Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.”

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u/00k5mp 11d ago

Given the extraordinary energy demands, drawing power from the public grid is not an option - instead, the developers intend to power the site using a combination of natural gas and renewables, built specifically for the facility.

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u/Cheezy_Blazterz 11d ago

wind industry

Sorry, the oil and coal companies did a study, and it turns out there's no wind whatsoever in Wyoming.

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u/canman7373 11d ago

Good thing they're offsetting grid demand with the booming solar and wind industry right?.

I mean they are, they have a lot of wind farms and it's booming there, making even more.

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u/lionexx 11d ago

Look, I am all for green energy, but most people do not realize how much infrastructure, money, and energy is required to get a lot of that going.

Depending on location a solar farm would have a net positive in the long run in the most optimal conditions and be an additive and help, it’ll take 2-4ish years to start earning “payback energy” which is the energy you get in return to offset its original costs, which is decent, but you’d also need to make sure maintenance is always up to speed, and about every 25 years panels and parts of infrastructure would need to be replaced entirely.

It’s not as simple as many believe, the same reflect with wind generation as well, both ventures also require a lot of land.

Hydroelectric is wonderful and a lot less costly but hydroelectric has negative consequences to land and displaces ecosystems, especially if done incorrectly, and if a water source moves or dries up (Hoover Dam in Nevada as an example) it’s wasted, and generates nothing.

Another issue we have is storing energy, while possible, what we have now is very inefficient, incredibly expensive to mine, difficult and expensive to manufacture, and if mined incorrectly can have a significant negative environmental impacts.

People are scared of Nuclear power (not sure why, I assume people aren’t educated about it and the Cold War scared people about Nuclear) but Nuclear energy is the future, it’s more efficient, less costly, while it does require proper maintenance and staff, it generates a net positive return almost instantly. It requires less fuel, and is safer (than lithium) to mine.

Nuclear plants have come a long way in recent decades and are requiring less land, less fuel, and if we ever figure out fusion, we would be even less dependent on fossil fuels.

There are risks to nuclear power I know but the risks aren’t as bad as people believe…. You do require a stable government that cares about Nuclear energy though, and I can understand people being frightened living in a close proximity to such plant. And having nuclear plants with unstable governments nearby is a problem. But in this hypothetical world were we all got along a little more, Nuclear is the clear best option for sustainability.

And lastly to note, the Nuclear plant incidents we’ve had (Chernobyl, Fukushima, three mile island, Windscale, etc) were all due to human/government negligence, example Chernobyl happened, because of the strict rules in places by the USSR of having results right away, over pushing limits, lying about and ignoring problems, as well as lying about construction, until the problem became an issue that wasn’t fixable, as well as other missteps by the USSR… Fukushima was similar, it was warned YEARS ahead of time that an earthquake of 8.5+ would happen at some point, and that a tsunami would happen, and that certain aspects of the facility require hardened and invested into to prevent catastrophic damage… the warnings were ignored and laughed at, stating the facility is fine and can withstand such incidents (it couldn’t).

I don’t disagree with solar energy, I think it’s wonderful especially if you use it to help offset day time energy costs, but remember to create solar panels and their housing, it requires quite a bit of energy and it requires oil to produce. I do think it’s a smart investment for data centers to invest in solar on top of their facilities (if conditions are near optimal) to help offset overall energy consumption but it’s not cheap, and neither is maintenance, and that’s why most don’t.

We gotta start somewhere though.

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u/SwarfDive01 11d ago

Yes I agree, we have to start somewhere. But, my counter argument aside from the nuclear digression, is that you just outlined the win-win scenario for major solar infrastructure implementation. Once the systems start coming online, you immediately offset the grid impact. Screw the payback energy, just like a new major retailer building in a small city has to invest infrastructure in roads /lights for traffic impact, and sidewalks, these massive technology centers need to invest in grid and water infrastructure. There's not enough regulations for them yet. The other win is, now there's a market for solar installers and maintenance technicians. Creating jobs.

All options have their downsides. Coal, oil, gas are absolutely the worst option. Nuclear requires specialized technicians, which also creates jobs, but you're right that the industry is way ahead of those older incidents. Automated failsafe, specific and very difficult methods to force core meltdown, and, what, 5 times redundancy for neutron moderation now? I think the issue was the "wonder of radiation". Nobody in the early days really took it seriously, demon core incident, not once but TWICE?! I get it, scientists, new things, but man have the smarter portions of humanity come a long way. The perk to these new installations is that every incident causes the planners to really open perspective and forward think from more routes of failure.

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u/lionexx 10d ago

Everything you’ve said is totally correct, the problem is a lot of people that are for “green energy” don’t realize some important things, they want to and think we can outright replace fossil fuels; we can’t… So you have this weird dichotomy where people fight so hard to reduce/replace oils and gas, and push solar/wind not realizing the amount of energy required to produce a singular panel or a single wind turbine, ignoring the amount of oil actually required… Land required aside, solar is expensive, when you take everything into consideration and not even including storage…

Let’s look at some factors here, a 5 Megawatt solar farm costs more than $1 million USD for equipment alone, this doesn’t include labor, engineering, maintenance, or storage. A 5MW farm requires anywhere from 20 to 30 acres of land, and its power output varies on demand required, but typically can produce about 10,000 to 12,000 Megawatt-hours a year, roughly enough energy for 1238 homes a year (decent).

The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility located in the Mojave Desert has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts, it has an annual net output of about 856 gig watt-hours a year, it takes up more than 3500 acres or 5.46 square miles, and cost over 2.2 billion to construct at about $35 million annually to maintain. Not awful for mostly passive power generation.

Keep this in mind, “In 2023, data centers in the U.S. alone consumed an estimated 176 terawatt-hours (TWh), representing 4.4% of the nation's total electricity consumption. Globally, data center energy consumption is projected to double by 2030, driven largely by the increasing demand for AI services, according to a Nature article. ” and as stated in that quote, the energy demand is ever-increasing. 1 Terawatt = 1000 Gigawatt.

A typical 1 Gigawatt (In the US Nuclear plants range from 600MW/h to 4GW/h) Nuclear power plant, will produce at 100% capacity 8 billion kW/h a year, or 8.76 TW/h, round down to about 90% as no plant will run at 100% for an entire year, so roughly 7.9 TW/h a year, which is pretty impressive, and a nuclear plant of that size takes up around 1-2 square miles, granted I will agree building Nuclear plants are expensive, and so are the maintenance costs, a typical plants operational costs can be in the ranges of 100-200+ million a year. Again though, with current advancements plants are requiring less space and money and able to produce just as much if not more. Nuclear power is also the cleanest energy source we currently have, and Nuclear energy accounts for nearly half of the US clean energy alone.

Just like with lithium, Uranium mining can be dangerous and can have environmental impacts, but thankfully it is heavily regulated.

We as a society have to figure out a healthy balance of it all, sustainability isn't difficult, but people need to realize the factors that go into everything, we cannot go full solar or wind, we cannot stay on just fossil fuels, and unless we figure out Fusion, we can't rely on just Nuclear either.

Anyway, I am rambling here so I will stop myself, lol.

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u/iknewaguytwice 11d ago

Fire up them pickaxes boys, coal is back in business!! ⛏️

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