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Waldo Jaquith

Dominion Power claims that Virginians’ power usage keeps climbing, so they need to build new power plants that we’ll all pay for with rate hikes. Forced to release internal records, it turns out that the only increase is coming from building data centers.

Why should Virginians subsidize Amazon, whose budget is 7x Virginia’s? virginiamercury.com/2024/11/26

Virginia Mercury · Under pressure from the SCC, Dominion reveals the true cost of data centers • Virginia MercuryDominion's November 15 filing with the SCC shows future data center growth will drive up utility spending by about 20%.

@waldoj It's either increased capacity or Jeff Bezos will be walking door to door killing every person., until capacity will be high enough to support his datacenters.

@waldoj
And now with Musk pushing for deep de-regulation...

Good thing America voted for Trump. He'll be awesome for the average Joe!

@waldoj
Large data centre planning should require by law to fund the full cost of their energy requirements. That should help keep the planet cooler somewhat.

@RaymondPierreL3 @waldoj
Data centre planning permission should be contingent on them providing sufficient renewable energy generation to make them net-positive. With quarterly reporting, and shut down if they do not deliver on that commitment.

@KimSJ @RaymondPierreL3 @waldoj some companies are already doing this. Solar installations on the same grid as the data center that actually supply more than the DC will use is a thing. I dont know the financials of installation vs operation, or if the DC companies get favorable rates for the effort, but I do know that green energy replacement has been a thing for a while

@KimSJ @ATLeagle @RaymondPierreL3 @waldoj this is happening, but:
a) not at the same rate as the new demand
b) there is very little renewable backup for low-generation periods, like overnight or cloudy days. Data Centers run 24/7

I love the new solar facilities, but it’s just not enough

@quoll @KimSJ @RaymondPierreL3 @waldoj and all the new demand is outpacing previous expectations, so natural gas generation is going to be built out more very soon

@waldoj if I understand this correctly, Dominion is only allowed to make 9.7% profit on actually selling energy, but there’s no cap on profit from building new plants? If that’s right the answer is obvious: profit. 🫤

@waldoj I'm unconvinced. If 1M citizens were to migrate to the state, would you expect the new residents to bear all the costs of new capacity in cash that should be amortized over 30-50 years? Of course not. the capacity becomes an asset of the state that contributes to future economic activity.

@gtucker5 Data centers are locating here *because* the cost of building new power plants is being passed along to all ratepayers. Nobody is moving to Virginia because of our power rates.

@waldoj similar to restarting a mothballed nuclear plant—-a government guarantee seems it passes the risk of a private venture’s use of the plant to the taxpayers and local downwind residents while the commercial firm gets the future cheap access. What do the taxpayers get from guaranteeing this private venture? This data center will not provide thousands of jobs.

@gtucker5 @waldoj As a private company, Dominion Energy should simply get a bank loan to build the necessary capacity and then pay it off with the subsequent profits. But maybe the loan rate would eat into those profits when they can just gouge existing customers to buy them new plant.

@waldoj Just say no. Tell them Reagan told you to.

@waldoj
Prepare yourselves mentally so you're not shocked when brown outs and rolling blackouts begin.
More data centers will likely be under construction before the new power plants are finished.
When a decision must be made between starving a data center of juice or making average citizens pay and suffer, you know what's going to happen.

@waldoj
Glad I saved this reply and original toot from mastodon.social/@waldoj
Your Toot fits perfect here.
universeodon.com/@Nazani/11370
From the article;
"But on the threat to Virginia’s energy supply, JLARC is blunt: Building enough infrastructure to provide electricity for even just half the data centers projected for development across the state will be difficult, requiring far more generating facilities than are under development today."

@waldoj @dgoldsmith You’ve heard of capitalism, right? (Sorry, that wasn’t really aimed at you or at your rhetorical question. I’m just tired of the accellerating enshittification of just about everything that I once thought might lead to progress, and I’m afraid we won’t have enough lampposts, enough rope, enough courage, or enough judgment to make it all come right in the end.)

@waldoj That's true all over the country. Make Amazon pay disproportionately if they're going to use a disproportionate portion of the power supply...

@waldoj Exactly. For some reason, data centers, for years, have chosen to locate themselves in VA and MD. This seems odd.

If I were going to build a data center I'd look carefully at places like Montana and North Dakota.

I don't understand the decision-making here.

@waldoj Also, I live in Dominion's region and my electric rates have been going up, up, up. What's more, wind and solar are not a thing around here, yet. Why?

@waldoj We need to force these data centers to be self-sufficient - i.e. be plastered with solar panels and have battery banks. And none of that should be charged to home-based ratepayers. We have the same problem in California, along with a governor who is in thick with the private electric utilities.

@waldoj corporations want socialism when spending, but capitalism when earning.

@waldoj Surely this is what investors are for - they will see the returns on investment, not the consumer? It should reduce the cost to consumers with scaled-up generation?

@waldoj @dalias Amazon should pay for the datacenters nearly or indeed in full.

They should be glad to contribute to society for once, instead of merely profiting off feeding on it.

@waldoj
Another way for Republicans to subsidize the wealthy.

@waldoj Americans elected a sexual predator and *convicted fraud.* In America deals like this will be the norm.

@waldoj I wonder if any of these data centers are involved in mining crypto given America is responsible for 38% of the world's mining. I doubt the people benefitting from all that expensive mining are the ones paying for it.

@waldoj

It isn't just VA. Rates are going up across the country to subsidize the tech bros.

@waldoj this is all getting really complicated. Considering Amazon and others are in bed with the US government in the name of national security, we're all paying the price on a multitude of levels. Who's the biggest winner? JQ Taxpayer getting hit coming and going? Probably not. Who runs what and who owns who at this point? What Holy Grail will we attain come 2028?

pbs.org/newshour/politics/pent

PBS News · Pentagon splits $9 billion cloud computer network contract between 4 firmsGoogle, Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon will share in the Pentagon's $9 billion contract to build its cloud computing network.