But datcenters have been around for decades now. That's what makes it so insane.

Around me people are rioting about the construction approval of a new DC, it has all the insane FUD on social media flying around about it.

...and yet there are already 24 datacenters in the area, with the oldest ones running since the early '00s

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3eb7988a1663 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Legacy data centers were not representing a multiple of existing electricity demand. It is only recently that DCs are being built hoping to consume hundreds of MWs, up to GWs. Elsewhere in the thread is the Utah DC which will consume more electricity than the entire state.

Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. DCs are causing real strains to the grid which has not had to accommodate rapid growth.

	▲	exmadscientist 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Seeing a datacenter proposal in the news come in at 1.3GW was very sobering for me. I spent a lot of time in grad school on the campus of a large nuclear plant, and it turns out one nuclear core is good for about 0.9GW of electricity (or 2.9GW of heat). A single site consuming more than the entire electrical output of a nuclear core, considering the sheer size and scale of that reactor and its supporting infrastructure and workforce, is just boggling to my mind. It's literally billions of dollars just to feed that one site, if they're being accurate in their proposal.
	▲	protocolture 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. Interesting considering the similar outcry about bitcoin mining.