I didn’t realize the scale of data centers in northern Nevada. Residential customers will mostly pay 70% for the transmission line costs. 12 data centers by 2033 with 5,900 MW of power.

“NV Energy is building Greenlink West, a 525-kV, $4.2 billion transmission line from Las Vegas to Yerington, expected online in May 2027. Schwarzrock said Liberty would be “first in the waiting line” when Greenlink opens, giving it access to a wider pool of energy providers. But that timeline matches the contract deadline exactly, leaving almost no margin for error. About 70% of the project’s costs will be borne by Southern Nevada customers. But this is nothing new, at least according to NV Energy.”

At lot of west coast datacenters have moved to Nevada in search of lower land prices and better seismic risk. Vegas is a major hub now too.

I didn’t realize the scale of data centers in northern Nevada.

I also find it hard to wrap my head around the scale involved. Right now I'm putting together a home server with 4x GPUs. Never having worked with a real server chassis before, I didn't really think the logistics through. It weighs over 100 pounds and requires two people to move. It had to be delivered on a pallet and unloaded with a forklift, way too big for UPS. Takes up my whole desk at the moment. Needs a 220V 30A outlet. If I stuffed it full of RTX6000s, it would draw about 6 kW.

And this article talks about a 6 GW project, so that's... a million of these giant power-slurping boat anchors.

There's a similar data center project in Utah which is also causing a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. That one is 9 GW. 1.5 million huge-ass (to me) 4U servers. This just seems nuts.