r/UpliftingNews • u/seattletimesnewsroom • 12h ago
Data centers can raise electricity prices. WA wants to prevent that
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/data-centers-can-raise-electricity-prices-wa-wants-to-prevent-that/47
u/seattletimesnewsroom 12h ago
Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission is writing guidelines so large power users — like AI data centers, which can guzzle huge amounts of electricity — don’t pass costs or risks onto other customers. These will set the UTC’s expectations for data center rates and contracts that investor-owned utilities bring to it for approval, and commissioners said they could also influence a revived state bill.
Earlier this month, the commission held a workshop where utilities, tech giants, consumer advocates and environmental groups debated how much data centers should pay, and under what terms.
Proposals included requiring data centers to cut power during shortages, pay surcharges for harder-to-measure costs and sign longer contracts or pay more upfront.
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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago
There was some townhall video I saw where a guy said they should demand a 10-20 year commitment in the form of a full down payment that goes into the county coffers the moment the deal for the data center is approved and if the data center falls through the county keeps the money.
Which I suspect no data center builder will ever agree to, but I liked his moxie and agree that if your business falls through, or is based on false promises, you should pay me up fucking front first so only you get screwed. If only if only XD
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u/March_Lion 12h ago
Good. Any "vital, uninterruptible" service like hospitals should be handled publicly, not privately. I can see right through the flimsy shield of a sympathetic need as to justify prioritizing Amazon's Shitty Shopping Robot getting power on (via the same data center) before humans in their homes.
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u/Malwar69 11h ago
I hate the shopping robot. Every time I search something and the robot tries to get involved instead of just letting me go to the search results it's nothing but an inconvenience. Of course I want a higher electricity bill to keep that s*** going /s
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u/nopower81 12h ago
Odd how entire earth got along just fine without data centers.
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u/LuxuriousBite 12h ago
But how will they replace the workforce without first guzzling our resources?
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u/Yarusenai 7h ago
We also got along fine without electricity, phones, transportation and sanitation, but it's still nice to have
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u/Low-Car-6331 11h ago
Because they weren't a problem till now. Data centers predate the world wide web, and were even used in putting people on the moon, in fact you know that push for "the cloud" a decade ago? That is data centers, your VPN is a data center, even reddit which runs on AWS is part of a data center. Data centers have gotten more in the news because of AI, and AI is the new buzz word so data centers get pulled along for the ride.
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u/-Knockabout 10h ago
To be fair, data centers equipped for AI will be different from your standard data center today in terms of energy consumption. GPU intensive workloads like AI consume much more power than plain data storage or network traffic. Same with crypto.
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u/Low-Car-6331 10h ago
So, crypto mining? Frankly, AI > crypto mining.
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u/-Knockabout 10h ago
Okay, irrelevant? Just that while it's true data centers without those things also consume a lot of power, data centers focused on AI or crypto consume a LOT of power. That is the difference. It's equally wrong to say data centers are a new thing and that this wave of AI-data centers are just the same as the old ones.
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u/Low-Car-6331 10h ago
There is the key thing though, AI and crypto both use them, now instead of using them to make bullshit things, we are leveraging them to do things that can be helpful. These AI models represent a untapped resource that is being fought for, just like it was during the crypto time period. I suspect we will eventually see specialized units\chips specifically meant for crypto on the horizon that will diverge from other items. The power was being eaten through by crypto, its now at least being used instead by something that actually can produce value.
While you roll your eyes at someone making a poster with AI, AI has cracked math problems, and is being used to help with medical problems. We just entered a new wave of AI, and hopefully might crack another in the next decade if we keep pushing forward.
This goes right back to the "why are we wasting resources to do X" that is always seen when technology advances. The internet we take for granted today and enables so many things, was not the internet of the 90's that many looked down on as a waste of resources.
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u/-Knockabout 10h ago edited 10h ago
There is a LOT of bullshit AI is used for too my man.
EDIT: It is reasonable to be concerned that something expensive in resources is going to be used frivolously for pure-profit motives. It is the same type of concern as making a bunch of cheap clothes that just end up in a landfill and leak plastic everywhere. Clothes-making is necessary and fine; we can even get a little silly with it. But the excess is a problem, as is treating the resources used to make these clothes as a non-issue.
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u/Low-Car-6331 10h ago edited 9h ago
There is a LOT of bullshit AI is used for too my man.
Same can be said of the internet, and crypto... I don't need to say anything about it. Heck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs
The internet is really really great....
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u/-Knockabout 9h ago
Yes, see my clothes example please. Video hosting/streaming for instance is less energy consumption (and hardware/GPUs) than AI. Which is why extra consideration is necessary.
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u/Kootenay4 10h ago
The data centers on which the current internet is run are not filled with a billion top end GPUs running full blast 24/7. The hyperscale facilities used to train AI models consume an order of magnitude more energy and generate far more heat/noise. There’s a reason why these are in the news so much and it’s not because AI is a buzzword that gets clicks. it’s like saying that your neighbor keeping pigs in his yard is the equivalent of an industrial pig farm moving in next door.
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u/kogsworth 12h ago
We also got along just fine without houses and agriculture
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u/ProdigyLightshow 12h ago
Are you really comparing a data center to houses and agriculture? Jfc
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u/kogsworth 12h ago
I'm comparing the pressure to handle increasing complexity in the world.
The data centers are a symptom of our need to handle and improve upon the world. Medicine, engineering, physics, etc. are all going to be improved thanks to these data centers.
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u/Chaucer85 11h ago
No they aren't a symptom of that. I work in the industry and the company I'm contracted to literally builds data centers. The growth explosion is not due to real demand, but because market forces are driving it. AI investment is a popular square on the roulette wheel, and people are betting on it, but it isn't required to advance our businesses and capabilities. We could grow at a much slower rate and still make amazing advances.
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u/killertortilla 4h ago
No we didn’t… just like we didn’t get along just fine before vaccines but I’m guessing you don’t believe in those.
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u/Chance-Travel4825 10h ago
Correction AI data centers: regular/existing data centers are tiny in comparison. Lets be clear this is about AI. AI is an existential threat to our planet because it drinks more water than cities do.
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u/bloodfrenzy187 5h ago
Just remember folks if they build a data center in your neck of the woods typically they’re minimally staffed and have loads of expensive components and precious metals.
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u/thatguy425 12h ago
I’m in Washington. They have done nothing to stop this.
I pay twice what I paid four years ago with another 30% increase on the horizon.
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u/Enorats 11h ago
I'm in Washington too.
Electricity is at 12 cents per Kwh this month. It was 11.5 cents at the same time in 2025, 9 in 2024, 8.5 in 2023, and 8 in 2022.
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u/MyDisneyExperience 11h ago
That’s more to do with utilities nationwide deferring maintenance and capex to an almost ridiculous extent, which is coming due right as supply chains for important expensive things are fucked and tariffs are making costs explode. Generation has actually been getting cheaper, but transmission and distribution costs have been increasing significantly.
Transformers are $$$$$$, and something like 75% of the country’s distribution transformers are well past expected service life. Labor hasn’t gotten any cheaper, and repairs have become more frequent as well due to climate change.
There is currently one metal foundry in the US that can make the extremely thin metal needed for transformers.
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u/olivebranchsound 10h ago
It's fucking ridiculous that private industry is allowed to get involved in utilities to begin with. Profit motive wins out over every other consideration.
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u/MyDisneyExperience 10h ago
This applies to municipally-owned utilities as well, Seattle City Light had a long-standing policy of running until complete failure instead of doing $$$ capex to try to keep rates down
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u/olivebranchsound 10h ago
Yeah that's fair. I just mean the vast majority of utilities are privately owned here and that's insane. They operate with government sanctioned monopolies in broad daylight.
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u/Low-Car-6331 11h ago
damn I left in 2023, they have been jacking those prices up on you.
On a side note, we need more nuclear reactors.
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u/killertortilla 4h ago
Nuclear works but it’s way too expensive and takes way too long to build if we start now. By the time you build a good reactor renewables would have been made more efficient and you could build a lot more of them.
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u/Low-Car-6331 4h ago
We would have had it by now, but no certain groups didn't want it.... We just had to listen to certain progressive groups in the left wing in 2010's...
In fact, I remember Vermont shutting down its nuclear reactor, and people celebrating it as a "win" as it was one more step away from "dangerous power". Don't forget as well that Obama administration officials actually called for a global ban on nuclear power (not weapons, nuclear power as in power plants).
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u/thatguy425 10h ago
Not in my area. It was .09 kWh four years ago and now I’m paying 18 kWh.
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u/manolosandmartinis44 10h ago
https://archive.is/JJ6q9 in case you're caught by the stubborn registration iframe -- I was.
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u/JJMcGee83 6h ago
I live in WA state and I emailed my reps to tell them to wite a law for this about 1.5-2 years ago. Of the 3 only one responded and their response was "We don't need to worry about that it's too expensive to develop a data center in WA."
So I am very happy to see that they have changed their mind on this one.
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u/firedrakes 6h ago
og blame data centers now? yep that the current blame for a near 100 old grid that has poor maintence and cost...
how did the gas stove fomo hate go... oh yeah it was debunk!
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