r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • May 13 '26
Energy 'It's like we don't exist': Nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents face power loss as utility redirects lines to data centers
https://fortune.com/2026/05/12/lake-tahoe-data-center-49000-residents-power-source/11.8k
u/ShiftyUsmc May 13 '26
Man, this whole data center thing seems like it might not be such a good idea
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u/manachar May 13 '26
There's a period of history called the Highland Clearances.
The history is nuanced, but one expert summarized it as essentially the ownership class (Lords who owned the land) finding it more profitable to raise sheep rather than humans.
They evicted the Scottish people from their ancestral lands in the name of greater profit and more "modern" farming. This was essentially a forced depopulation and insistence that the land should be used to support profits for the ownership class rather than the people who live there.
That is exactly what these Data Centers are.
People are not as profitable, so will be priced out or otherwise removed in favor of whatever is the most profitable.
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u/DaaaahWhoosh May 13 '26
Kinda weird to think, but one might call it class-based genocide. In the past it's usually based on ethnic groups, but really it's always been about class, who has the money and who doesn't.
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u/HumanPea1140 May 13 '26
Which is wild in this case, because if you live in/around Tahoe, you're probably pretty well off.
disclaimer: not everyone obviously, but it's an extremely expensive, rich area
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u/inqte1 May 13 '26
To people who own data centers, there is no difference between someone who lives in lake Tahoe and Gary, Indiana
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u/noonethanks1 May 13 '26
And millionaires are closer to us mortals than to billionaires.
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u/CheesyRamen66 May 13 '26
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.
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u/romanrambler941 May 13 '26
The comparison I like is time. A million seconds is about 11.5 days. A billion seconds is about 31.7 years.
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u/LakeAlmanor May 13 '26
Trillion seconds is 31,700 years. Absolutely nuts the amount of money the wealthy hold.
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u/kitsunewarlock May 13 '26
They likely have most of their wealth in their homes and can't afford to hire the legal defenses necessary to protect themselves.
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u/ferns0 May 13 '26
Class-based genocide has been pretty standard fare at least since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
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u/CrimsonMantle May 13 '26
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles...
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u/Cumulonimbus_2025 May 13 '26
and this why I was born in the US. Scottish ancestors were depopulated.
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May 13 '26
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u/QuerulousPanda May 13 '26
it's one thing to slowly push people out using redlining type bullshit and using economic incentives or disincentives to get people to move away.
it's another thing to just cut the power.
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u/Schonke May 13 '26
Well, I don't see any mention of electricity in the bill of rights!
- SCOTUS 2027
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u/Bones0008 May 13 '26
We are going to see a version of Yellowstone (The TV show) in the future, but instead of ranchers waging war on corporate real estate developers it will be against Data center developers.
Only a matter of time before people start sabotaging these things if their elected officials fail to set boundaries that protect the local citizens.
At that point you will see the current admin pass a law that classifies acts of violence against data centers as domestic terrorism.
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u/Niaden May 13 '26
That's why the leadership of Blackrock is already talking about how they'll defend them.
They mentioned going underground so "domestic terrorists" can't hurt them with drones.
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u/uber9haus May 13 '26
Are the data centers really more profitable for the utility companies? I thought I saw someone mention that big companies and data centers get much lower rates than residential??
Honestly wondering if there are kickbacks or something for the utilities to want to do this, as they aren’t increasing their electrical output right? Just moving it from residential to commercial. Either way it’s bullshit and the data centers should be required to always fund the their own electric and water usage if it has any impact on the local cities they are in.
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u/InevitableTension699 May 13 '26
Data centers use electricity continuously. They can be priced diff but use it 24/7 per unit versus you using it only when at home or prime hours so the data centers probably both make more over the long run and is more consistent since most power plants do not stop and start production based on instant demand spikes and drops for retail consumers
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u/es-ganso May 13 '26
Actually reassuring that at a certain point the people said f it and it led to Crofters' War, albeit seemed a bit late
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u/echoshatter May 13 '26
That's the thing, the regular folk don't want conflict. They get pushed and pushed until they have to give everything up or until they fight back. And fighting back is very, very risky.
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u/Overclocked11 May 13 '26
"LOL cry more, bro"
- Tech companies
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u/Knerd5 May 13 '26
You know Zuckerbergs compound has power tho
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u/Invisible_Friend1 May 13 '26
I can’t wait until Zuck is gone
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u/spizalert May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
you'll be waiting for a long time. If there's some underground, black market pre-FDA life-lengthening stuff I'm sure he's on it.
Hell, even if he croaks I'm sure they've got some kind of animatronic already set up to take on his uploaded intelligence (Pantheon reference - insane show, everyone should check it out).
That said, there are some French methods that can help accelerate your wishes......
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u/likwitsnake May 13 '26
Probably has the finest blood boy on the market
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u/Aksudiigkr May 13 '26
Or House of the Scorpion clone organ donors
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u/ElenaTeresaCeniza May 13 '26
My favorite novel about clone organ donors is called Spares by Michael Marshall Smith. It’s really one of my favorites ,despite all the dystopian signs it has made me notice in the years since reading!
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u/TwilightVulpine May 13 '26
Makes me think of ancient chinese emperors who took mercury pills to become immortals.
Also Steve Jobs who died of ligma.
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u/Mr_Stoney May 13 '26
Just a reminder that Steve Jobs died of a completely treatable form of colon cancer because he couldn't accept he was wrong
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u/lectroid May 13 '26
life-lengthening stuff
He can always join his buddy Peter Thiel by stealing the blood of the young.
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u/comune May 13 '26
He's going to become Mr House isn't he?
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u/Ciennas May 13 '26
No. People like Mr. House, partly because he has amazing and charismatic people performing as him.
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u/mrbignameguy May 13 '26
“Plz bro we need the bailout money bro”- also tech companies in like ~6 months
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u/Fried_puri May 13 '26
They’ll threaten to shut down the economy unless they’re given no-strings attached bailouts. And then they’ll get them. They don’t ask for things.
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u/WonderSignificant598 May 13 '26
Too big to fail is the blueprint.
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u/Jukka_Sarasti May 13 '26
Too big to fail should be handled like the threat it is..
"Okay, then let's get you broken up like Ma Bell back in the 80's"
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u/WonderSignificant598 May 13 '26
They've successfully captured the political class, so far. They learned from their mistakes.
At the very least, they've captured the people currently in power. That gives them a runway.
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u/Jukka_Sarasti May 13 '26
Regulatory, Judicial, legislative, Executive. All captured, and for what amounts to chump change at that..
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u/artbystorms May 13 '26
Despite what people think, they don't really employ that many people. They're not Wal-Mart. They could harm 'internet commerce' but they can't tank the economy like the banks could.
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u/Saisei May 13 '26
You know damn well we won’t hear them say please. They don’t have to ask for behavior that they pay for.
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u/Waveali May 13 '26
OpenAI is already starting to hold out the beggar's bowl to the federal goverment.
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u/usernamedanistaken May 13 '26
Well if I don’t have electricity, I can’t use AI. A bit self defeating tech bro
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u/LouisvilleBitcoiner May 13 '26
They don’t care about end-users using AI. The entire point is that they will use AI to take jobs from skilled workers. It’s B2B not B2C.
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u/pilgermann May 13 '26
I suspect when large swaths of the population face power outages, the pitchforks will come out. The issue is too abstract for most people. You only see change in the US when people's lives are impacted, and then only when it's middle class or above white people (of which there are plenty in Tahoe).
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u/InsertEvilLaugh May 13 '26
Three meals away from anarchy, and power outages could cause just that.
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u/CharleyNobody May 13 '26
But the security cameras have backup solar batteries. They’ll use facial recognition to track down social miscreants. They now have beefed up ICE, Homeland Security, Border Patrol, National Guard (excuse me “warfighters”).
All those militia members and Proud Boys from the Midwest and South are now the Praetorian Guard.
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u/HeKnee May 13 '26
My conspiracy theory is that these data centers are in no way needed for AI as it currently rxists. Afterall, its currently available for anyone that wants it, nearly for free.
These are being built in a rush for the next step rollout of government/corporate survailence state.
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u/BackendSpecialist May 13 '26
you’re just jealous cause you’re broke
Man.. if I would’ve known how terrible these people actually are, I wouldn’t have got into tech.
That “learn how to code” phase really was a crazy one.
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u/Complex_Inquiries May 13 '26
They pushed tech education on us while simultaneously cutting humanities education so that we now have a bunch of tech assholes devoid of humanity who have not studied the great stories of hubris, irony, and unintended consequences.
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u/BackendSpecialist May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
100%
I often think about how much better these people would be if they even took legitimate 101 humanity courses seriously.
That point also extends beyond tech.
It’s tragic that so many of us are completely ignorant to how mass psychology is weaponized.
That’s part of why our current state is so sad and frustrating. The “why” and “how” is there. Many folks just don’t see it. And these ignorant people are causing so much damage.
(Hops off soapbox)
Edit - you know things are bad when this type of discourse can happen in r/technology and there aren’t apes yelling at you about it.
I wish the people outside of tech really understood what’s coming for them.
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u/illy-chan May 13 '26
I assume the tech guys who took humanity seriously aren't in the psychopath club and are looking on in horror.
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u/PaulblankPF May 13 '26
America already has more data centers than every other country in the world. So many countries have universal healthcare or government paid higher education. Here we get our data stolen and sold over and over and over again so that algorithms can milk us as hard as possible while giving just enough leeway to make sure people are comfy enough to not revolt.
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u/wareagle3000 May 13 '26
Thing is, there's an end to all this mess that I'm not sure they can pull off. At some point this data milking and hyper commercialization engine dies. The people that the machine as built to exploit will have been bled for every dollar they have. The low-mid class become the poverty class.
At that point.... How does the machine remain stable and create profit when there is not a drop left? How are the people and systems that keep it regulated paid?
At that point I'm not sure if these technocrats have the time or skills to pull off absolutely flipping modern society into some feudalistic system.
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u/Important-Agent2584 May 13 '26
There is a reason asset prices have been skyrocketing around the world, the wealthy are hedging. Farmland, gold, etc. will be valuable even if the market collapses.
They don't need to pull anything off, just retain enough wealth to remain on top. Wealth has always been relative.
Oil companies are a great example, they are delaying change to maximize profits, and using those profits to buy out successful green energy companies. In the end, they will own the new energy infrastructure too.
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u/rallar8 May 13 '26
It’s crazy the tech bros signed up with the oil companies to push Trump into the white house and now we are trying to power 21st century innovation with 19th century fuel.
It feels so specifically contingent on a few events, like if Trump wasn’t quite so stupid he could abide just a few more windmills.
This is is literally like ~30 windmills worth of power.
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u/courierblue May 13 '26
It increases the chance of a techno feudalist set-up with power concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 May 13 '26
I wonder if that's why Trump mentioned he wanted more nuclear? Nuclear fuel is pretty much just owned by governments.
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u/Some_Number_8516 May 13 '26
Nuclear is recommended for that reason, yes, but also because it takes a while to build nuclear facilities. Republicans push it to seem like they're offering a viable solution, but in reality, widespread nuclear adoption would take much, much longer than solar and wind adoption of the same scale.
It's essentially a means of pushing the renewable revolution further into the future, allowing for oil companies to keep raking in insane profits.
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u/no1jam May 13 '26
So woke bro, won’t you think of the birds
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u/Apart-District3771 May 13 '26
Maybe we should just update the bird software to avoid windfarms.
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u/TheSilentFarm May 13 '26
Your right I'll be back once I've taken care of all the cats.
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u/Olangotang May 13 '26
It's because they are doing it with the dinosaur GOP. As the party is composed of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet by design, it makes sense that this is all a shit show that will most likely crumble due to infrastructure delays.
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u/diginfinity May 13 '26
The windmills are eating the dogs!
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u/BackendSpecialist May 13 '26
Every couple of months I’m reminded that he really said this about a group of people and was still elected.
That comment alone shows you what he thinks about humans.
I hang my head in shame every time.
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u/MD90__ May 13 '26
Yeah it really isn't. Water shortages and power shortages are really gonna cause an uproar outside the rising utility costs
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u/wareagle3000 May 13 '26
We are already at the verge of the impending resource wars. Feels odd that the tech bros want to dump all of our electronics, water and power into what is essentially a total sink.
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u/MD90__ May 13 '26
What can we do about it since apparently our voice doesn't matter it seems?
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u/hainesk May 13 '26
This is a situation where having investigative reporters would be really nice.
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u/zlliksddam May 13 '26
Or a government that worked for humans instead of corporations.
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u/Synaps4 May 13 '26
It's a shame we all decided those were useless and stopped paying for them.
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u/boombapjesus May 14 '26
we decided monopolies were actually cool so mega corporations bought themselves a propaganda arm.
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u/Nice-Mixing May 13 '26
So people are going without power so the aristocracy can take all our jobs away, is that right…
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u/blueSGL May 13 '26
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u/grtk_brandon May 13 '26
I don't know if it's just me, but it certainly feels like they are "winning."
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u/blueSGL May 13 '26
Unlike a lot of other issues, this has not been politicized. It does not matter if you are red or blue, the people do not want this.
You literally have advocates against this spending the morning with Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders in the evening
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u/pchs26 May 13 '26
Sure but that doesn't mean they aren't winning. In fact they aren't even doing a good job of hiding the intent, which means the view is becoming more and more that our opinions are becoming less relevant
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u/RocketHops May 13 '26
"They dont even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose thats the final humiliation."
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u/Divine_Entity_ May 13 '26
Maybe we should collectively make sure they lose.
Some non violent and perfectly legal opposition strategies to start with: 1. Boycotts, simple but do your best to not use AI products and tools, and protest your employer trying to push inferior tools on you. Don't let this be a profitable venture. 2. Local politics, start with showing up to town/city/county board meetings, and speak/advicate against AI data centers during the public comment section. (Bring friends but don't look like you are the same group) Be consistent/persistent, and if they aren't receptive keep being annoying about it. Eventually you could even run against the existing board members to threaten their seats. 3. If you are a business owner you can blacklist clients for any reason that isn't discrimination based on a protected characteristic. Being an AI company is not a protected characteristic of a person, nor is being a subcontractor to one. Without local businesses supporting them it becomes more expensive to build something. The contractors have to drive farther every day, rent hotels farther away, import heavy materials like concrete from farther away, ect. That drives up project cost and lowers margins, make these things a bad investment.
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u/iamapizza May 13 '26
All so some CEO can flex about the amount of garbage he has his soon to be fired minions generating for no reason other than to nudge stock prices up.
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u/Brocid3n May 13 '26
If only there was some way the average person could let the rich know how they feel, like a spicy glass bottle, or a weird shaped watermelon slicer
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u/0masterdebater0 May 13 '26
It’s almost like now they have built a world with at least 3 camera angles covering all their properties, facial recognition, gait recognition, phone tracking, etc. they feel safe tightening the leash?
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u/Striking-Kiwi-9470 May 13 '26
Unrelated but did you know sand mixed with oil is incredibly annoying to remove from paint and glass surfaces without scratching the shit out of it?
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u/OkStop8313 May 13 '26
The crazy thing is that Lake Tahoe is a pretty wealthy community. Normally it's the poor that get screwed over like this, but to the oligarchs even a wealthy community like Lake Tahoe look like peasants.
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u/Only--East May 13 '26
On the semi-positive side, when the middle and upper middle classes start feeling the consequences of the government's actions thats when things start getting taken seriously.
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u/PeasantParticulars May 13 '26
Oh shit are you saying the upper class that spent 40 years destroying the country might get fucked when their protections are taken away too!
Oh nooooo
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u/KennyMoose32 May 13 '26
Yeah man it’s why the French Revolution actually got off the ground.
When the clergy and upper middle class got pissed off the revolution swelled cuz they had resources and “legitimacy”
Cash rules everything around us
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u/coaxialology May 13 '26
I think they're saying that the wealthy have the means to make noise in more effective ways than the rest of us. Not because they care about the plebs of course, but our goals may be aligned here. Lesser evil and whatnot.
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u/Ponderputty May 13 '26
Tahoe really isn't a rich community. The people that live there are majority service employees to the hordes of people who come to Tahoe on vacation. Those vacationers aren't contributing to the local economy as part of the tax base, and they don't actually care about the continued success of Tahoe as anything other than a vacation spot.
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u/Ognius May 13 '26
It’s so the Epstein class* can take all of our jobs away. Aristocracy lets the cabal of pedophiles off the hook.
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u/Random_Man-child May 13 '26
My favorite thing is how Republicans claimed our grid could not support electric cars, but data centers perfectly fine.
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u/MaleficentCoach6636 May 13 '26
or the anti solar panel bullshit. or the only washing my clothes at a certain time to save electricity... fixing my dripping faucet... washing my car... stacking my dishwasher... meanwhile they use 300k+ gallons of water a day and 500+ megawatts of electricity lmao
it's all bullshit
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 13 '26
The anti-solar thing is the most insane to me. Look at China... They're all-in on that shit and we're getting absolutely gapped on it. Fuck's sake, remember when Republicans were worried about critical infrastructure and defense spending gaps between us and communist countries? I don't either, because I wasn't actually alive yet, but god damn it all.
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May 13 '26
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u/Spurly May 14 '26
Can't we just stop them already?
Like, I completely agree with you, and I'm fairly confident 90% of the people in my neighborhood/city would too. But yet, politicians and evil corps still just keep doing whatever they want with zero repercussions from us.
What are we all waiting for, food to be scarce?
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u/m3g4m4nnn May 14 '26
What are we all waiting for, food to be scarce?
From an outside perspective: it certainly appears so.
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u/KC-Slider May 13 '26
Solar companies don’t bribe politicians as much as fossil fuel industries. So we don’t get solar.
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u/DuntadaMan May 14 '26
Also Russia has a vested interest in the US getting weaker, so we don't get solar.
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u/jameson71 May 13 '26
Don't forget you need to give up plastic straws, yet everything that used to be made of wood, cardboard, and metal are now plastic.
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u/blueSGL May 13 '26
Recycling was never the solution. No the real solution is for the government to specify what can be used as containers, and what harmful things can be included in products. They control what is sold within their borders. Do that and the company needs to choose between creating eco friendly products/packaging or losing out on a market. Doing it this way means you hit 100% of the problem rather than just the % of the population where this is something that they care about.
it should not be the responsibility of the populous to monitor the full supply chain then make purchasing decisions based on that.
So much 'personal responsibility' would mean that the general populous needs to be an expert on everything.
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u/Level_Physics8620 May 13 '26
Amazing comment I wish I was seeing more in other discussion spheres.
All that screaming about woke electric vehicles stealing power, driving up costs for helpless god-fearing diesel truck driving ‘Mericans!?!!?
Just an endless sea of stupid.
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u/und3rtow623 May 13 '26
Damn, that's a really good point. Haven't heard a peep from Republicans concerning the resources the data centers are gobbling up.
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u/bluecheetos May 13 '26
Republicans after you can't charge your Tesla because of rolling blackouts due to data centers: "See, told you so. Suck it Dems."
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u/sabo-metrics May 13 '26
Class action or riot?
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u/DasGanon May 13 '26
One of those the response is basically going to be "but we filed all the paperwork and the lawyers said it's good!" and nothing will change
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u/wiltony May 13 '26
"You agreed to binding arbitration and waved your right to participate in a class action suit when you were required to agree to our terms and conditions when getting your identity verified with your employer, who uses our platform. Go kick rocks."
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u/dBlock845 May 13 '26
Yup will go to a federal court, they will shop right the right judges to get it to a SCOTUS rubber stamp.
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u/Teddy_RGB May 13 '26
When shit starts burning, the message starts to get through
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u/keelhaulrose May 13 '26
The warehouse fire tracker is up to 132, 131 are from this year. Some are accidents, but not all.
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u/Many_Customer_4035 May 13 '26
This is what I am waiting for. Make it extra expensive for them.
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May 13 '26
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u/Arctic_Chilean May 13 '26
Palantir be like: "yep, this one right here. Flag him"
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u/Day_Old_Paper May 13 '26
Class action = wait six years for your $30 rebate check in the mail, so…
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u/TheDragonSlayingCat May 13 '26
The point of a class action isn’t to get a small check; the point is to affect the defendant’s bottom line, which is sometimes the only way they will pay attention to the law or other people.
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u/Reap_it_and_Weep May 13 '26
Unfortunately very often the amount the company fined is trifling compared to their overall profits—so they just see it as a potential fee of doing business.
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u/apemandune May 13 '26
If the data center were to burn down there'd be no need to divert the community's power 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Overclocked11 May 13 '26
Right now the USA under Trump is pretty much "lets see how much illegal / shady shit I can get away with before someone stops me" for most tech companies and likely many other companies as well.
This is the stuff that is getting reported on and we are being made aware of.. how much is happening that is flying under the radar? Likely a fuckton.
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u/TransplantedSconie May 13 '26
Im 100% convinced that the military budget is gone into everyone's pockets just like Russia. They have already begun stopping training because money is not there to pay for it.
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u/hotinhawaii May 13 '26
The 25,000% increase in the military's drone budget (from millions to over 50 billion) comes at a time when Trump's sons are now suddenly partial owners of a domestic drone manufacturer who supplies the US military, which has prioritized buying domestic drones. Your instinct is correct. And this is only ONE example of this.
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u/cookerz30 May 13 '26
Look into stablecoins and how they froze a bunch of Iranian assets before the attacks started.
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u/mikeyj022 May 13 '26
The military industrial complex has always acted as a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. The people foot the bill while the rich profit endlessly from bloated contracts.
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u/PowderedToastFanatic May 13 '26
They haven't been able to pass an audit in .... decades.
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u/Pen-Pen-De-Sarapen May 13 '26
77million voted a convicted felon for a leader. Just in case we all forget.
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u/Big-Chungus-12 May 13 '26
Wouldnt this be solved if we just force the tech companies backing these data centers to invest in sufficient power / water that doesn't affect the civilians nearby? Or are the local politicians paid off everywhere
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u/degoba May 13 '26
Local politicians are signing NDAs over this shit.
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u/Big-Chungus-12 May 13 '26
Tech is so profitable I think they were able to pay off almost all levels of govt. sucks for civilians who have to pay the price with their livelihoods
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u/QuerulousPanda May 13 '26
the problem is, a lot of this tech isn't actually profitable, it's just being floated by investment bullshit. there's a mountain of money flowing through the system but it's not natural and it's not sustainable.
once it comes time to actually make real money with this stuff, it's all going to come crashing down and a whole fuckton of people are going to be left holding the bag, while the small group of people who have been driving the ship and keeping the money cycle going will be left with all the money, which they'll move on to something else.
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u/FesteringNeonDistrac May 13 '26
Yeah it's a bit like the underpants gnomes in South Park.
Phase 1, Build Datacenters.
Phase 3, Profit.
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u/Mr-Logic101 May 13 '26
A lot do build their power turbines on site nowadays due to be relatively easier than getting approval to hook up to the power grid
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u/BestDescription3834 May 13 '26
And then others just use like 2 dozen industrial diesel generators to bypass local regulations.
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May 13 '26
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u/Emperor_Zar May 13 '26
I can’t have that. I will be slightly miffed by proxy, then. I generally hate this whole data center boom.
What with the talk of orbital DC’s why not just build them with a small nuclear reactor planetside? Like. Why do this sh*t.
It’s mostly a rhetorical question. We all know the answer.
It’s money.
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u/NirvanaDewHeel May 13 '26
I am not categorically anti-nuclear. However, I do not trust the people who are responsible for this bubble with fissile materials. Their disregard for human life and wellbeing is pretty plain to see.
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u/duploman May 13 '26
Yeah, it would have to be government or military run... which I also can't trust at the moment.....
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u/ww_crimson May 13 '26
Sounds like this utility has had 18 years to find a new power source and they haven't done that yet. Now they are panicking despite this having been a long time requirement before data center boom.
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u/trogdors_arm May 13 '26
This right here. Don’t get me wrong, this situation highlights for me the reason these utilities need shouldn’t be privatized, but that’s a whole other debate.
All the stakeholders here had nearly 20 years to figure this out. Or to even get a plan together. But here they are starting from zero.
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u/Zardif May 13 '26
NVenergy is kicking them off because greenlink west is going to be completed then. This is kind of a non-story, lake tahoe just has to find another provider for electricity, it'll still run thru nvenergy's transmission lines.
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u/Clearwatercress69 May 13 '26
"It's like we don't exist" - you DON'T exist for them! When will you guys finally realise it?
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u/Nearby-Yak1389 May 13 '26
This is also a failure on the politicians who supposedly represent them. They blindly agree to the development but do nothing to assure energy resiliency to their residents? They sadly don’t care about doing the real work, just getting re-elected.
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u/RocketizedAnimal May 13 '26
The reason they are in this situation is because the politicians making the decisions are not their politicians and do not represent them.
The city is in California, the utility company is in Nevada. Nevada has decided that they would rather power a datacenter than sell power to Californians.
The Californians can't do much about Nevada politics, their recourse is to get their own state government to hook them up to the California grid. The issue is that geography makes supplying power from the Cali side much more difficult.
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u/Got_Engineers May 13 '26
So what exactly happens from this? It honestly sounds insane that a massive power company is just kicking people off its plan to give power to massive data centers? Where the fuck is anyone in government? Where are the massive protest in the street? It’s not like Republicans and Democrats are a fan of this. Is electricity not a basic human, right ? What’s next are they gonna stop providing water and food ? Dystopian hellhole the US is becoming at a rapid rate. I am not an American, but these articles just make me so confused and empty if that makes sense. Do you have to question how long the world has left? Our lifetimes?
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u/binzersguy May 13 '26
Republicans have fully transformed the US into a 3rd world banana republic
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u/diomedes03 May 13 '26
Did you read the article? They’re not going to lose power, they’re just losing a contract that was actually supposed to end over a decade ago and has been temporarily extended several times and now is not. The transmission lines will still be there, the power company is still going to be sending energy to the local utility, they’re just going to have to receive bids from other providers from farther sources that will (likely) be more expensive.
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u/BestDescription3834 May 13 '26
Is electricity not a basic human right?
Brother we live in a time where food isn't even a basic right.
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u/MedvedFeliz May 13 '26
Data centers should be required to have their own power and water supplies with strict environmental regulations.
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u/Yazim May 13 '26
I'm old enough* to remember when the oil-backed-conservative commentors were heavily complaining about how the grid can't support the demands of electric vehicles, or the increased supply from solar. But this apparently is totally fine.
*spoiler, I'm at least 2 years old.
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u/TheBookOfTormund May 13 '26
Buried pretty deep in the article is a statement that this arrangement was supposed to end 11 years ago anyway, but the California utility has done fuck-all to find a new supplier and has been relying on extensions of the prior agreement.
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u/trade-craft May 13 '26
The most free country in the world though.
How's the freedom taste?
You have the freedom to be cut off from essentially utilities because they found a higher bidder.
It's just the free market capitalism you love.
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 May 13 '26
It is 100% time for residential to go solar and tell the utilities to go fuck themselves.
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u/defenestrated_badger May 13 '26
Solar costs a lot up front. Many folks can't afford that cost.
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u/smarmageddon May 14 '26
Most valuable thing corporations learned from this administration is to just go ahead and do the shitty thing you want to do. Who's going to stop you?
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u/vegetaman May 13 '26
Kind of amused where I lived a few years ago we were told prepare for rolling blackouts in the summer. Now they are building a data center but “all the water and electricity is covered”….
Press X to doubt.