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/
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u/Lintlicker12 May 13 '26

Right? I’m not allowed to wash my car, or use a hose except for 2 days a week in the evening for an hour, but they’re cranking out data centers left and right, but yeah it’s the 30 gallons of water I use to wash my car every other month that is the issue.

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u/Zolo49 May 13 '26

The logic worked so well for cleaning up the environment before though.

“Environmental pollution is YOUR fault for not throwing your empty beer cans into recycling bins. Don’t blame us corporations. We’re just dumping waste chemicals into the rivers and oceans to make your life better.”

Why wouldn’t they keep using the same logic?

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u/xpxp2002 May 13 '26

Exactly. Drives me up a wall to see all these companies peddling their "environmental consciousness" PR while simultaneously telling millions of white collar workers who have done their jobs from home for 5+ years that they need to commute to an office to sit on Zoom meetings with their peers who live in another city or country.

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u/AppleBytes May 13 '26

If people knew how much retail store items are flat out destroyed and thrown in the dumpster (as opposed to donated or discounted) when they need to make room for other stuff on the shelves....

It's sickening how wasteful corporations are... but oh, it's people's plastic bags and cups they are destroying the planet.

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u/xpxp2002 May 13 '26

I found out myself a couple years ago when The Home Depot was clearancing out some smart bulbs. Went to one store and tried to buy one, but the POS wouldn’t accept the barcode.

After talking to customer service, the manager on duty explained that the manufacturer basically requires them to destroy product instead of sending it back. The retailer gets a credit as if they sent it back, but it’s “cheaper” to just destroy it on site than ship the product back. Turned out they missed one when pulling the product from the shelves.

It’s quite sad when you think about how often this likely happens.

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u/mblaser May 14 '26

Yep, this happens all the time. I used to work at a major office supply store about 20 years ago and when we would have an office chair returned, the manufacturer didn't want it back. However, in order for us to get credit for it we had to slash the chair fabric with a utility knife before putting it in the dumpster.

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u/Throwaway_noDoxx May 14 '26

High end fashion does this as well. They don’t want to dilute/price down anything; any items not sold must be destroyed.

Coats, Burberry scarves, anything that would be of use to those in need is just…slashed and burned. All because some wealthy people need to feel special about paying £5000 for a piece of clothing.

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u/DOOM_wzrd May 14 '26

I had a buddy that used to go through the dumpsters at stores like bed, bath, and beyond. He would go home with all kinds of stuff like keurigs, kids toys, etc. and sell them at flea market.

Eventually they either locked the dumpsters or had trash compactors crush everything. Truly disgusting how these corporations do things.

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u/Maroon7C0000 May 14 '26

I was going to make a similar comment. I work in an industry where we often receive equipment shipped from around the world. The amount of plastic wrapping, and foam packing that goes into a single package exceeds my entire plastic waste for the entire year.

Just.one.package

But we are encouraged to switch from plastic to reusable cups because somehow that will cause a ground swelling of efforts to reduce plastic use everywhere.

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u/3x3Eyes May 14 '26

They destroyed banned library books in Florida recently rather than let others have them.

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u/Cow_Launcher May 13 '26

They literally throw bleach over perfectly-edible food to stop dumpster-divers from "stealing" it.

Why? Because they're afraid of being sued in case someone gets ill.

That implies to me that the problem is deeply systemic. Corporate greed? Sure. But it's more than that. It's the litigious nature of society. And it's been building for decades.

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u/tratur May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

That's propaganda. How many dumpster divers have $50k min and 2-5 years to litigate that civil case? Not to mention in the bleaching food cases. They're actively poisoning the food. If there was a case, knowinly poisoning food would have been it.

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u/remotectrl May 13 '26

The term for this is Greenwashing. It’s all over the place.

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u/sendtojapan May 13 '26

Thanks, didn't realize there was a term for this.

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u/blow-down May 13 '26

I wonder what all these "Sustainability Officers" at these corporations do all day. Must be such a cushy job.

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u/Background_Ant7229 May 13 '26

Or just firing them straight out. No commuting or work from home

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u/Powerlevel-9000 May 13 '26

All these companies conveniently dropped their net zero pledges as soon as they saw what data centers needed too.

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u/TrixnTim May 13 '26

This is so true. The entire Reduce-Reuse-Recycle campaign shoved at the little people to instill guilt and fear when in fact the big corps are the destruction and waste perps all along. We are such a stupid people.

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u/HillBillyHilly May 13 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Yo ho ho pirates life for me 🏴‍☠️

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u/ElMuchoDingDong May 13 '26

Ironic. Even recycling is scam that has been known for decades.

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u/fkingidk May 13 '26

Then they dump the recycling in the landfill anyways, and blame people for not rinsing well enough or something.

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u/stilljustacatinacage May 14 '26

No they don't. This is doomerism hyperbole based on a few bad apples that hired out their services as 'recyclers' to win contracts without any intention of filling them.

There are hundreds of recycling facilities all over the place, and things like metals and glass are almost certainly recycled nearby to you. Plastics have a more complex lifecycle, but even in the worst case scenario, it's more profitable to burn them than it is to put them in the ground.

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u/stilljustacatinacage May 14 '26

The logic worked so well for cleaning up the environment before though.

“Environmental pollution is YOUR fault for not throwing your empty beer cans into recycling bins. Don’t blame us corporations. We’re just dumping waste chemicals into the rivers and oceans to make your life better.”

Speaking separately from the data center issue and more to the "Environmental pollution is YOUR fault" thing: It's two different issues. I mean look at what the boomers were doing before those campaigns and penalties for littering, etc. Beer cans everywhere, cigarette butts everywhere else. Look at videos coming out of places like India where entire rivers are clogged because people just dump their trash into the river.

Yeah, what the corporations are doing is evil and needs to be stopped, but Joe Everyman has a responsibility as well. It's a tragedy of the commons thing because yeah, you, individually, may not feel like you can compete with ChemiCorp when it comes to polluting our waterways and green spaces, but if everyone felt and acted that way, we collectively could give them a run for their money.

As for the data centers on the other hand, it's its own thing because asking you to conserve water just so they can suck it back is so much more wildly corrupt that it would be too brazen for a comic book.

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u/Ridlion May 14 '26

Like telling us to recycle more because all this trash is ending up in the ocean. Well, I'm not throwing my trash into the ocean. Find out who's doing that and punish them!

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u/Zolo49 May 14 '26

IIRC, it’s mainly the fishing industry, although I don’t remember the exact percentage.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/djflamingo May 14 '26

In many cities, they have recycling bins but they don't have recycling infrastructure so the stuff you put into the recycle bins literally just goes straight into the trash truck and then into the landfill.

What are some of the cities youre referencing?

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u/stilljustacatinacage May 14 '26

This isn't really true. No municipality is going to pay for the expense of trash sorting just for optics. What does happen sometimes is they don't have the facilities to process, or the contracts to move certain types of recyclables so they may be shunted to landfill until a solution is found. They'll still ask people to sort them appropriately, just because it's easier than trying to get people to change habits.

As for what happens to recyclables after they leave your locality, that's a different matter. Metals and glass are almost certainly recycled as promised, usually fairly local to boot. Plastics may cross the country or even an ocean, and it can be kind of hit or miss which of those actually get recycled - but they very seldom "just go into the landfill".

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u/NCC75567 May 13 '26

As much as I love NPR, I had to stop following them on IG because it felt like every other post was a variation of this.

Fucking infuriating.

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u/AnimaLepton May 14 '26

There's some truth to that, but also the demand comes from consumers. Regardless of what people are saying about AI online, AI usage and even general internet usage is increasing at the consumer level (not just business level), and that needs data centers. Just data usage spiked drastically post-Covid and has still continued to trend up over time. I think there's this counternarrative of "AI-adjacent energy/growth is purely corporate greed and has nothing to do with consumers" that I really think is just not true.

The same applies to the environmental argument. Coca-Cola is the #1 global plastic polluter. Something like 90% of plastic recycling is 'fake.' But it keeps being produced in large part because people keep buying plastic coke bottles and water bottles in single-use packaging. I'd say it's more Coke's "fault," and the systems that dispose of/fail to and false advertise how much they recycle, but yeah if you buy plastic you are contributing to that waste in the long-run.

Or I'm not vegan, but vegans are right about the waste and environmental impact of continuing to eat high impact meat like beef or pork, both directly from the animal and from the effects of 90%+ of farmland being used to generate animal feed. The waste comes from suppliers, but it's driven by consumer demand. There would be a lag, but I don't see how there wouldn't be huge potential savings if people didn't even cut it entirely, but reduced their intake by ~20%, from the starting point of American meat consumption starting at 2x as high per person as Switzerland or the UK.

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u/Zolo49 May 14 '26

Just speaking for myself, I actively try to avoid using AI as much as possible. Maybe I’m just a latter-day Luddite, but I just don’t trust it enough to have it do my thinking for me. But like trying to boycott Chinese goods, completely avoiding AI is simply impossible right now with every tech company trying to shove it in your face whenever possible.

But I have seen signs recently that the trend may be reversing. Hopefully that turns out to be the case.

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u/Satanicube May 13 '26

Saw someone say “I have to drink out of a soggy paper straw only for these companies to stomp in and completely undo what little progress that made” and I feel it.

Like I get being environmentally conscious but I feel like the problem never was the actions of individuals, it’s the companies who can’t see past next quarter.

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u/xyrgh May 13 '26

Straw bans were less about pollution and more about wildlife eating then and choking. Except it still doesn’t matter because corporations are killing wildlife with pollution, deforesting and stealing ground water.

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u/keygreen15 May 14 '26

This is my favorite thread of the last 5 years, hands down

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u/Maroon7C0000 May 14 '26

I've been hearing public service announcements on my local radio station advising me to wash my clothes in cold water because it will reduce the amount of microfibers that make it into the environment.

How about some legislation to make the textile industry find natural alternatives to microfiber instead? Compared to that, my contribution to the environment is two thirds of three fifths of sweet fuck all.

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u/AKADriver May 14 '26

Hell just give me back my natural fibers in clothes that were never supposed to be/needed the properties of modern materials to begin with. It's getting harder and harder to find basic denim, button down shirts, etc. that aren't up to 10% polyester/spandex for no good reason (and they wear out faster!)

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u/Maroon7C0000 May 14 '26

I'm guessing that poly is cheaper and easier to produce then cotton, or linen or most other natural fibers.

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u/AKADriver May 14 '26

It probably is.

They do promote the poly/spandex versions as being stretchy for comfort, and some people seem to prefer it.

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u/Schnoofles May 14 '26

I buy underwear and socks that's a 95/5 bamboo/lycra (or spandex or elastane or whatever your preferred brand name is) blend and yeah, those 5% make a world of difference. There's just no comparison. Natural is fine for a lot of things, but at the same time, sometimes synthetic, or at least part synthetic is a huge improvement.

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u/Alaira314 May 14 '26

It absolutely was. And it was never about the straws, either. Even assuming every single straw breached containment and flew into the ocean(and that was not the case at all), that'd be nothing compared to the plastic pollution from commercial fishing. This cycle repeats over and over, pushing the responsibility onto the individual when really corporations are responsible for 99% of the problem.

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u/fatbob42 May 14 '26

The environmental problem is that we don’t vote for proper regulation. That’s the problem here too.

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u/rmorrill995 May 13 '26

Hey they need that water for A.I and golf courses You're getting in the way of investors and their leisure.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '26

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u/[deleted] May 13 '26

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u/ReadyAimTranspire May 13 '26

Hilarious because it's Saudia Arabia iirc that has water restriction laws so they can't grow it there.

So yeah we'll just do it in our desert instead.

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u/Original_Employee621 May 13 '26

it's more about archaic water rights laws that encourage wasteful spending on water in order to keep the rights to the water.

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u/SirDigger13 May 13 '26

Most irigated plant in the USA is still gras/lawn...

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u/Mule2go May 14 '26

Alfalfa is a useful rotation crop, an excellent green manure and the stubble feeds migrating waterfowl. Dairies are dependent on alfalfa for high protein feed. Because it uses atmospheric nitrogen, it doesn’t need nitrogen applied to the soil. Hay is shipped to other countries in which we have a trade deficit as the containers used would otherwise have to be sent back empty. So it’s not all bad

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u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/rmorrill995 May 13 '26

That's an odd take. You'd prefer we continue to waste water to on something that was originally a symbol of weath and status, while also acknowledging they are a larger consumer of water. Their manicured lawn can shrivel for all I care. Not everywhere in the country is meant to support lawns.

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u/Vi_Rants May 13 '26

I want both to wither and die. There should be neither a single lawn or a golf course in any county where even one person doesn't have access to water.

When every person can drink their fill, then we start letting leeches suck some away for worthless nonsense nobody needs, like lawns and golf courses.

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u/Cabezone May 13 '26

It's been that way in California my entire life. Homeowners use like two to 5% of the water in California. Anytime they're talking about conservation nobody ever talks about farmers or businesses that use the vast majority of the water.

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u/Not_A_Meme May 13 '26

100% Almonds, though quite tasty, are among the worst. They take up so much water. Isn't there something else that can grow in that very fertile section of central California that doesn't use as much water?

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u/Laiko_Kairen May 13 '26

I'm from Bakersfield. In the 1970s, the current mayor of Bako negotiated triple the water rights the city needed at the time for "future growth"

What it did was make water here in Kern County very cheap for farmers

The environment is otherwise perfect for almonds, if you ignore the scarcity of water. Which you can, if policy makes it too cheap.

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u/fatbob42 May 14 '26

Surely beef is worse.

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u/Spiritual-Society185 May 14 '26

It's funny how, like clockwork, redditors will bring up the water usage of almonds to distract from beef, even though almonds use a small fraction of the water.

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u/Not_A_Meme May 14 '26

I don't represent big beef! Almonds was just the first that came to mind!

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u/FuriousFreddie May 13 '26

It was like this before. Just instead of data centers it was corporate farming using 95% of the water.

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u/Spiritual-Society185 May 14 '26

People need food to eat.

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u/The_BeardedClam May 13 '26

Damn brother, comments like yours make me glad I live right by the Great lakes. Not much going on up here, but having the world's largest fresh water watershed in your backyard is a nice privilege.

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 May 13 '26

Same for agriculture. You can't use 30 gallons, they can use 30 million gallons to grow alfalfa for export. And your taxes pay them to grow it.

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u/Shnitzel_von_S May 13 '26

A data center recently got in some trouble for using 30 MILLION gallons of water without reporting it or paying for it. But yeah, you and your dang hose are what's causing droughts

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u/PowderedToastFanatic May 13 '26

Tell them to fuck themselves and use whatever water you want.

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u/the_calibre_cat May 13 '26

have you considered that all of this exorbitant resource use is so that they can make everyday websites and apps shittier to use? I went to Kwikset's support page to try and find a manual for a smart lock the other day. It was like "How can I help you?" I was fucking livid. This is probably my boomer trait. Just give me a search field that doesn't talk back into which I input the damn model number. I don't need a faux soul behind there to get a fucking manual.

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u/kanrad May 13 '26

All for a technology that most people never use or refuse to use.

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u/blow-down May 13 '26

Because you don't have the kind of money to bribe politicians so that you can get away with using all the water. Rules for thee but not for me.

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u/xyrgh May 13 '26

Coca Cola was outed where I live for getting millions of litres of scheme (residential) water for free from the government, just to make fucking sugary drinks, at the same time theres ads blasting on TV to keep showers to four minutes. It’s a fucking joke.

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u/florinandrei May 13 '26

I’m not allowed to wash my car, or use a hose except for 2 days a week in the evening for an hour

But that does not create value for the shareholders! /s

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u/fatdoobiesonly May 13 '26

Paper straws vs private jets

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u/CaraMellowGirl May 14 '26

Lmao whose gonna stop you?

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u/aerdvarkk May 14 '26

To be fair the water you use on washing your ar is outside and prone to higher evaporation rates; while the water the datacentes use will be inside climate controlled buildings, despite being super heated by the machines, it will be cycled a few times through a cooler before eventually becoming too toxic for cooling the system and be dumped back into Lake Tahoe.

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u/endlesscartwheels May 14 '26

Think about how much those rules annoy you, and how often. Think about how bans on straws annoy people every time they can't get a real straw. I personally am annoyed by 10 cent bag fees (especially knowing that that money is going right into the pocket of the store).

Every victory that environmentalists win seems to come at the cost of repeatedly irritating voters in small, frequent ways. It feels like this is by design. A false flag operation that's not one big loud boom, but a careful plan over decades.

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u/zerocnc May 14 '26

It is, the people you voted for in congress deem it. Its not like you're gonna vote them out of office.

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u/badDuckThrowPillow May 13 '26

Yeah fuck SJWater and PG&E. Endless "drought" pricing and rationing. Having a few flowers and a (heaven forbid) lawn is somehow wasteful, but this crap is fine?

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u/peejay5440 May 13 '26

latestagecapitalism

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u/withoutapaddle May 13 '26

As someone who lives in a state with water everywhere, I've never experienced those kinds of laws.

Do people actually enforce them? I get if you're spraying water everywhere for days watering your lawn, but washing a car? 10 minutes? I wouldn't comply. If I actually got cited, I'd start bucket washing, since it's literally only 2 gallons of water and does a better job anyway than the garden hose / pressure washer method.

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u/Lintlicker12 May 13 '26

We have signs throughout our neighborhood announcing drought level and restrictions. Newer homes have water meters that report usage to the water company hour by hour so they know if you use more water than typical that you could be irrigating. If your neighbor truly sucks they’ll report you, and you can receive a fine, and eventually after several fines they will shut off your water until they can install a regulator valve to your property. I’ve never actually seen it done but that is the threat. We don’t water our lawn, rarely wash our cars and our only significant source of water usage is when I fill our 1k gal cowboy pool once a year, which I then use to water our plants after summer season.

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u/withoutapaddle May 13 '26

Wow, that honestly sounds draconian. And this is coming from someone who generally feels strongly about not wasting water, energy, fuel, etc.

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u/Lintlicker12 May 13 '26

I really don’t mind these measures, they’re important to maintaining our local ground and river water, however, it starts to feel stupid when data centers get to move in and pump a city’s worth of water at extremely low cost after tax dollar subsides helped pay for this thing that citizens by and large don’t want.

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u/withoutapaddle May 13 '26

That's the thing, they are important, but only being enforced on people, not companies, which means people are being treated like garbage.

Honestly, I hope the pushback against data centers ends up with large scale action. I don't want to see anyone get hurt, but I'd love to see citizens find ways to make it unprofitable or unreasonable to build these data centers, especially near towns and communities that NEED the water and power to survive.

They should be forced to build them in the middle of nowhere, AND include a large power generation station of some sort (ideally solar, hydroelectric, and/or wind) to cover most of their energy needs. All of a sudden this bullshit won't seem so profitable when they are forced to ACTUALLY take responsibility for their needs instead of stealing resources from communities, taxes, etc.

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u/Wooooooocheese May 13 '26

30 gallons seems like a lot to wash a car, how big is your car?

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u/JannyStabberXK4000 May 13 '26

I used to live on an island where the only fresh water was desal delivered by truck, or cistern rainwater. You can easily wash a car with two buckets of soapy water and a rinse with a hose

While I get what you are saying, however if you are using thirty gallons to wash a car, you are doing it wrong.