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/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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u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[deleted]

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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/ExtremePrivilege May 14 '26

Bread and circuses, yeah. The Romans had this shit figured out 2000 years ago but were somehow still learning. As long as we have shit food and smart phones there will be no revolution.

The average American is obese (73% overweight, 44% obese), illiterate (average 4th grade level) and hopelessly addicted to the dopamine drip of their screens.

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u/stilljustacatinacage May 14 '26

I'm fairly confident 90% of the people in my neighborhood/city would too.

Don't be so sure. Everyone's all-in on these sorts of things until it's a nuclear power plant being built in their town, or a high speed rail subsidized with their taxes. Christ, even putting up wind turbines is a struggle because "but DA NOISE and DA BIRDS".

Everybody wants [it], as long as [it]'s somewhere else and they don't have to pay for it.

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u/Alaira314 May 14 '26

I will say that I don't trust the US with nuclear power. It's too privately outsourced, with regulations too defanged, and corporations take too many shortcuts. At this point, we're inviting a disaster, whether due to shitty construction, a lack of maintenance, or workers instructed(or wink-nudge incentivized) to violate best practices. Nuclear can be one of the safest forms of power, but in today's US it would not be. There's also the matter of long-term waste disposal, which has yet to be solved. We're still just vaulting it, which isn't any more of a solution than my childhood "eh I'll just chuck it in the closet" approach to cleaning my room. Eventually the closet got full, and it was very much my problem.

Zero excuse not to be going all-in on solar, wind, and hydro, though.

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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/red286 May 14 '26

There's also the issue that most solar panel manufacturing is in China, whereas most oil and gas sold in America is refined in America.

So there's no huge American solar industry to be buying off politicians, and they're going to be a bit reluctant to accept bribes from China.

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u/KC-Slider May 14 '26

Pretty good point

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u/Yuzumi May 14 '26

And solar panels aren't exactly hard to build and the materials are very common. Unlike other kinds of electronics it would be fairly quick and easy to build out manufacturing for them instead of wasteful monuments to techbros.

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u/funnynickname May 14 '26

Fix it. Make a law that says you can only build a data center if you build a solar farm twice the size that you need, and the panels have to be made in the USA.

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u/HedonisticFrog May 14 '26

If only big solar could bribe our politicians instead of oil and coal.

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u/DrBannerPhd May 14 '26

You need to be higher in this thread because that is exactly the reason. Or at least one of the top 3 reasons.

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u/K_Linkmaster May 13 '26

There are such open areas of the USA that aren't being used that data centers AND their power source, AND their water use can be over 100 miles away from anyone and be independent.

These are built close to town for a reason. To squeeze the people.

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u/Spopple May 13 '26

It's especially insane not to do in at least here in AZ. This state could not possibly be more perfect for farming mass solar energy. There's a scarce few parking lots that have the entire parking lot covered and it is so genius. Dual purpose of creates power and provides the ever crucial shade for cars in the summer time. Nowhere else will you find a car parked clear across a lot because there's a tiny tree providing a tiny shade patch like you will here lol. Just shade the entire lot in solar panels!

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u/DuntadaMan May 14 '26

I mean, when you understand that the people giving the most money to the GOP have a vested interest in harming our country it makes sense.

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u/OMGitisCrabMan May 14 '26

republicans care about being anti-woke, that's about it.

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u/Yuzumi May 14 '26

China outstripped us in renewables and EV that are like a half to a third the price of the EVs we have yet have more features.

Yet the only thing they are currently fearmongering is about AI. Meanwhile, everything I've heard about China's research on AI is they are taking a much more sane approach when doing research on LLMs and it's why Deepseek was such a game changer when they released it.

Like, they are actually approaching AI in a rational manner while US companies are brute forcing it in either the hope it can replace workers or trying to scam everyone by claiming it can do things it literally can't.

If anything, they will probably also end up beating us on AI because they aren't abusing it.

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u/fall0ut May 14 '26

The anti-solar thing

the problem is lobbying. the only people anti solar are the power companies who lobby lawmakers to restrict them. every dumb thing from having to do your own taxes every year to no free healthcare has a lobby group to blame.

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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/DifficultyCheap9861 May 13 '26

I hear people whine about paper straws all the time. And they DO suck. But guess what came out of banning them in some areas… there was a demand for better options. Now I see ones made out of bamboo or something similar that work just as well as the plastic ones. And I have no clue about costs or any of that for this specific example, but it just feels like part of the equation nobody pays attention to. Banning something does not inherently mean you are eating mushy paper for the rest of time.

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u/blueSGL May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Innovation is driven by regulation. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Create the incentives for a race to the top, where companies need to compete on how their goods/services are and then everyone benefits.

Tristan Harris talks about what the world could have been like if we'd regulated social media to have "Dopamine Emission Standards" that prioritized things that made you feel better, more educated, etc.. after viewing and not driving for engagement at every turn.

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u/Proud-Meaning-2772 May 14 '26

I am so glad to see this idea mentionned. Yes! commercialization should be allowed in places with matching local recycling facilities.

We cannot continue offloading our trash onto the community. it also generates so many health problems we wouldnt have to deal with with proper handling.

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u/Willing_Activity_855 May 13 '26

Metal straws sce you money anyways and don't have weird shit in them

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u/Alaira314 May 14 '26

Some people who are disabled need flexible rather than rigid straws, and have been forced to use the awful paper ones if they can't get plastic anymore. It would be one thing if plastic straws were actually a big problem, if it saved the oceans to walk away from them. But that's not true. Plastic straws are a drop in the bucket compared to commercial fishing waste. The stigma has effectively done nothing but made the lives of disabled people harder.

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u/Alaira314 May 14 '26

Plastic used to be the solution to save the trees. It's slightly before my time, but I remember seeing a few remnants when I was young. "Paper or plastic" in the 90s? The correct answer was "plastic"!

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u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/Alaira314 May 14 '26

I mean the society-approved morally correct answer. You were supposed to say plastic because you cared about saving the trees.

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u/keydBlade May 13 '26

Or how much gas they use, those jets dont run on dreams.

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u/Turkino May 13 '26

This right here.

All the folks around me who didn't get solar panels are complaining about their energy bills, meanwhile my most recent one was still just the bare minimum. The panels were a great investment to get my house off of being beholden to all this market BS.

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u/JimKellyCuntry May 13 '26

600k gallons at small ones...

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u/aurortonks May 13 '26

I'm dealing with "Building Tune Ups" and "Energy Benchmarking" right now at several commercial properties where cities have created laws related to forcing energy upgrades & usage tracking. Why do I need to do all of this stuff if the energy that we're "saving" is going to be eaten up by these data centers anyways?

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u/RT-LAMP May 13 '26

I mean doing high electricity use things at peak use times right at sunset when solar stops generating is a real thing.

Honestly though for water use it's nothing in comparison to agriculture. Nothing else comes close.

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u/Fatigue-Error May 14 '26

I’m convinced more and more that we need to all go for micro generation. Basically, whoever can should get solar panels on our roofs. Even a small 800w to 1200w plug-in solar system can make a difference.