Comment by MostlyStable
4 hours ago
No, it's not. Regulations making building new power plants, especially renewables, and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame. Yes, in an environment where power availability is ~fixed on short-to-medium time scales, adding a new large demand will increase prices.
But a fixed supply is a policy choice, and is not the fault of AI companies.
"Yes, in an environment where power availability is ~fixed on short-to-medium time scales, adding a new large demand will increase prices."
You just nullified your own point.
No, the point of my comment is that, while that is true, that's not the "cause".
"No, the point of my comment is that, while that is true, that's not the "cause"."
If we changed the policy overnight, we would still have the same problems because infrastructure takes years to plan, build, and make operational. So no, the cause is in fact the rapid increase in demand, not just policy.
Now assume there were no such regulations and factor in the time it takes to actually plan, build, and commission a new power station and associated grid infrastructure. I'm not sure that your distinction matters in any real way.
4 replies →
The article states that AI is partly to blame. How could one state this claim is not sufficiently qualified?
"and extra especially nuclear, in addition to making power lines difficult to build, are to blame"
I used to think nuclear reactors are just hard to build in general, because the costs when something goes wrong are very, very high. So what unnecessary regulation is there with nuclear reactors that you think should be deleted?
This is a much larger discussion, but the single most obvious one is getting rid of the Linear No Dose Threshold. There are an abundance of sources on why this concept is flawed and how it impacts nuclear regulation. It's not the only issue by far, but it's probably the single easiest to address.
In other words, allow higher exposure to ratiation?
Does not sound too great and obvious to me to be honest and it seems debated in the scientific community.
So irrational fear of radiation is surely a thing and maybe the models as to when real danger starts can be updated, but I would not call that question obvious when the experts debate it and I ain't one.
I'm sorry but this is the easiest thing to google in history, don't make people do the work for you.
Start here:
1. How many new nuclear power plants has the NRC approved in its entire history (since being formed from the AEC)?
2. What's the cost of a nuclear kw in China vs the US, and is the trend going up or going down?
Neither of those questions will answer what GP was asking.
Specifically: they were asking the opinion of the commenter. Google won't help here.
if your best argument is just "Google it" I'm gonna go ahead and assume you don't know what you're talking about and are just making an appeal to authority
Removing regulations from nuclear won't help because it takes so long to build a nuclear plant. Yes it would help in the long term, but in the short term price goes up.
However it should be faster to build a solar plant, a battery bank and a power line between them and the new data center than it takes to build a new data center. It isn't because of silliness, and that's what to blame for the power price increases IMO.
Removing regulations 20 years ago when people were screaming that we need to would have helped. 20 years ago nuclear was still the best answer, but since it wasn't allowed we didn't build it (instead mostly coal and gas). Power companies are good at planning, and AI/data centers are not using that much more power than predicted 5 years ago - but the regulations have to allow for plans.
Removing regulations today will have an effect in 10-20 years. I cannot give you a quick answer to the problem.
The headline says "partly". Your comment agrees with that.
I don't even agree with partly. 100% of the blame, in my opinion, is on the policy-caused supply restrictions. I will admit that this is at least partially a semantic debate about what "cause" means, but in my opinion "blaming", even partially, AI, data-centers, or any other large power consumer for the price increases actively makes solving the problem harder and is anti-useful.
I thought there were technical and logistical hurdles to attaching new power while maintaining grid stability, and that's the primary bottleneck and indeed the reason the regulations exist to being with?
Why does it make solving the problem harder? If demand went up, it went up so build more supply. Talking about the cause of the demand doesn't hinder building more supply.
So supply and demand only matter for the axis you personally care about? AI companies use a lot of electricity. Increased demand leads to increased prices. This isn't normally controversial.
So the reason my electricity rates were pretty much constant from 2013 to 2023 and then started going up is not the things that have changed in the last couple or so years but rather the things that have not changed?
Demand added now
Ignore regulations, make it the Wild West, break out the child labour and environmental destruction and all your other wet dreams.
How long will it take to increase supply?
New generation could be deployed on the same timelines as a data center.
What are the specific regulations that make building new power plants hard?
Yes, that's probably what made my electric bill go up 40% since last year.
Also cancelling previously-approved solar and wind projects due to extremist ideology.
Conservatives promoted a worldview where corporations are expected to do absolutely anything that isn't illegal to increase shareholder value. In such a world, regulations are the only way to protect ourselves from corporations that would gladly kill us to make a buck.
That’s a bit of an overstatement, the executives and board can and do weight reputational long term damage at times.
Seems to be that big companies usually push to externalize costs and take advantage as much as possible, to the detriment of everyone else. Shareholders have a right to sue them if they don't.
Fake cures, filthy mines, toxic ingredients, polluted waterways, fraud, predation, monopolies, algorithmic social outrage networks, etc. These things have been going on for a long time. Regulations have fixed a lot of problems.
It doesn't seem that reputation matters as much as regulation. It doesn't take many greedy people/companies to leave behind a big mess. Just a few breaking the rules (including the cultural rules around reputation) gain an advantage over all those who don't.
What better way for society to protect itself?
The executives are trying to maximize shareholder value. They are shareholders through options at the least. The board can also own shares (which should be illegal).
1 reply →
Even with prolific supply there's tons of government programs that subsidize things and then roll those things back into delivery and transmission costs.
The poors pay for rooftop solar and heat pump subsidies for HNers.
it's to blame in the sense that there is a counterfactual reality where the AI companies pay for their own power and your bill doesn't go up and we can pass a law to make that counterfactual real. but yeah, blame is supposed to be about assigning responsibility. the change is attributed to AI in the sense that if they didn't exist it wouldn't have gone up, but technically the responsibility here is on policymakers to do something now that we are aware of the attribution, and they deserve to be blamed if they don't. blaming AI companies directly is a contemptuous mindset that blames them basically just for existing. which might be cathartic but it's not useful.
Why is AI demand any different than other business demand? What you're advocating for is intentionally handcuffing a growing industry for no reason other than you don't like them.
Crypto mining was similar
the "growing industry" can pay for itself.
Any industry that stresses public infrastructure is in the same category. They all should be regulated and not handed, in the form of tax breaks, what should be public money to invest in additional infrastructure.
100% this. I'm sick and tired of alarmist news and scapegoats when politicians and greedy energy corporations are to blame for everything. Yes, AI consumes more energy because we're using AI so by this logic we are to blame for everything.
If these "greedy utility companies" were such good monopolists or duopolists wouldn't it reflect in some pretty insane stock performance?
Eversource (NYSE: ES) is my local electric/natural gas provider in Massachusetts that I hear these same arguments about. Their stock is down 21% over the past 5 years. (To contrast, the S&P500 is up 91% over this same timeframe).)
Regulations also made coal more expensive and forced many plants to close. You can argue that's a win, but it's a lie to then attribute the resulting price increase to AI or other factors.
If you're gonna go down that path, then you should blame scaremongering about nuclear power too.
Indeed!
AI has done bad things for humanity. I know, I know, a tough pill to swallow. However will Hacker News users cope with the trauma?? Of knowing... AI... can be bad... sometimes?