Comment by Majromax
13 hours ago
> As long as it's unaccounted for by users it's at best anexternality.
Why is it an externality? Anthropic (or other model provider) pays the electricity cost, then it's passed along in the subscription or API bill. The direct cost of the energy is fully internalized in the price.
Electricity supply is about more than supply cost. It has a build cost, with assumed inputs which are in turn priced by demand, and they're in short supply worldwide. DC costs of construction in power are pushing up the delay and cost for non-DC power projects.