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Interesting Globe piece on electricity prices and datacenters, and how they're often not related the way everyone wants you to think, according to a new study.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/25/business/reason-electricity-prices-rising/

The anti-datacenter wave is really fascinating to me. Is it just because "AI Datacenters" are so rapidly expanding that people are against them, or is there an undercurrent of something about the "AI" itselr?

This article does nothing to answer that question, but you can!

#datacenters #Electricity #prices

BostonGlobe.com

There’s a reason electricity prices are rising. And it’s not data centers. - The Boston Globe

When demand goes up, prices often go up, too. But something else is going on with electricity costs.

Doug

@doug@union.place replied · 12 hours ago

@tim I'm an outsider, but I've read that US infrastructure upgrades were long needed and are only happening now due to datacentre demand and environmental issues like wildfires. The huge new energy needs for datacentres will likely overwhelm upgrades, requiring new power plants.

OpenAI wants 6GW extra—equal to 6 nuclear plants. And as we've expeienced, commercial pressure usually outweighs public safety and NIMBY concerns.

Therefore, "datacente bad" :\

Tim W RESISTS

@tim@union.place replied · 8 hours ago

@doug yeah the historical lack of infrastructure investment seems to be a real major driver of cost increases. The Boston Globe piece suggests that with economies of scale / spreading out those infrastructure costs to more megawatts the datacenters are often in fact helping.

The people complaining about the noise, I totally get, how close some of these things are to housing blows my mind. But that's how the places did their zoning, I guess. Weird.

Tim W RESISTS

@tim@union.place replied · 8 hours ago

@doug zoning is of course another whole shitshow in general here in the US, used for so long as a tool of structural racism, NIMBYism, and more. 🫤

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