Comment by ethbr1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethbr1 | Hacker News Reader

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This is a perfect argument getting in the way of a good solution.

There's nothing to stop hyperclouds from finishing it with temporary nat gas behind the meter now and striking long-term power purchase agreements that fund extra utility build-out.

They're not doing that because (a) it costs more and (b) nobody has made them.

Hopefully that'll change with a bluer Texas, new Congress, and more assertive municipalities.

There's a trivial path to win/win here, if the companies were universally required to enter into sustainable deals (both financially and environmentally). Even playing field nationally = no particular cloud wins by finding the rube locality that will accept a bad datacenter deal.

There's no inevitability to the use of gas turbines. How about a carbon tax?

It's hard to beat the immediacy of trucking in turbines. Framing this as an either/or leads to bikeshedding. Why not allow them the now solution and mandate a better intermediate-term relacement?

When do you think Elon's gas turbines will be taken off-line?

When the economic incentive to run them is costlier than a viable alternative.

If in a year Mississippi said "Plants are ready to deliver on that power purchase agreement you signed, at a lower cost than onsite turbines" then they'd be turned off.

Yet instead of a PPA, xAI contracted with TVA for wholesale power, is building their own dedicated turbines, and is using mobile turbines temporarily.

None of that helps the regional electricity market, because it's not integrated.

Why billionaire get lollipop to behave? Just set limits to pollution.

I think part of them problem is that xAI is ALREADY operating more gas turbines than they have permits for.

IMO data centers themselves are environmentally unobjectionable, but gas turbines are loud polluters and it should be almost impossible to get permits for more than a few months at a time.

The existing law could be used to stop them just fine but Trump has no interest in that.

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