Bernie Sanders on data centers:

[applegrove]

Mark Zuckerberg is building a data center in Louisiana that will use 3x more electricity than all of New Orleans.

Oligarchs want YOU to pay for these data centers with higher water & electric bills.

Americans must fight back against billionaires who put profits over people.

— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) 2025-12-10T16:40:17.701Z

[Dave Bowman]

1. These things also use vast amounts of water and are a nuisance for people living nearby.

[rampartd]

2. who will be restored first after our next hurricane?

me or the ai? it took 3 1/2 months after katrina. how long after hurricane "X"

corporate naming rights for hurricanes?

[Bev54]

10. Yes they do use a lot of water and our friendly Trumper premier Smith wants to

build several of them in Alberta. If they even build one they need to do as they do in Finland and use the heat into the city grids to help heat homes. I think that is why she wants to start mining coal again, to provide power to data centres. She is such an ass and the people are now fighting back against her and her separatist friends.

[GiqueCee]

11. I have a cousin...

... who lives in Alberta, and she and her husband LOATHE Danielle Smith.

[Bev54]

12. Loathe is a good word for the feelings about her. I am wondering who voted for her.

Most people I know feel the same.

[QueerDuck]

3. Historically, utilities are allowed to "socialize" the costs of new infrastructure...

such as power plants, transmission lines, substations, etc across all ratepayers, based on the assumption that "everyone benefits" from grid improvements.

The complex rules for allocating costs, often involving both federal and state regulatory processes, can obscure which investments are made specifically for data centers, making it difficult to track the cost causation.

So while data centers do pay for the energy they consume (based on usage), the crucial issue is who pays for the massive, initial infrastructure upgrades needed to deliver that power. In many regions, the existing residential customers are shouldering much of that financial burden

It's my understanding that Ohio has (or will) pass regulations requiring data centers to pay for their own grid upgrades. And along that same philosophy, Oregon and Minnesota have passed laws to create separate billing categories or ensure data center grid costs remain off household bills.

So it makes sense that data centers will seek out states that have weak regulations on matters of this type.

[OldBaldy1701E]

6. Weak regulations or weak regulators.

The states that have been decimated by rethug rule will not have anything real to stop them anyway.

[QueerDuck]

9. Either one, I suppose. It's pretty much a distinction without much of a difference. Clearly...

improvement is needed. I'd thought that Ohio is a Republican-controlled state, so when I read that, I was surprised.

[OldBaldy1701E]

13. Indeed. (n/t)

[dickthegrouch]

4. The costs of repairing the damage caused by

Inadequate maintenance and ignored responsibility is also socialized.
Both infrastructure, maintenance and restitution should be the sole responsibility of the shareholders (owners).
There should be a legal financial equivalent of a margin call for every share owned. Then the owners can validly take any profit. That’s the way the rest of the world works.

[dalton99a]

5. Yep. Sucking up all the water and pushing up utility bills for home owners

[pfitz59]

7. The grid will crash

and they will blame Biden.

[MontanaMama]

8. There is so much wrong with this AI race.

Anybody concerned about immigration ought to be really concerned about AI. The environmental disaster that is AI is cannot be undone once these places are built. We cannot consent to giving 6 people the decision making power that affects 8 billion people. The biggest issue is that politicians allowing this to go forward do not understand the ramifications of their decisions or even what AI is.