This is something, but it is not enough. I live in Virginia. Virginia has been increasingly importing more and more electricity from West Virginia (coal) and Pennsylvania (natural gas) to power new data centers. Between 2019 and 2023, imports grew 61% [1]. Even though Virginia has been building out solar and offshore wind, between 2023 and 2025 low carbon electricity (renewables + nuclear) actually decreased as a % of the energy mix (28% to 26%) [2]. Virginia won’t commit to building the clean energy generation needed to power the data centers and it won’t build fossil fuel powered generation (which is on paper something I agree with). So it imports the electricity that is both dirty and expensive, and we pay for it. It’s the coward’s way out.
Sometimes is hard to understand what really happens for me. So regular people compete on price with companies? That is wild. Here the industry in general is the first one to get disconnected from power if there is not enough. This also creates an incentive for people with money to solve the power generation problem that they themselves created.
The sooner cities and states start negotiating adversarially with companies that want to set up infrastructure in their state, the sooner we'll all be happier with the way things work.
If you want to be a part of my community, you need to obviously be giving at least as much as you take. And none of this can be theoretical in terms of what you're offering. Theoretical == non-existent.
They already do that. It's just that things like large data centers... actually pay a lot of property taxes. A huge amount compared to their land use. While not really consuming a lot of government services.
A building that just needs you to run a transmission line to it once and then sits there unassumingly while paying a disproportionate amount of property tax is the sort of thing municipalities generally offer significant incentives to get to move in. Incentives meaning they pay millions of dollars in taxes instead of tens of millions, but then the municipality gets millions of dollars in tax revenue instead of nothing when another location offers a better deal.
You're already describing a race to the bottom there IMHO.
Cities or even countries underbid each other to get the golden goose, and then realise they've already bargained away any share of the eggs, and it turns out the goose still shits everywhere.
I'm not sure what the status is, getting hard to find out amid so much noise & public coverage that's just blathering heads mostly, but, for the longest time & in many places, data centers were getting charged at industrial rates for power, which is intentionally kept super low to encourage industry. The thought that they are paying vastly less as everyone else's prices goes up is a bitter detestable situation. I am nowhere near as anti-data center as most, I want these things actually, but it feels like it's such a strong example of elite revolt, of people being totally paved over by the rich and powerful, who have so effectively managed to buy out the system of governance in so many ways.
So now every data center will have run their own wires? The city will be covered in transmission towers, wires, substations. To place new transmission wires, they’ll have to cut down some forest or demolish something.
Oh no! Whatever will we do without AI! It'll be like the dark ages of six months ago all over again. Or maybe it'll be like the reaaaallly dark ages twelve whole months ago, back when humans hadn't yet been overtaken by AGI
The power upgrades are required, yes. In some cases people have had their property taken by eminent domain just for power line upgrades. And people wonder why there is so much opposition.
The change here is that the data center will pay the full cost of the upgrade.
This is something, but it is not enough. I live in Virginia. Virginia has been increasingly importing more and more electricity from West Virginia (coal) and Pennsylvania (natural gas) to power new data centers. Between 2019 and 2023, imports grew 61% [1]. Even though Virginia has been building out solar and offshore wind, between 2023 and 2025 low carbon electricity (renewables + nuclear) actually decreased as a % of the energy mix (28% to 26%) [2]. Virginia won’t commit to building the clean energy generation needed to power the data centers and it won’t build fossil fuel powered generation (which is on paper something I agree with). So it imports the electricity that is both dirty and expensive, and we pay for it. It’s the coward’s way out.
[1] https://cardinalnews.org/2025/01/21/virginia-now-imports-mor...
[2] https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Virginia
Sometimes is hard to understand what really happens for me. So regular people compete on price with companies? That is wild. Here the industry in general is the first one to get disconnected from power if there is not enough. This also creates an incentive for people with money to solve the power generation problem that they themselves created.
Its only fair. We shoudlnt socialize costs for things where the profit will be private
Which makes me think of publicly owned data centers. Interesting thought
The sooner cities and states start negotiating adversarially with companies that want to set up infrastructure in their state, the sooner we'll all be happier with the way things work.
If you want to be a part of my community, you need to obviously be giving at least as much as you take. And none of this can be theoretical in terms of what you're offering. Theoretical == non-existent.
They already do that. It's just that things like large data centers... actually pay a lot of property taxes. A huge amount compared to their land use. While not really consuming a lot of government services.
A building that just needs you to run a transmission line to it once and then sits there unassumingly while paying a disproportionate amount of property tax is the sort of thing municipalities generally offer significant incentives to get to move in. Incentives meaning they pay millions of dollars in taxes instead of tens of millions, but then the municipality gets millions of dollars in tax revenue instead of nothing when another location offers a better deal.
You're already describing a race to the bottom there IMHO.
Cities or even countries underbid each other to get the golden goose, and then realise they've already bargained away any share of the eggs, and it turns out the goose still shits everywhere.
Now this is the pragmatic solution. Very clever
Yes! Yes! Make a lot of data centers but make them build out new power renewable generation to power them.
Virginia also has a tax on electricity, targetting data centers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertszczerba/2026/07/13/power...
I'm not sure what the status is, getting hard to find out amid so much noise & public coverage that's just blathering heads mostly, but, for the longest time & in many places, data centers were getting charged at industrial rates for power, which is intentionally kept super low to encourage industry. The thought that they are paying vastly less as everyone else's prices goes up is a bitter detestable situation. I am nowhere near as anti-data center as most, I want these things actually, but it feels like it's such a strong example of elite revolt, of people being totally paved over by the rich and powerful, who have so effectively managed to buy out the system of governance in so many ways.
So now every data center will have run their own wires? The city will be covered in transmission towers, wires, substations. To place new transmission wires, they’ll have to cut down some forest or demolish something.
Oh no! Whatever will we do without AI! It'll be like the dark ages of six months ago all over again. Or maybe it'll be like the reaaaallly dark ages twelve whole months ago, back when humans hadn't yet been overtaken by AGI
The power upgrades are required, yes. In some cases people have had their property taken by eminent domain just for power line upgrades. And people wonder why there is so much opposition.
The change here is that the data center will pay the full cost of the upgrade.
Probably pay the power company to put in the required infrastructure upgrades I guess.