Big Tech's massive energy consumption strains grids, demanding new power solutions.

Hawley's bill is dumb. The best outcome here is that data centers just pay their fair share of the costs for connecting to the grid and getting power. A voluntary pledge is meaningless, so Congress should require it. But forcing data centers off the grid instead? That will cause big tech to build a bunch of noisy, polluting, constantly-running jet engines in neighborhoods around the country, just like Elon Musk did to Memphis.

If I had my conspiracy hat on I would argue that this is in the interests of the tech giants, they've now added a very large barrier to entry in their sector making it all the more difficult and unlikely companies could ever compete with them. If I went further with my conspiratorial thoughts, I would even argue that big tech's lobbied for this.

Natural gas is a commodity.   I would like to know how competition for the resources used to power plants won’t raise rates.  Sure you’re rates went up but don’t be mad at us, we didn’t raise your electricity rates by competing for a finite resource from the electricity generator, we did not not raise your rates by buying the fuel used to make electricity.  

Uh , running fossil fuel generators 24hrs a day is not going to be good. Now it will be mandated by law?

If true, I’m OK with Congress doing this. A “pledge” from big Tech would not be worth the paper It was written on, if it was written on paper at all. Do no evil? PFFT

That’s about the same value a pledge that social media companies made about protecting our children. Completely worthless.

And, the bill with be passed on to consumers via loopholes in the law or agreements - these companies do nothing that the public doesn't pay for in one way or another.

Even with corporations building the grid/power plants/supply they need for DCs, consumers will still see higher costs for electricity rates. It's about total supply and demand for everything. Whether that's natural gas, solar panels, batteries (and the associated labor needed to build these power plants), the more total power we need the more expensive it gets (per unit). The question is do we need more DCs? Will they actually benefit society and help regular people? Or do they just help corporate stock prices by "advancing" AI capability while driving up prices for things that actually bene…

It’s kind of dumb because rate design should already make datacenters pay their own way anyway. This is a non-op

China installed more solar in 2025 than exists in the USA. We haven't been investing in our nation for four decades. Who could have seen these issues coming? Except obviously China did.

And what’s to stop them from bringing up dirty generators and gas turbines on site like Muskrat did?

Of course we need law with penalties rather than a corporate lick and a promise. Step 2 though is the data centers must run 100% on renewable energy by law. Anything else is just making things worse.