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Data centers need electricity, utilities need years to build – who should pay?
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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Technology
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I just don’t understand why this is a difficult question. Make the data centers fund their own power needs. End of story.
Make the data centers build their own power plants. Then they get all the risk and all the reward.
Make them put the power plant right next to the data center, that way they're not stressing out the rest of the grid. And that way the exact same community that gets the benefits of hosting the data center also gets the environmental costs of the power plant.
In theory it's great. In practice it's "oops we had a big spill and went out of business, guess the EPA will have to use taxpayer money".
Just because they're a data center doesn't mean they're suddenly immune to the regulations and processes a utility has to go through to build a generator.
Musk is running filthy methane generators in Memphis to power his datacenter. No permits, nada.