cowboycwr said:whiterock said:cowboycwr said:boognish_bear said:Maryland homeowners will pay an extra $1.6 billion on their electric bills over the next decade to subsidize grid costs to feed data centers, according to a state agency https://t.co/8O24hiRe3V
— Bloomberg (@business) May 7, 2026
This is the only portion of the article I can see that is not behind a paywall...
Maryland homeowners will pay an extra $1.6 billion on their electric bills over the next decade to subsidize grid costs to feed data centers, according to a state agency.
PJM Interconnection LLC, the largest US grid operator, is making Maryland customers cover the costs for transmission projects driven primarily by energy needs of data centers outside the state, Maryland's Office of People's Counsel alleged in a complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Homeowners are effectively subsidizing data-center growth due to the way PJM allocates costs to build those projects, said the agency that represents the interests of Maryland's utility customers.
White rock says this is false. He won't provide a link but it is false.
Not false. Just a great example of spin to confuse simple minds. Everyone who hooks up to PJM will pay, residential AND commercial customers. But let's just do some per capita calculations. $1.6b over 10 years is $160m per year, or $1.3m per month. The monthly number is then divided among 4,794,800 people (population of MD), which works out to $0.26 per person per month.
At this point, the skeptic might respond "that 4,798,000 number includes everyone who lives in a household, not the number of households paying electric bills." Setting aside a few layers of logical and philosophical issues with that, the statement itself would be mathematically true. So we could instead divide the $1,33m/month expense by the number of electric meters in Maryland. Per the internet, there are 2m "smart meters" in Maryland. That would seem to be a low-end number, given that not every electrical meter in the state is a smart meter, but let's recalculate using 2m rather than 4.7m. Actual charge, per meter, would work out to $0.67 per meter.
Is that the kind of dancing on the head of the pin you expect will win arguments? $0.;067 cents per meter per month to fund infrastructure improvements that will serve everyone in the state, data center and grandma alike. Really? This is the outrage you are peddling? This is the threat to democracy you seek to stop dead in its tracks?
Just like he won't prove they create jobs, despite people posting links showing they crest no jobs or very, very few.
LOL. look at the chaotic argument you are making. You are saying DC create no jobs (because they employ fewer people per dollar of investment than many other industries). The reality is, even a low level of job creation is still job creation. a $10b data center that creates 600 jobs is, by definition, creating 600 jobs.
Same for the water claims.
No claims. Just facts. "a million" is a big number. certainly it's a lot of money to the average person. but "a million" is not a terribly big number when you're talking about gallons of water in the ecosystem. The Brazos River, per the BRA, pushes 1.8b gallons of water past McLane Stadium every day. That's enough water to run 1000 data centers. Now, I'm not arguing for 1000 data centers. Not 100 data centers. But a dozen would be sustainable.....use less than 10% of the total water in the Brazos (which is effectively untapped in our county.....only 2 small cities use it as a water source). The benefit would be approximately 6x the current tax base (resulting in massive property tax cuts for county & municipal residents) and roughly 6,000 jobs (making them, collectively, the largest employer in McLennan County). Yet we actually have numbskulls making the argument that rivers are running dry, that frogs falling from the sky, that (insert biblical plague here), and that DC create no jobs and pay no taxes.
Or the noise claims.
The code for "Data Center Alley" (the 500 data centers concentrated in No. Va.) in Loudoun county VA defines DCs as commercial office space, a zoning which allows for 65 decibels at property line.
https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/loudouncounty-va-crosswalk/doc-viewer.aspx#secid--1
For comparison, 65 decibels is the noise level of a standard electric tooth brush. . turn on the electric toothbrush. Set it on the street curb at your home. Go sit in the back yard. Please come back and tell us what you heard.
Now, are there DCs noisier than 65db? Yes. Some. Air-cooled systems are noisier than water cooled systems always/everywhere (and areas short on water tend to go with air-cooling designs). Older systems are noisier than new systems (water and air cooled alike). But we've been building DCs, by the thousands for the last 20 years. Things have improved over time. We can now make DCs whisper-quiet. We just need to have the proper codes in place. Requires more capital investment by the DC, but they are not pushing back at all. The profit margins are strong. And the industries that make the sound-muffling equipment very much appreciate the increase in their business (and all the jobs created thereby).
Or the tax base claims.
What is to contest here? DCs pay enormous amounts of taxes. Here's a fact sheet by the Loudoun Co. Economic Development Corp.
https://23372029.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/23372029/Website%20Files/Data%20Center%20Fact%20Sheet%20One%20Pager%205.1.25.pdf
I mean, look at the nonsense you are suggesting here. A $10b DC shows up. Creates no jobs (even though it will directly employ about 500 people). Creates no tax base (even though DCs have transformed local government budgets all over the country). Creates no benefit at all (as though DCs build themselves. metal buildings and electrical back up generators and BESS units and miles & miles of wires & cables & pipes and highly valuable hyper-speed computing equipment, etc....all springing like weeds out of the ground without any jobs created in any of those industries).
Everyone else provides links. He only calls us backwards and against change but won't provide links to back up his claims.
You are, on this particular issue, being absolutely ******ed. Making incredibly dumb, easily disprovable claims, not the least of which is that 1000 $10b data centers create no activity or taxes at all.
Don't work so hard to be globally obtuse. EIGHT of the top 10 companies on the S&P 500 are tech companies. They need DCs. They will get their DCs. If we don't build the DCs for them here, then they will get them built in Europe or Latin America or Asia. China will take every one of them, if allowed. Why on earth would we let all those jobs and tax base and technology go elsewhere?
To expand on that, it's not like the top 8 companies on the S&P 500 are the only companies needing DCs. EVERY company needs DCs. So does EVERY person in this country. You have at least one cell phone within arms reach right now. Possibly more. So does your spouse. So do your kids. You have at least 1 computer at home, and one at work. So does your spouse. So do your kids. Probably have a smart TV in view right now, and a couple others elsewhere in your home. Count up the number of appliances in your home. The instruction manuals and warranty sign up for any replacements you buy will be available to you on the internet. Might even be a smart appliance with constant connection to the internet. My car is a dedicated hotspot. So is my wife's car. Pull up the wifi connection page on your phone next time you're driving down the interstate. Watch all the other networkable cars pop up connection requests as you go down the highway. EVERYTHING is online. Open up your wallet. Count up the number of credit cards you have. Every time you swipe one......where do you think the payment actually happens? Did you know you have scannable bar codes on your Tx Drivers License/? What do you think happens when you scan that code? I got a passport and an international drivers license last month. Online. Desktop and iPhone camera coordinated via the internet (via home wifi) to get the forms filled out and pictures taken & uploaded. The friggin' $250 wall a/c in the building next to my trailer at our hunting camp 45mi from the nearest grocery store offers to link up with me every time I fire up my iPhone hotspot to use my computer in camp. Oh. We are also switching from Dish to Starlink next season so we can have better wifi while we're watching a football game at lunchtime. All of that viewing pleasure occurs on line. EVERYTHING. is. on. line. In a Data Center, somewhere.
Don't be a Luddite. Look at the world around you. Understand what's happening. More and more of our lives is moving on line. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle. We are doing to have to manage it well. And to do that will require....yes....more data centers. This is good. DCs create a LOT of tax base. And they do create a lot of jobs, unless you think all those computers inside and all those wires inside and all of the concrete and steel and lights and fire suppression systems and asphalt parking lots outside and fences and gates and contractor trucks coming in to mow grounds or replace sensitive equipment are all going to happen spontaneously on their own while somehow not generating any economic activity at all, any tax revenue at all, any jobs at all, etc.....
(don't double down on stupid.)
Yawn.
Lots of blabber by you but no links to prove anything. Just a few links that look at a few specific dcs and say everything is good.
But as usual you will not directly contradict a single post in this thread.
I'm done with you and will not reply to another post of your until you post links showing information to back up ALL of your claims and refutes ALL of the claims in this thread.
No links. You will be ignored as you have provided no facts.
i did provide links to show your allegations were hogwash. You ignored them.
Google up the building codes for Loudoun County, Virgina aka "Data Center Alley." There are over 160 data centers there. All of them under a code allowing no more than 65db of noise.
You are not interested in facts. You just want to purvey Chinese propaganda that Data Centers are evil.
