But a fixed supply is a policy choice, and is not the fault of AI companies.
You just nullified your own point.
If we changed the policy overnight, we would still have the same problems because infrastructure takes years to plan, build, and make operational. So no, the cause is in fact the rapid increase in demand, not just policy.
This is, currently, mostly regulatory. Yes, in the absence of any regulations at all it would still take time to plan, build, and commission, and I am not advocating for literally no regulations, but solar and wind plants could probably be spun up in well under a year under a dramatically reduced regulatory burden, almost certainly faster than a new Datacenter can be built. They are, after all, dramatically simpler installations.
And that's not even thinking about the fact that in this alternate reality we are imagining, power plants would have been being continually built for decades, and the new demand would be a much smaller drop in the much larger bucket.
So I think that in an alternate regulatory regime both A) yes actually power plants could built ~ as fast as data centers and other large power consumers and B) we would have so much more power that increases in demand would be less of a shock to the system.
That would only be true if you could forecast the demand to justify the cost of the new infrastructure. It seems the demand from AI was beyond forecasts. The policies doesnt make the plants impossible to build, just slower. So your argument about continuously building plants is true in our current reality, and those plans include the extra time to comply with policies.
Choose one.
In fact, don't. Just build a new power plant and plug it into the grid. Go on, I could do with a laugh.
Bullshit. Why would they have continuously built power plants if the demand wasn't there? The utterly insane level AI datacenter demand came out of nowhere.
And then you know, when there are tradeoffs, you can always maximize X and the expense of Y. And if you're myopically looking only at X, that may seem like a smart move, but that tradeoff may not be the right tradeoff when you look at things holistically.
And there are other tradeoffs: maybe not deregulate power-plant construction, but instead regulate AI data-center construction to slow it down. If we're in an AI bubble, that may end up being the right call and eliminate a lot of FOMO waste.
The simplest and most logical regulation: don't connect new data centers to the grid unless they pay the cost and interest for the power capacity they commit to use - it's not hard to do the accounting for that and it's the fair way to do it for any large new consumers.
Planning is not issue. Republican party intentionally preventimg those via goverment regulation is.
I used to think nuclear reactors are just hard to build in general, because the costs when something goes wrong are very, very high. So what unnecessary regulation is there with nuclear reactors that you think should be deleted?
Does not sound too great and obvious to me to be honest and it seems debated in the scientific community.
So irrational fear of radiation is surely a thing and maybe the models as to when real danger starts can be updated, but I would not call that question obvious when the experts debate it and I ain't one.
Allowing higher radiation dose does sound bad, but I would urge you to delve into the Linear No-Threshold Model. We have the lion's share of a century of cancer and health data and the results are somewhat counterintuitive.
Here is a short video statement from Robert B Hayes from NC State university: https://youtu.be/kFMKPpiiJgw
That list of incidents is pretty long, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
So like I said, maybe the Linear No Threshold Model is wrong(I will have a look into the video as well). But it was presented here as something obviously flawed to get rid of .. while a short dive into it, showed it is still debated among the experts. Sp that approach from some people also does seem ideological motivated and not fact based to me, not just the anti nuclear crowd.
Operators, manufacturers and service have spent a long time making what we have very reliable in what are now pretty old designs. If a new pump manufacturer appeared in the scene, everyone making decisions needs to assess the reliability vs a well-known quantity of reliability.
This is what I mean when I say risk averse, and the mortar in the bricks are the suppliers and services. The record doesn’t show worse and worse throughout time, everyone in a nuclear safety related industry knows what to expect and what is expected of their production. Changing even this linear no-threshold model would incur a LOT of engineering, process development/improvement and risk analysis, which none of them want to do.
If you’re the one that screws up, it can be a nasty stain.
Start here:
1. How many new nuclear power plants has the NRC approved in its entire history (since being formed from the AEC)?
2. What's the cost of a nuclear kw in China vs the US, and is the trend going up or going down?
Specifically: they were asking the opinion of the commenter. Google won't help here.
However it should be faster to build a solar plant, a battery bank and a power line between them and the new data center than it takes to build a new data center. It isn't because of silliness, and that's what to blame for the power price increases IMO.
Removing regulations today will have an effect in 10-20 years. I cannot give you a quick answer to the problem.
Ignore regulations, make it the Wild West, break out the child labour and environmental destruction and all your other wet dreams.
How long will it take to increase supply?
Fake cures, filthy mines, toxic ingredients, polluted waterways, fraud, predation, monopolies, algorithmic social outrage networks, etc. These things have been going on for a long time. Regulations have fixed a lot of problems.
It doesn't seem that reputation matters as much as regulation. It doesn't take many greedy people/companies to leave behind a big mess. Just a few breaking the rules (including the cultural rules around reputation) gain an advantage over all those who don't.
What better way for society to protect itself?
The point was, increasing shareholder value is equivalent to increasing their own paychecks. So they are doubly incentivized to choose shareholder value over other values. Most people would still choose health/life of other humans, but the incentives are certainly off without regulation.
The poors pay for rooftop solar and heat pump subsidies for HNers.
the argument is to handcuff them because of the externalities. which is one of the things laws are for. It's not about fairness it's about whether this is the world we want to live in. The market was designed a certain way; the design stops benefitting the public the way it should; so update the design, easy.
Eversource (NYSE: ES) is my local electric/natural gas provider in Massachusetts that I hear these same arguments about. Their stock is down 21% over the past 5 years. (To contrast, the S&P500 is up 91% over this same timeframe).)