Power hungry data centers break the utility model of socializing electricity costs: Seventy percent of last year's increased electricity cost was the result of data center demand

 

 As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act

... Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog for the mid-Atlantic grid, produced research in June showing that 70% — or $9.3 billion — of last year’s increased electricity cost was the result of data center demand. ... 

PJM [Interconnection, the mid-Atlantic grid operator], has yet to propose ways to guarantee that data centers pay their freight, but Monitoring Analytics is floating the idea that data centers should be required to procure their own power. 

In a filing last month, it said that would avoid a “massive wealth transfer” from average people to tech companies. ...

 Demand for Electricity Takes Off. US Power Generation by Source in 2024: Natural Gas, Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, Solar, Geothermal, Biomass, Petroleum 

The quantity of electricity generated in the US by all sources, from natural gas to rooftop solar, rose by 3.1% in 2024 from 2023 to a record of 4,304,039 gigawatt-hours (GWh), according to data from the EIA today.

This is now clearly a breakout in demand, after 14 years of stagnation, from 2007 through 2021, when electricity users, to reduce their costs, invested in more efficient equipment – lights, appliances, electronic equipment, industrial equipment, heating and air-conditioning, etc. – and in better building insulation, shading, etc., to reduce their power costs. This relentless drive for greater efficiency kept demand roughly stable for years despite the growing economy and population. And it mired many power generators and electric utilities in a no-growth business where it was difficult to justify investment.

Now the scenario has changed, largely due to the growth in demand from data centers (AI, cloud, crypto) and the increasing penetration of EVs in the national vehicle fleet – EVs accounted for over 10% of US vehicle sales in 2024. ...

An AI-induced economic collapse is coming in one to five years on the heels of millions losing their jobs to AI and on the spending of those millions drying up

 The silent bloodbath that's tearing through the middle-class and rapidly flipping the US economy on its head

... This time, it's not blue-collar and factory workers getting whacked — it's college graduates with white-collar jobs in tech, finance, law, and consulting.

Entry-level jobs are vanishing the fastest — stoking fears of recession and a generation of disillusioned graduates left stranded with CVs no one wants.

College grads are now much more likely to be unemployed than others, official data show.

Chatbots have already taken over data entry and customer service jobs. Next-generation 'agentic' AI can solve problems, adapt, and work independently. ...

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, one of the world's most powerful AI firms, says we're at the start of a storm.

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20 percent in the next one to five years, he told Axios. ...

Critics say universities are churning out graduates into a market that simply doesn't need them.

A growing number of young professionals say they feel betrayed — promised opportunity, but handed a future of 'AI-enhanced' redundancy. ...

 

Well, if spending collapses those blue-collar and factory workers won't have anything to do either, now will they?

Prices for everything might very well reset much lower in a deflationary spiral.

Imagining being in charge of addressing all that.