United States | News & Politics

Yeah, sorry, I didn’t address the power plant point. These data center aren’t building gigawatts of power plant on site (except for the nukes). They’re building megawatts of power and their using existing gas generators and turbines and feeding the power directly into the data center. They’re not building traditional power plants to enhance the grid, they’re building off grid.

My point was that this is how long it takes to build a power plant in the US. This is what I keep saying here, the fact that they say they will build gigawatts of power plants doesn't mean it's actually possible. These are not realistic projections. These companies aren't going to be magically building power plants faster than anybody else in the country.

I have it on good authority that in parts of Canada there is a massive surplus of electricity, as there is in a few regions in Scandinavia. They’re selling electricity at less then $0.05/KwH. This is mostly due to over building of hydropower in more remote areas. I’m not saying the whole grid is flush with power. I’m saying there are pockets of overproduction and the data centers are going to find ways of getting there.

There is a lot of hydro in Ontario, however it's hard to call it a surplus since the whole grid has gone down several times under load already. Whenever there's stress like a heat wave there's power shortage. So, on the authority of somebody who has to live here and see what the grid looks like, I can tell you that it's not going to support mass data center roll outs.

The existing data centers are powered.

The problems is that prices are already going up as a direct result of data centers eating up existing power supply. So, that's negatively affecting the economy as a whole. Meanwhile, I simply don't see how these off grid power stations can be built at a pace that's needed to keep up with the projected demand.

I think there’s a real risk of the US gaining breathing room through use of military force from Mexico all the way South

If the US really starts attacking Latin America again, that's absolutely going to unite everyone there against them. Attacking Venezuela or Mexico could turn out to be the very event that brings the empire down.

That’s solvable with government intervention.

I think you're wildly overestimating the competence of the policy makers. This is certainly something that would've been solvable in the 30s or the 50s, but America today is a different beast. The US is basically at the child emperor stage of the Roman empire where you have an oligarchy that's mostly focused on political intrigue as opposed to doing any actual governing.

We’re going to have reorganize the economy in the US to be a hermit kingdom that eats what it produces.

The problem is that the US doesn't produce what it needs to be self sufficient. Nor are there workers specializing in the industries like science, engineering, and trades available because there's no reason to go into these careers since there few jobs to be had there. Most people go into law, entertainment, service industry, and so on. That's why tariffs have backfired so spectacularly, there are no domestic industries to protect. So all the tariffs do is just raise prices for everyone.

I don't think lifting tariffs will reverse the trend either, but tariffs absolutely acted as an accelerant because they made the input costs go through the roof, and destroyed a whole bunch of companies in the process. It's an ongoing economic shock on an economy that's already in a bad way.

I’m trying to temper your predictions of imminent failure with the factors that will allow this shit show to continue far longer than you expect it to.

It's certainly possible they're going to be able to kick the can down the road longer. Even if a major crash happens in the next couple of years, things will most likely stabilize to a point where the system can keep chugging along. The US could end up starting to look like Brazil where you have the top 10-20% who live relatively well, and the rest of the population ends up in favelas. That's a very likely scenario in my opinion.