“An energy crunch forces continued coal burning in a low-income area as data centers strain the regional power supply.
But when the 2023 deadline to rid that plant of coal arrived, the power company that owns it balked.
Eliminating toxic emissions conflicted with a competing priority: serving massive, power-hungry Meta and Google data centers the utility helped recruit to the region before it secured enough new energy to meet the extra demand.
The fast-growing data centers — which provide computing power for artificial intelligence — are driving explosive growth in the area’s energy use. Electricity demand in Omaha has increased so much overall, according to the Omaha Public Power District, that permanently switching off the two coal-burning generators at its North Omaha plant could buckle the area’s electricity system.
“The tech companies bear responsibility for this. The coal plant is still open because they need all this energy to grow.”
The electricity that Google and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — are devouring is a major factor in the extension of coal burning, they say. According to the utility’s own estimates, two-thirds of projected growth in demand in the Omaha area is attributable to the massive data centers rising largely on former farmland in the surrounding prairie.
The data centers’ need for electricity is enormous. Meta’s Nebraska data center alone used nearly as much energy as the North Omaha coal units produced in 2023, company and federal energy disclosures show. It is enough electricity to power more than half the homes in Omaha.”
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how is this economcs broo stop fucking spamming my feed
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“An energy crunch forces continued coal burning in a low-income area as data centers strain the regional power supply.
But when the 2023 deadline to rid that plant of coal arrived, the power company that owns it balked.
Eliminating toxic emissions conflicted with a competing priority: serving massive, power-hungry Meta and Google data centers the utility helped recruit to the region before it secured enough new energy to meet the extra demand.
The fast-growing data centers — which provide computing power for artificial intelligence — are driving explosive growth in the area’s energy use. Electricity demand in Omaha has increased so much overall, according to the Omaha Public Power District, that permanently switching off the two coal-burning generators at its North Omaha plant could buckle the area’s electricity system.
“The tech companies bear responsibility for this. The coal plant is still open because they need all this energy to grow.”
The electricity that Google and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — are devouring is a major factor in the extension of coal burning, they say. According to the utility’s own estimates, two-thirds of projected growth in demand in the Omaha area is attributable to the massive data centers rising largely on former farmland in the surrounding prairie.
The data centers’ need for electricity is enormous. Meta’s Nebraska data center alone used nearly as much energy as the North Omaha coal units produced in 2023, company and federal energy disclosures show. It is enough electricity to power more than half the homes in Omaha.”
how is this economcs broo stop fucking spamming my feed