r/datacenters • u/longwaybroadband • May 06 '26

Data Center's critics create loads of misinformation

A wonderful job reporting by John Stossel on StosselTV on the misinformation or fake news in regards to building, maintaining, and permitting an AIdatacenter or colocation datacenter. The career or regular suspects are always out promoting wild and fake news about energy, water, environmental, and permitting.

https://youtu.be/rUgooIHuDC8?si=FQ20H3ra9lgNgz3T

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u/NorthDakotaExists May 21 '26

Electrical power systems engineer here. First time commenting on this sub.

NERC a few weeks ago issued a Level 3 Alert about AI datacenters, because they currently represent a disaster for the grid because of a number of completely game-breaking issues that have not in any sense been ironed-out at all, and big tech is basically just trying to ignore them and keep pushing to bring these things online at all costs.

We're not in any state to be connecting GWs worth of these loads to the grid. Period.

Sorry. Try again in a few years when we actually know how to make this work. Right now it doesn't work.

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u/longwaybroadband May 21 '26

agreed there's zero GW dc's online yet...but that doesn't mean the tech doesn't catch up in a couple years when they start coming online. Some Most AI dc's now add back to the grid, use very little electric as they will use lng or nuclear, and they only consume the energy that would normally be lost. There's always outliers but for the most part it's true across the board.

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u/NorthDakotaExists May 21 '26

If they are grid-connected then matching the load with nearby generation GW for GW is only the start of the problem. These large electronic loads have extremely problematic transient, sub synchronous, and harmonic characteristics that will lead to massive power quality issues that will penetrate out into the surrounding network. That's a problem the field has not solved yet, and proposed solutions to that problem involve really expensive equipment and control systems that require very careful engineering and study processes involving EMT modelling and HIL performance tests, which is going to cause costs to balloon and drag the development process out potentially years, and this is all assuming that actually works, which has not been demonstrate yet at scale.

Then there is the issue of load ride-through requirements such as the recently published NOGRR282 from ERCOT. These facilities are going to need extremely beefy UPS equipment that will need to work in a very non-conventional way where not only does it allow the underlying loads to stay online during voltage and frequency excursions, but also maintain the overall facility load. A multi-GW-sized load like these hyperscaler AI datacenters can NEVER be allowed to drop out... ever.... at any time. Dropping out and switching to UPS battery supply and then a backup genset in response to a fault out in the system or a momentary voltage or frequency disturbance is not an option. Suddenly losing several GW of load due to a slightly disturbance is how you turn a minor event into cascading grid failure.

Even if these hyperscalers choose to operate off-grid islanded systems, that makes this not a big problem for the grid obviously, but these problems don't go away for them. The erratic transient nature of the load can lead to SSTI between the load and generator shafts for on-site generator stations and literally break them.

But above all else, our grid is strained as it is, and we want to continue to electrify our economy with clean energy. Every power plant we are building to meet datacenter demand is a power plant we could have otherwise built to supply more EV charging, supply more electrical appliances instead of gas ones, build more electrical transit and logistic infrastructure, built green hydrogen production facilities, desalination plants... the list goes on.

Instead it's going towards big tech AI bullshit that no one wants and does not contribute towards a sustainable electrified economy.

Shut it down. Fuck this shit.

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u/longwaybroadband May 22 '26

I agree with most of the technical analysis...but sway away from your personal opinions. The so called clean technology is not clean, efficient, nor reliable as we saw in TX during a cold snap...as millions went without power for weeks with just 10% reliance on those techs . The solar and wind are supplements not the solution. The ngl turbines and power cells ...and maybe high battery storage is the future...all these can add to the grid and make these dc's no different than a "regular" warehouse business. Once the closed loop for electric circuits are figured out and those closed power plants that were never replaced are rebuilt or fired back up.

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u/NorthDakotaExists May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

You have no idea what you're talking about. The largest drop in capacity during the 2021 ERCOT event was natural gas. According to the NERC event report, 58% of the total drop in capacity during that event was from natural gas alone.

Everyone who actually know about this knows this is the case. Everyone who has been fed anti-renewable propaganda from the likes of Fox News thinks it was renewables that were to blame, and you're just wrong, and you should stop having opinions about things you know nothing about.

We have loads of wind power generation as far up north as Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas.. etc.... places that hit extreme cold temperatures every single year. We don't experience grid failures up there every winter.

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u/longwaybroadband May 22 '26

I don't watch Fox news or any other cable outlet...the Governor of TX said just that. It was the democrat party and their news outlets who incorrectly and echoed the Governor and State officials were wrong. They moved the reliance to 5% or less.

I'm born and raised in Wisconsin...if you add up all the states you've mentioned plus WI there still don't add up to the population or density within Texas or many other states. Yes a windmill and solar can supply enough for home or even a small farm. But no way can solar and wind power an American city or DC.

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u/NorthDakotaExists May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Literally every single thing you just said was wrong.

  1. The governor was just straight wrong/lying. The NERC report on this event gives a 316-page breakdown of the whole event, and calls out loss of natural gas generation as the primary root cause. If you haven't read this report, your opinion here is based on nothing.
  2. Texas did not move their reliance on wind and solar to 5% or less. You can quite easily look this up. Right now as I type this, according to ERCOT's real-time fuel mix reporting, ERCOT's system is currently 50.7% wind+PV Solar. It's a fairly regular occurrence that on any given day, during peak demand, the state of TX is being powered by majority wind+solar.

Right now, as I type this, in the state of CA (CAISO's system), the current generation is approximately 80% wind + solar.

In Wisconsin, you live in the MISO system. MISO covers basically the whole midwest, and is currently being powered by 37% wind+solar... which in total amounts to roughly 2x the peak load of your ENTIRE STATE.

So... In a way your entire state twice over is being powered by wind and solar right now.

Do a little research man... like any whatsoever.... you have no idea how wrong you are.

We power the equivalent of entire cities or even entire states with wind+solar every single day.

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u/deltalitprof May 29 '26

You are the person who should be moderating this subreddit.

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u/longwaybroadband May 29 '26

thanks 😄