US Tech Firms Pledge At White House To Bear Costs of Energy For Datacenters (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180908518
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/03/05/0537244/us-tech-firms-pledge-at-white-house-to-bear-costs-of-energy-for-datacenters
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/04/us-tech-companies-energy-cost-pledge-white-house
> The agreement is meant to help mitigate concerns that big tech's datacenters are driving up US electricity costs for homes and small businesses at a time the administration of Donald Trump is seeking to curb inflation. "This means that the tech companies and the datacenters will be able to get the electricity they need, all without driving up electricity costs for consumers," the president said at the pledge signing event. "This is a historic win for countless American families and we'll also make our electricity grid stronger and more resilient than ever before."
>
> The so-called " [2]Ratepayer Protection Pledge " was first announced by Trump in his State of the Union address, and comes as communities and state legislators increase scrutiny of rapidly proliferating datacenters. Datacenters consume vast amounts of electricity to run server racks and cooling systems for the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence. "Some datacenters were rejected by communities for that, and now I think it's going to be just the opposite," Trump said, referencing cancelled or postponed projects in recent months across several states after local opposition.
>
> The pledge includes a commitment by technology companies to bring or buy electricity supplies for their datacenters, either from new power plants or existing plants with expanded output capacity. It also includes commitments from big tech to pay for upgrades to power delivery systems and to enter special electricity rate agreements with utilities. The effort is aimed at drawing support from towns and cities that otherwise oppose the projects, said the Trump official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/04/us-tech-companies-energy-cost-pledge-white-house
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/ratepayer-protection-pledge/
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to eat meat, you can easily switch to salmon or something.
Re: (Score:2)
"You don't eat meat? I'll make lamb."
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, or the classic - if there's no bread, just have some brioche.
Talk is cheap. (Score:3)
They also made a bunch of climate change related "pledges" and the second they became to inconvenient, they silently removed those pledges from their websites. If you think they will abide these pledges then you are as dumb as they think you are.
All for show. (Score:2)
Like nearly everything with this administration everything is a cheap gilded facade.
In this particular case all Trump wants is to be able to proclaim a massive "win" with no follow up. The tech companies know this so they will make extravagant empty claims of fantastic investments. They all have a public meeting, smiles all around, thumbs up, and everyone goes back to what they were doing before lying, stealing and cheating the government.
Missing text (Score:5, Informative)
The summary copied the text of the article, but left out the second half of [1]the article [theguardian.com], which is the important part:
> It’s not clear, however, that the effort will get new supplies of electricity built quickly enough to ease pressure on grids, said Jon Gordon, who is a senior director at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group that includes some datacenters. That’s in part due to Trump’s policy focus on increasing natural gas and other fossil fuel-fired power for datacenters, instead of quicker-build sources like solar and wind, he added. “The real problem is the inability to get generation online fast enough to meet the datacenter demand,” Gordon said. “Hyperscalers paying for the generation doesn’t get it online any faster.“
You can't build new power plants immediately. Companies saying they'll "pay for new power generation and grid upgrades" (even if they actually do this, instead of completely ignoring this non-binding "pledge") some time in the future won't help the fact that the data centers consume power now /
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/04/us-tech-companies-energy-cost-pledge-white-house
Translation (Score:2)
Big Tech will buy the latest and greatest in power generation / suppliers, and the general population will be left with the legacy power infrastructure that will keep on aging and becoming more and more obsolete, because domestic power isn't where the big money is.
I pledge to pay for the gas I put in my car (Score:2)
The fact this was ever a question is a farce.
We all pay for the gas in our cars to get to work. We pay for the electricity that runs our homes and computers.
Somehow, big tech thinks they can just mooch instead of paying for the batteries for their toys.
Crypto and AI should have launched a great leap forward in clean energy.
All the oligarchs care about is profit, not legacy.
Look to your states (Score:2)
US energy costs are usually set by a utilities commissions at the state level. They are either appointed or may be elected. There is a legal framework for increasing rates and socializing costs across residential ratepayers. Utility companies spend big money on consultants to sort out how to game these frameworks so they can raise rates. Rest assured - data center operators will not pay a single cent for their energy needs. They will force you to do it, and you will take it like a bitch.
Externalizing costs (Score:2)
It is not clear to me why taxpayers should subsidize data center costs, unless they are also asking we take the ownership (i.e., nationalize) these companies.
Re: (Score:2)
Concerning this story, do your other sources say something different?
What do you get... (Score:2)
What do you get when you believe virtuous pledges from big companies? A big dick if your mouth.
Oh, bullshit (Score:2)
You think they'll take the loss out of the goodness of their hearts? Absolute bullshit; at most they'll shuffle the numbers around so it's hard to trace how it's being passed on to the consumer or local community.
what about.. (Score:3)
the water? Where will they get replacements for the millions of gallons of water they waste everyday?
you cant buy that at the big hardware store...
Is anyone else tired of being lied to? (Score:2)
Bernie Sanders is calling for a moratorium on data center builds. There are several other Democrat politicians on board. Especially at the local level. The national politicians are a little busy right now what with the illegal war in Iran and dealing with Trump gutting counterterrorism agencies the night before the bombs dropped
The only question that matters (Score:3)
How legally binding is this pledge?
Re: The only question that matters (Score:2)
NPR said it's not at all binding on my way to work.
Re: (Score:3)
I created an applicable meme. [1]https://imgflip.com/i/aluaht [imgflip.com]
[1] https://imgflip.com/i/aluaht
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I'm sure that they'll pay "market" prices for their electricity... minus their bulk discount, of course.
We'll just ignore the fact that they're doubling the demand for electricity in the area and causing the market prices to adjust accordingly. And if anyone complains about the price increases, we'll just blame it on electric vehicles. Boomers already hate those for some reason.
Re: (Score:2)
No you see it's the democrats causing us to go to war with Iran because the democrats let 2.2 millians of Iranian terrorist Ayatollah sympathizers through the southern border with our open borders policy.
I wish I was joking, but Mike Johnson legitimately said this... Or rather, he threw out a bunch of numbers during his press conference:
1500 Terrorists on the watchlist
2.2 Million people "released", whatever that means.
1500 Iranian Nationals "crossed our open borders"
"the actual number is much higher, we don
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This can't be legally binding, since the President isn't the legislature and most of the relevant regulatory authority belongs to the States. But, there is another aspect to it. By getting them to agree now, he's basically removed the biggest obstacle to legislation (State or Federal) that would make this legally binding. While also making that legislation less necessary.
And of course, there are a number of ways the administration could make things hard for companies violating the pledge.
Re: (Score:2)
As legally binding as "Don't be evil", the former motto of a large Trumpistani advertiser.
Re: (Score:2)
> How legally binding is this pledge?
There's more than one question. Here's just one, the first that comes to mind:
Does this pledge also come with a guarantee that cities/states won't just hand taxpayer money over to the datacenter owners to cover the expense of electricity that the pledge states they must cover?
Most of these giant projects come in with promises of job creation, which gets the local area governments to hand massive piles of cash to them. When the jobs disappear once the datacenters are up in running in this case, it's not like