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coldbrewed 9 hours ago [-]
This is a collection of "OpenAI will boldly act in the abstract to provide air coverage for Texas leadership." With data centers under construction one would think they would have examples of successes or projects in progress available for reference. They'd claim credit if they had it so the silence is telling.
Big tech has consistently valued profit and growth above good stewardship; the onus is entirely on OpenAI to demonstrate that any of these claims aren't fluff with the projects that are already greenlit. When OpenAI presents plans to the communities prior to/alongside city counsels and drops the NDAs then there will be merit to this but our expectations should be somewhere between "super deep kola borehole" and "upper mantle".
ourmandave 3 hours ago [-]
...provide air coverage for Texas leadership.
The GOP runs Texas. The governor, sec of state, AG, and both houses are republican. Since when have they ever wanted or needed air coverage?
elictronic 2 hours ago [-]
The 2018 Senate race had a Democratic candidate lose by 2.6% while the economy for everyday Americans was doing much better. O'Rourke wasn't as good of a candidate as Talarico, and Cruz is a much better candidate than Paxton. That's not saying Cruz is good, just Paxton has almost as much baggage as Trump without the TV personality to whitewash it away. Republican strategists are expecting over 150 million to be spent on this race.
They will take anything they can possibly get at this point.
Yeah if they were so committed to doing good, you'd think the billions of dollars they have spent would bear some evidence of that by now.
vrganj 8 hours ago [-]
They must be "effective" "altruists".
The only way to do good is to first do all the bad and consolidate power, so you can then use all that power to do good, pinkie promise!
williamcotton 15 minutes ago [-]
I've been to one EA meetup and it wasn't my thing but this seems nothing like the discussions I had. It's where I found out about GiveDirectly.
The biggest issue for me was the AGI/ASI doomerism. But then again, fast-forward five or six years and we've got "unaligned" AI agents blindly following reward functions...
mcmcmc 5 hours ago [-]
Seems you’ve rustled some jimmies. I’ve always thought effective altruism was a nice way to rationalize insatiable greed.
cortesoft 4 hours ago [-]
It has the exact same appeal and pitfalls as utilitarianism
TitaRusell 3 hours ago [-]
Avoid taxes and make some good nerd PR with fancy cult speak!
watwut 5 hours ago [-]
I noticed the same thing about effective altruism. Its fans are really good at convincing themselves the most self-serving action amd goals are noble pursuits.
munk-a 3 hours ago [-]
It suffers from an ends-justify-the-means trap where bad actions in the short term with the long term goal of good actions are justified by the fact that you, the actor, know your philosophy is the best way to enact positive change.
I'm happy to try and get already wealthy individuals on the train of effective altruism but it has been used to justify wealth concentration far too much and, to be honest, spreading money around is one of the most effective ways to enact real positive changes in the world since individuals know their own situations the best.
godelski 4 hours ago [-]
I think that's the point. No one wants to be the villain in their own story. We all tell ourselves stories to paint ourselves as good. I don't think most people are evil, but I think most evil is created by people who have convinced themselves they are good.
So I see EA as a popular one of those stories. One that people can reinforce. Makes the world simpler than it actually is: climb the ladder, make money at whatever cost, there's no harm that you can do that can't be offset by giving it all away at the end. It is a vast over simplification and is inconsistent logic. If they used their own logic then they'd recognize helping people now also results in compounding effects. You fix the problems now, while they are small and manageable, rather than kicking the can down the road. Maintenance is a lot easier and cheaper than repair. But it also requires us to be nuanced and reflect on ourselves [0]
[0] there seems to be a great irony that those leading these big AI companies are not themselves able to deeply reflect on their own actions, yet ask the AI to. How can you design something that you aren't intimately familiar with?
tclancy 5 hours ago [-]
I’ve yet to hear of effective altruism from anyone less wealthy me. Seems to be weirdly lumped among the rich.
nickff 3 hours ago [-]
To be fair to its adherents (of which I am not one), the so-called philosophy espouses maximizing income, so that one can later allocate that wealth efficiently. Working in a low-earning field which directly provides aid to those in need would seem to violate a core precept of 'Effective Altruism'.
Centigonal 4 hours ago [-]
Effective Altruism isn't very different from Randian objectivism.
nickff 4 hours ago [-]
What do you mean by this? The two ideas/groups/perspectives seem completely unrelated.
rayiner 3 hours ago [-]
Building stuff is good stewardship. We complain about NIMBYs. But with a few relatively modest regulations data centers can be quite friendly. They don’t generate traffic, congestion, etc. They don’t strain school or police infrastructure. Basically need some noise regulations. But the NIMBYs will kill it.
rconti 16 minutes ago [-]
They need more than "we will prioritize". They need to act. They need to source power _today_, not just promise at some point in the future they'll probably fund a power plant, while raising rates for human consumers in the short, medium, and long term, for example.
masfuerte 31 minutes ago [-]
Factories were originally located near housing (or vice versa) because the factories needed lots of workers. This doesn't apply to data centres. They don't need to be near anybody's home, so why should anyone be obliged to suffer their externalities? Just build your data centre somewhere else.
usernomdeguerre 3 hours ago [-]
Not all things built are positive, so it can't be good stewardship just to build. And is the reason they don't strain infra because they don't meaningfully improve the community or its economy?
mcmcmc 19 minutes ago [-]
They don’t generate any value for local communities either!
rainsford 43 minutes ago [-]
This seems like an entirely predictable outcome of data center builders and operators behaving like anti-social neighbors with noise just because no law prevented them from doing so.
Building a data center near homes and running your incredibly loud gas turbine generators 24/7 for months, destroying the property values and quality of life for the people living there, is a giant middle finger to the community they've moved into. I'm not saying the backlash banning them entirely rather than adding some additional regulations is entirely logical, but it's very understandable. And should have been eminently predictable.
alpha_squared 3 hours ago [-]
NIMBY is largely used for housing development discussions and to contort it in support of developing data centers is incredibly intellectually dishonest.
If we're going to rebrand things to blur lines, I propose rebranding data centers to pedophile content hubs.
The rest of your argument is full of similar cherry-picking for dishonest discourse.
mcmcmc 16 minutes ago [-]
CSAM Factory rolls off the tongue a bit better
JuniperMesos 3 hours ago [-]
Opposing new housing construction is bad in basically the same way that opposing data center construction is bad; and I'm happy to use the same word to describe both groups of people.
rainsford 49 minutes ago [-]
There is a much stronger argument for why housing should be built near existing housing than for why data centers need to be built near existing housing. Housing NIMBYs are being unreasonable because if they got their way the only new housing would be built in the middle of nowhere, which is clearly unworkable. Data center NIMBYs are arguing for much the same thing, but focusing on building data centers a good distance away from housing seems pretty reasonable.
goatlover 2 hours ago [-]
Why is opposing data center construction bad? People need housing, if there isn't enough affordable housing around, then opposing it can be bad. But also people who live there should have a say in what gets built near them, since they have to live with it.
rayiner 55 minutes ago [-]
People need infrastructure. Data centers are infrastructure.
gruez 3 hours ago [-]
>NIMBY is largely used for housing development discussions and to contort it in support of developing data centers is incredibly intellectually dishonest.
No, it's frequently used in infrastructure discussions as well, eg. high speed rail or power transmission lines.
goatlover 2 hours ago [-]
Or like property on the Texas Mexico border through which a wall is being built sealing off acres of private land from the owner.
rayiner 54 minutes ago [-]
That’s the opposite of NIMBYism. Public infrastructure getting built despite inconvenience to affected landowners.
hotpotatoe 26 minutes ago [-]
That pointless infrastructure that has ‘inconvenienced’ landowners is also destroying a national park, so I guess we are all being inconvenienced. And funneled billions of tax dollars to private contractors.
TitaRusell 3 hours ago [-]
Citizens having a say in what is going on in their neighborhood is now controversial. Big brother knows best.
pchristensen 2 hours ago [-]
The ability of citizens to restrict or prohibit building in their jurisdiction is extremely strong, basically everywhere in the developed world[1]. There's not much they can do to affirmatively cause things to be built - that still takes capital and expertise - but local controls have stifled many, many, many parts of economic development and greatly skewed the economy.
Citizens having a say in what is going on in their neighborhood is why housing in the bay area isn't expensive, they use that say to prevent the construction of new housing.
trhway 38 minutes ago [-]
Extremely large dark black box. Haunted house on steroids. Not so quietly humming 24/7. Polluting the air from the large scale mobile gensets. Sucking in all the water and electric power so that the residential rates are going up and up.
I'm all for the datacenters, the more the better, it is the great race of acceleration of our civilization. Yet, it is pretty clear, and with history being the witness, that the tech-bros and MBAs will build it without any regard for the well-being of impacted communities. Thus we have the game of what communities will [be forced to] take a one for the team.
And this is why space base datacenters will be a thing :)
kodablah 8 hours ago [-]
https://texas-connects.com/ is also running lots of commercials locally. But both this open letter _and_ the commercials intentionally skate around the resource needs.
> OpenAI will pay our own way and protect residential and small-business customers [...] OpenAI will work to support new power generation in Texas
Notice how this very intentionally doesn't say they will work to support generating as much or more power than they will use? Because if they could do that, they would just generate their own power. It doesn't matter if they "pay their own way", they are now competing with households.
Same with water, all of these projects want to leech on existing systems because they don't even want to entertain developing their own systems.
However, having worked inside Texas DCs for a long time now, I think it's just the burst that's the issue, not the concepts. Sadly they'll share our resources, but I think they should pay a premium on their energy compared to residential (but it's hard to reconcile this with other commercial ventures that do not).
clutchdude 4 hours ago [-]
This is a play to say something without putting down the ink that binds them.
> We will minimize water consumption and prioritize efficient cooling technologies, including closed-loop systems.
> We will work with local communities and water providers to ensure our projects are responsibly planned around available resources
I can promise you that I'll do everything to consider the needs and wants of others.
But I won't promise to take actions that take those wants or needs into account, much less even actually consider them.
sashank_1509 8 hours ago [-]
The AI companies are spending close to a trillion dollars building data centers. On top of that, they’re now promising they’ll handle all environmental and power needs. I believe them, they probably will do that, thats not even too expensive. They need to however recoup this investment somehow, which is the fundamental problem with a technology like AI.
The only plausible way to recoup 1T is to automate large swaths of human jobs so that the companies stop spending money on humans, and instead give money to them. This is probably why the public doesn’t want AI, because AI in the rules of current society is perfectly designed to disempower and ruin humans, but is not actually capable enough to ruin humans in a state of nature.
Large massive data-centers that makes this economics work is not actually a fact of life, in a less stable country they’re actually a liability. If a countries technical prowess comes from a data center then an adversary just needs to bomb it to knee cap that country. On the other hand, if a companies technical prowess comes from a thousands of well trained humans, well that’s actually not easy to get rid of. They’re not stationary, they’re adaptable, they can pick up new skills quicker and cheaper. Any king would much rather invest in humans and not AI.
But in a country like US, where it’s hard to even imagine such instability, AI is perfect at outcompeting humans and ruining them short term, and ruining the country long term. No wonder, this seems to be turning out to become the most negative reaction the public has ever had to the advent of new transformative technology. Unfortunately I don’t think it will work, the AI companies are just going to steamroll them, steal their jobs and dignity and then put them on UBI and pay themselves on the back as if they did a good thing.
macintux 4 hours ago [-]
> then put them on UBI
You may be too optimistic.
vjvjvjvjghv 4 hours ago [-]
“ put them on UBI”
Never, ever will they do that. It’s the same bullshit like Musk telling people not to save for retirement. He can distribute his stock by now but instead he is grabbing on to more money.
If there will be UBI, it will be the absolute minimum to not starve. Basically the same as welfare now. No way they are going to share the wealth.
xienze 3 hours ago [-]
> If there will be UBI, it will be the absolute minimum to not starve. Basically the same as welfare now.
Well yeah. Realistically how much money do you think is available to hand out to every single person? Not enough for everyone to live comfortably. And if there was enough, you'd get large swathes of otherwise economically productive groups (aka the tax cattle schemes like this require) just deciding to drop out of the workforce.
arjie 8 hours ago [-]
If Virginia or Louisiana should profit by this then so be it. Californian land-use laws will have a net effect of -8 house seats against Texas. That is good. It should happen. If Texans will be poorer so Virginians will be richer, that is also good. May the American federal system reign forever. Allowing for states as experiments and letting them suffer their consequences is good. It is a machine for us to iterate on our present and future prosperity.
w29UiIm2Xz 8 hours ago [-]
Polling shows a fairly bipartisan opposition to data centers, so it could encourage more states to join in with pauses of their own.
Side note: Now's a fantastic time get into industrial processes or oil & gas since all of the fake propaganda against buildings with computers in them has distracted people from facilities built on a daily basis that cause 1000x the pollution and noise of a datacenter.
8 hours ago [-]
skywhopper 8 hours ago [-]
You think the folks who are successfully organizing against datacenters can’t use the same techniques and support networks to do the same thing against other nuisance uses?
qarl2 7 hours ago [-]
Not really - China doesn't care about other nuisance issues.
Look at how the TikTok kids (who went nuts for the Palestinians) don't give a crud about the Cubans.
snypher 3 hours ago [-]
Well, the Cubans ain't being bombed by their neighbors.
epolanski 4 hours ago [-]
At least many are aware of the viciousness shown by the current US administration against Cuban population.
At the same time, full blown humanitarian disasters, like the one that hit the Rohingya in Myanmar, people that were being thrown in pit and burned alive in the thousands, are completely unknown to the average adult in the west.
boston_clone 5 hours ago [-]
Empathy is not a Chinese psyop.
Anyway, here's actual evidence of elected officials contradicting your anecdotal narrative:
So where are the street protests for Cuba then? I marched for Gaza three times. I haven't seen a single one for Cuba.
I'm not saying empathy is a Chinese psyop. The empathy is real. But empathy requires awareness - and awareness IS controlled by the algorithm.
TitaRusell 3 hours ago [-]
My country didn't give money to the Cuban regime to genocide people. That's what the Palestinian controversy was about you dufus. Correcting the mistakes of our ancestors.
qarl2 43 minutes ago [-]
No, your country is directly killing people. No third party involved.
So you deny the algorithm profoundly influences awareness then?
toomuchtodo 4 hours ago [-]
I take no position on the algorithm, I don't have enough context or subject matter expertise to speak authoritatively on the topic. My point is a single person can only care about so much, and can exhaust their compassion reserve. Can't be a passionate, engaged activist about everything.
qarl2 4 hours ago [-]
Good. Because it seems pretty obvious that the algorithm profoundly influences awareness.
toomuchtodo 3 hours ago [-]
You say obvious but provide no citations or data. “Some people say” or “it’s obvious” is not a sufficient foundation for an assertion.
qarl2 2 hours ago [-]
LOL.
boston_clone 44 minutes ago [-]
i guess we’re seeing why your first account was nuked. if you’re failing to make a convincing point, you have to do better than replying with “LOL.”
qarl2 21 minutes ago [-]
LOL.
boston_clone 4 hours ago [-]
Do you think that the issues deserve the same attention, or are you perhaps making a false equivalence?
As far as I’m aware, children aren’t being shot in the head and forcibly starved by an occupying force in Cuba. But to say that folks don’t care is clearly inaccurate.
qarl2 4 hours ago [-]
I am making the fairly obvious point that Americans don't care about the Cubans like they did the Palestinians, despite the fact that the Cubans are directly suffering under the Americans, and in the case of the Palestinians it was indirect.
boston_clone 48 minutes ago [-]
thinking that those two things need the same level of attention is for sure a false equivalence for reasons stated elsewhere. glad we got to the bottom of that one. further, we also saw that Americans do care, which is why we had elected officials there last month and can read about it through AP.
qarl2 40 minutes ago [-]
Straw man.
boston_clone 12 minutes ago [-]
yawn. go troll elsewhere.
adamrezich 8 hours ago [-]
Well yeah nobody wants their local water supply to be either disintegrated into subatomic particles or polluted with every harmful substance known to man (whichever one they're supposed to do changes from day to day).
toomuchtodo 8 hours ago [-]
It's not just about water. It's about the noise, little to no benefit to the community besides a handful of jobs, air pollution where they're colocated gas turbines for power, and pushing up electricity prices. They are a net negative for most communities.
"Winning" in this context is simply slowing down permitting and construction until the capital bubble pops, at which point a great deal of these projects simply evaporate. And the bubble will pop eventually.
> This paper quantifies the environmental externalities associated with electricity consumption by data centers in the United States, focusing on damages from local air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using facility-level data for approximately 2,800 operational data centers in 2025, combined with electricity grid characteristics and emissions data, the analysis estimates pollution impacts through the AP4 integrated assessment model and applies the social cost of carbon for GHG valuation. Results indicate that data centers consume roughly 250 TWh of electricity—about 5–6% of U.S. generation—and generate approximately $25 billion in gross external damages (GED), with a range of $10–$33 billion. These damages are highly geographically concentrated, with Texas and Virginia accounting for 30% of the national total. While GED comprises about 5% of industry GDP, this ratio varies widely across states, exceeding GDP in some regions. Planned data center expansion could increase electricity demand and associated damages by up to 85% in the near term. Despite these environmental costs, preliminary comparisons suggest that the damages attributable to AI-related energy use are small relative to potential productivity gains. [My note: potential gains]
Has no one heard of the concept of industrial zoning? When you live next to an industrial zone you get all the consequences. I love how literally all these projects are on shuttered sites of various plants that were presumably louder and more polluting than these new data centers.
alistairSH 3 hours ago [-]
Visit Loudoun County VA and get back to me.
Virginia mostly used by-right zoning, which treated data centers like just another office block. The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center. Loudoun recently changed the zoning laws to end by-right development of data centers, but it's a bit too little, too late. Yes, some of those homes predate the data centers. Yes, not all of them - the county has allowed this mixed development for 20+ years now.
> The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center.
Is this supposed to be bad? Maybe the datacenter in the first picture has an ear piercing whine, but neither of the pictures looks obviously bad.
skywhopper 8 hours ago [-]
You don’t seem to know much about where these datacenters are being built. They are usually greenfield sites, often in relatively rural areas where there may not actually be any local zoning regulations. Or when they are on brownfield urban sites, they are using “temporary” gas turbines that are incredibly loud and break all air pollution laws, taking advantage of loopholes and a complete lack of enforcement by the current EPA.
toomuchtodo 8 hours ago [-]
This is not an excuse for residents to have lower quality of life for capital speculators "because it was industrial zoning". Try to make your case in a public hearing with a room full of residents, see how it goes. Long time politicians are getting fired over it, so natural consequences will help with this.
I live in Utah and we have refineries a few blocks away from residential neighborhoods and a literal strip mine visible from half of the Salt Lake valley.
The datacenter controversy has nothing to do with caring about the environment and is a complete scam that preys on low-information voters. It is a product of outside Chinese money being funneled into US politics to hobble the US in Artificial Intelligence.
mikem170 3 hours ago [-]
> It is a product of outside Chinese money being funneled into US politics to hobble the US in Artificial Intelligence
Or this could be Russian propaganda, to manipulate US opinion against China in this case. What are your sources?
Without evidence to the contrary, the prevailing narrative is more likely correct- people have been told by the tech titans that AI will change everything and they'll loose their jobs, so they don't like it.
In fact, whoever is saying the Chinese are tricking Americans may be trying to get more people to support US big-tech's AI build-out (or stock market bubble) by appealing to nationlism - that the Chinese will get us. A double cross.
BigTTYGothGF 7 hours ago [-]
> refineries a few blocks away from residential neighborhoods
Seems like something that ought to be addressed as well, and should not be used as a justification for other lousy things.
toomuchtodo 7 hours ago [-]
> It is a product of outside Chinese money being funneled into US politics to hobble the US in Artificial Intelligence.
Please provide citations and evidence for this assertion. As it stands, this is an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
salemh 7 hours ago [-]
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bothers 7 hours ago [-]
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qarl2 8 hours ago [-]
> little to no benefit to the community besides a handful of jobs
NBER w35194 (Alvarez et al., May 2026) instruments for siting and finds the opposite: +6.2% establishments and +8.2% AGI at 25 years.
When experiments fail the constituents pay the price, not the experimenters.
andsoitis 8 hours ago [-]
> When experiments fail the constituents pay the price, not the experimenters.
Are you arguing that the leaders of a state, who were elected by the constituents, should not experiment and try make things better? By definition, some experiments will fail.
mminer237 8 hours ago [-]
The constituents elect the experimenters, and generally become the experimenters thereby.
WarmWash 8 hours ago [-]
Maybe they should consider voting.
tjwebbnorfolk 8 hours ago [-]
Nevertheless, experiments are necessary. Political entrepreneurialism is necessary if you want anything to improve.
You can experiment on everyone, or you can experiment at the local level. One is obviously preferable over the other.
Nobody has all the answers.
ihsw 8 hours ago [-]
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ghostly_s 8 hours ago [-]
This letter says nothing about Louisiana or Virginia, what exactly are you talking about?
CSMastermind 7 hours ago [-]
I believe they're implying that if the data centers don't get built in Texas they will be built in Louisiana and Virginia.
coldbrewed 8 hours ago [-]
Virginia has more power infrastructure in place but said infrastructure is already seeing significant DC build out; I know little about power distribution in Louisiana but would be surprised if there was extensive spare capacity in the transmission lines and generation facilities. I'm surprised that the rust belt hasn't seen more uptake since they had all that manufacturing capacity but the backing power generation/distribution may have atrophied in the intervening years.
ryukoposting 8 hours ago [-]
> I'm surprised that the rust belt hasn't seen more uptake
Oracle's doing something just outside the Milwaukee metro. I'd imagine there are others. Datacenter buildout is wildly unpopular around the Great Lakes, and that's not new. For Wisconsinites specifically, the whole thing has a whiff of Foxconn about it.
Drove past it a few times this summer. Wrecked the nice drive.
mikeaskew4 3 hours ago [-]
Also Port Washington…
epolanski 4 hours ago [-]
I don't think these data centres bring that much money locally.
Beyond the construction they employ very little people and bring very little taxes at a gargantuan cost in resources.
selimthegrim 4 hours ago [-]
How is Louisiana going to profit by it besides selling hot plates to the construction workers?
undersuit 8 hours ago [-]
This is delicious comedy.
outside1234 7 hours ago [-]
The problem is that the costs of Texas blowing natural gas carbon into the air are largely paid by wildfires in California, so we are going to need another mechanism to make sure that is felt in Texas as well.
ElProlactin 8 hours ago [-]
> It is a machine for us to iterate on our present and future prosperity.
The former middle class has entered the chat.
8 hours ago [-]
surfmike 9 hours ago [-]
How much does OpenAI actually control the way the data centers are built and deployed?
I don’t know much about the impact of their data centers compared to others, but there weren’t many (if any) concrete commitments in this letter. The promises all seem like areas that even an evil corporation could pay lip service to.
mNovak 5 hours ago [-]
Major tenants like OAI have near total control. These GW-class datacenters are built to spec for the tenant. Construction doesn't start until all the details are signed off.
clutchdude 3 hours ago [-]
It is setting up the classic liability shift.
If you are just paying the bills and leasing the space, is it really your fault a datacenter some other entity built is sucking the water table of Levelland dry?
If I just use and don't own the data center, then how can I be held accountable for it's impact others?
bob1029 8 hours ago [-]
> How much does OpenAI actually control the way the data centers are built and deployed?
Assuming OAI is the sole tenant in these facilities, I'd say we are approaching 100% control.
firesteelrain 9 hours ago [-]
OpenAI et al can establish a Data Center PAC or contribute to one then lobby our political leaders like citizens (see Citzens United)
coldbrewed 8 hours ago [-]
With the amount of cash OpenAI is splashing around they could easily write it into the contracts, but the current incentive structure prioritizes time between ground breaking and powered GPUs in racks. OpenAI has shown complete disinterest in the impact of AI writ large and will only reduce their community/infra impact to optimize that time to racked GPU along the Pareto frontier.
throwaw12 8 hours ago [-]
> OpenAI supports transparency and accountability
Just like it supported 'Open AI'?
zabriel_goss 4 hours ago [-]
As someone who lived in TX through the winter storm power crisis in 2021, I approve of the pause.
pittsburgh has many old power plants that are perfect for data center converts
when i go home and hear about this i'm conflicted. it brings short term economic prosperity. what's the cost if there's no commitment to clean energy in reality
the developers on these projects will do whatever it takes to simply get the project done
axus 6 hours ago [-]
Data centers belong in "industrial areas", ignore the snarky jokes about them being as bad as the coal plants they are replacing.
People have legitimate complaints when they are built within audible distance of housing.
stronglikedan 3 hours ago [-]
Not to mention that there's plenty of room to build them well outside of developed areas altogether. Sure, there will be some logistical challenges wrt utilities, but nothing that can't be overcome - just call it a compromise.
AgentOrange1234 2 hours ago [-]
Zero commitment to clean power.
8 hours ago [-]
dyauspitr 8 hours ago [-]
Why can’t these idiots just mandate that you have to build out clean energy to power the data centers. It’s such a simple bit of legislation that they just will not do.
kodablah 8 hours ago [-]
While I would like this, my guess is it is hard to reconcile with all the other commercial ventures in the state (including datacenters) that aren't subject to such a requirement.
"Abbott is asking the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail Abbott’s ordered “comprehensive verification and audit” should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said."
"“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” said Governor Abbott. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”"
"The Lone Star State generated the equivalent of 37% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal power in 2025"
refneb 8 hours ago [-]
Oil companies squash all kinds of clean energy regulation.
kdheiwns 8 hours ago [-]
To answer your question: Texas. Running on a platform of clean energy is political suicide in half of America, particularly in the south.
mminer237 8 hours ago [-]
Texas leads the nation in raw renewable energy production. Solar, wind, and nuclear are hardly maligned there.
amanaplanacanal 8 hours ago [-]
I'm not in the know on Texas politics, so I'm curious. Do Texas politicians publicly support clean energy? Or do they just keep their mouths shut and let it happen? Given that the current head of the Republican party seems completely against it and how rabid some of his followers are, I'm just wondering how they thread that needle?
kdheiwns 6 hours ago [-]
Texas politicians never run with clean energy as part of their platforms. They still run with oil as their main shtick. That doesn't mean that they don't let clean energy operate in their state, because they'd be silly to completely turn down money. But they can't openly announce it as a point of pride because it'll anger their base.
dyauspitr 4 hours ago [-]
I’m pretty sure the GP knows that Texas does a lot of renewable energy. It’s just that you can’t talk about it or run on that platform as soon as you run on it people think you’re some woke liberal America destroyer.
MetaWhirledPeas 3 hours ago [-]
Pretty much. When the Texas grid was failing during ice storms they were trying to blame wind farms IIRC.
I suspect the success of renewables in Texas has more to do with the bottom line than anything else. They certainly get a lot of badmouthing from people in rural areas. And honestly this is the best possible outcome. The impact of good intentions wavers along with cultural evolution, but it's hard to stop something that just makes financial sense.
rstupek 8 hours ago [-]
You don't seem to realize Texas has huge number clean energy build outs and has been for quite a few years. They lead in wind generation and commercial solar generation.
kdheiwns 6 hours ago [-]
I very much realize it. I know companies are doing it. But the angry responses to my comment shows that literacy is lacking in Texas because I said it's political suicide to run on it as a platform.
I will repeat: it's political suicide to run on a platform of clean energy or education in Texas. That does not mean companies are not building clean energy. But politicians will not make it part of their platform during elections.
4 hours ago [-]
xienze 3 hours ago [-]
> But the angry responses to my comment shows that literacy is lacking in Texas because I said it's political suicide to run on it as a platform.
If you really think Republican voters in Texas care so much about it, wouldn't the obvious play for Democrats be pointing out how much green energy these Republican politicians have allowed to be built under their watch? I think you're painting Republican voters with an extremely broad brush here and honestly, fail to understand what exactly they object to in the first place regards to green energy. Their main objection is being _forced_ to use it (or being chided by ivory tower know-it-alls) in contexts where they have certain preferences (like driving a big ass truck).
Not a single one is going to object to cheap energy so long as it doesn't degrade their current lifestyle. That's the point people like you forget when you're creating Republican straw men.
dyauspitr 2 hours ago [-]
Democrats can’t even paint the republicans in the corner about blatant pay to play corruption or ignoring court orders. This isn’t proof of anything.
browningstreet 8 hours ago [-]
Clean energy development was doing well, was powering more than half our needs, and was creating more jobs than oil. Guess that wasn’t good enough.
Oh and it reduced our green house gas emissions. That was the catch.
(I got coal rolled just yesterday, in Tahoe. Who knew that was still a thing…)
I'm not. Business operate in Texas. I never said that they don't. But major politicians are not making it part of their platform.
vendiddy 8 hours ago [-]
This seems like a good idea to me. I wonder what the hold up is.
kmeisthax 7 hours ago [-]
Because up until recently all the big hyperscalars were already committed to buying or building renewables to meet their energy demand. Then AI happened and they all collectively realized they needed to build as many datacenters as possible to fit as many GPUs as possible to chase the bubble. All those clean energy commitments got tossed by the wayside. Hell, half the time these companies fire people just to free up cashflow to buy more GPUs!
preisschild 7 hours ago [-]
Honestly, that sounds kind of arbitrary. Why should companies that use electricity be required to also produce electricity? This is what the market is for, so other Companies can produce electricity for money and other Companies buy that electricity.
And to which companies would this apply? Only Datacenters? There are other energy intensive industries too, should this also apply to them? And what is the cutoff for that? Does every bigger 21st century company also need to be an electricity company?
It would be less arbitrary if all negative externalities would be taxed (for example, carbon tax or noise pollution tax) and maybe prioritize households on the public grid.
tancop 7 hours ago [-]
why are arbitrary rules a problem? if some company starts opening steel mills and its causing problems for the grid then the state can make all new steel mills build power generation. right now the problem is data centers so new rules are aimed at data centers.
carbon taxes dont work because all they do is make production more expensive, and businesses are always happy to pass on any extra costs to their customers. its the same with noise pollution and water use. the only way to actually stop them is direct regulation.
buying land does not give you the right to do whatever you want with it. stop worshipping property and markets and focus on real problems like limited number of business licenses, exclusivity contracts, long or lifetime post employment terms, weak competition rules and long waiting times at government offices. all of them go against the right to buy what you want, work for anyone who wants to take you or to start a business. thats the real economic freedom that is in danger today.
dyauspitr 7 hours ago [-]
Who cares how it works out as long as they come to the table with funded power generation for their constituent centers.
polski-g 8 hours ago [-]
Because the federal government made it effectively illegal to build nuclear reactors, and there are no more rivers to be dammed.
WarmWash 8 hours ago [-]
People will run to point to the spate of new nuclear plans, but the point be made here is that nuclear regulation is so suffocating and costs so extreme that it's "effectively illegal" to build reactors.
amanaplanacanal 8 hours ago [-]
Is it safety regulation that makes nuclear so hard, or is it just that we can't seem to do large projects of any kind any more?
polski-g 7 hours ago [-]
Musk can. Everyone else? Not so much.
WarmWash 7 hours ago [-]
I can tell you from second hand direct experience that the regulations are absolutely over the top, and then doubled for good measure. It almost makes aviation look like running a lemonade stand.
sensanaty 3 hours ago [-]
> It almost makes aviation look like running a lemonade stand.
I'm about as pro-nuclear as you can be, but that's probably a good thing. Modern reactor designs are amazingly safe, and the industry itself has a really amazing track record, but there should be no room for the usual corner cutting shenanigans when it comes to nuclear.
I do genuinely believe that the West at large has lost the capability of getting any kind of large infrastructure project built due to hilariously blatant corruption. Even France, the poster child for nuclear energy and how much of a success story it can be, is struggling with their latest nuclear expansion because we let the private entity ghouls come in and suck everyone dry for every penny they can manage.
dyauspitr 7 hours ago [-]
Plenty of solar and wind with batteries are available. Data centers and renewable energy are a match made in heaven. They can be in the middle of nowhere where land is cheap.
andsoitis 8 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tolugenius 8 hours ago [-]
This reminds of the times when companies made large public statements on clean energy and going carbon free during the Obama (and partially Biden) eras. The only difference here is now is a letter to a governor, which is signaling 1) companies believe the way to solve data centers is on a state basis and 2) if they don't do it, they can perhaps blame a lack of "guidance from local officials" versus any part on their own, they have done their due dilligence. I am curious to more see what states don't get any personal mailings, I think that's a better indication than anything actually written.
beardyw 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, the cheque's in the post.
minraws 9 hours ago [-]
I only have one question is this legally binding in US in any way if not what's the point virtue signalling? Can openai make it's books public to ensure that it has the money to fulfill it's extra commitments.
thewebguyd 9 hours ago [-]
Not legally binding, no. This is more of a lobbying attempt, Abbott just paused all new data center development in Texas until the state can audit them, they have an interconnection queue of about 474GW, ERCOT can't handle it that's more than 5x Texas's peak electricity demand.
vablings 8 hours ago [-]
That would be more half the entire grid load of the USA
9 hours ago [-]
mcmcmc 9 hours ago [-]
They’d do better with a bribe, Texas runs on corruption. I’m sure the campaign contribution checks are already written though
alaudet 8 hours ago [-]
That's probably already happened. This is smoke and mirrors. Monorail...MoNoRail...MONORAIL!!!!!
rayiner 3 hours ago [-]
The fact that they to kneel just to build shit in Texas of all places just shows how many low information anti-vax voters the GOP has now.
qlte 2 hours ago [-]
Alternatively, AI datacenters are just broadly unpopular across political lines.
rayiner 2 hours ago [-]
Both parties have a lot of low-information voters.
asdff 4 hours ago [-]
It is amazing seeing how openly corrupt red states are in recent years. At least blue states still attempt to maintain a fig leaf. Has it always been this way with the red states or have things legitimately gotten worse?
pessimizer 4 hours ago [-]
This is a strange reaction to a (admittedly horrible) red state governor halting construction of data centers due to public objections.
asdff 3 hours ago [-]
Just the idea of companies fleeing to places like texas to do things they could not get away with elsewhere seems pretty routine at this point
ImJamal 4 hours ago [-]
How is this corruption? There is a very real fear that electricity and water prices will increase for the average person due to AI data centers. Trying to protect the interests of the common man over that of billionaires seems like the exact opposite of corruption.
asdff 3 hours ago [-]
Smells like the governor who is a known sycophant to capital has gotten some heat among the public on data center roll out, so in comes industry seeking to self regulate itself no doubt in such a way that pulls up the ladder behind it while also not stymieing its own operations with any regulation that might actually have some teeth that might affect profitability. This is Texas after all, this is what the state seems to be for. Abbot knows his role.
atleastoptimal 3 hours ago [-]
The main issue with wanting to block data centers in any specific location, is the hyperscalers will just move to building them wherever politics are most favorable. If protesters in your blue state block construction, they'll just build more in red states, giving the red states more leverage in how AI progress continues. If they are blocked across the board in the US, more will be build abroad, in countries that would never give credence to anti-datacenter movements that would stall economic growth.
The best option is to get everyone on the same page about AI benefits and hazards, and not be unrealistic about the way AI could shape up as a transformative element of human society.
Big tech has consistently valued profit and growth above good stewardship; the onus is entirely on OpenAI to demonstrate that any of these claims aren't fluff with the projects that are already greenlit. When OpenAI presents plans to the communities prior to/alongside city counsels and drops the NDAs then there will be merit to this but our expectations should be somewhere between "super deep kola borehole" and "upper mantle".
The GOP runs Texas. The governor, sec of state, AG, and both houses are republican. Since when have they ever wanted or needed air coverage?
They will take anything they can possibly get at this point.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/28/republicans-texas-m...
The only way to do good is to first do all the bad and consolidate power, so you can then use all that power to do good, pinkie promise!
The biggest issue for me was the AGI/ASI doomerism. But then again, fast-forward five or six years and we've got "unaligned" AI agents blindly following reward functions...
I'm happy to try and get already wealthy individuals on the train of effective altruism but it has been used to justify wealth concentration far too much and, to be honest, spreading money around is one of the most effective ways to enact real positive changes in the world since individuals know their own situations the best.
So I see EA as a popular one of those stories. One that people can reinforce. Makes the world simpler than it actually is: climb the ladder, make money at whatever cost, there's no harm that you can do that can't be offset by giving it all away at the end. It is a vast over simplification and is inconsistent logic. If they used their own logic then they'd recognize helping people now also results in compounding effects. You fix the problems now, while they are small and manageable, rather than kicking the can down the road. Maintenance is a lot easier and cheaper than repair. But it also requires us to be nuanced and reflect on ourselves [0]
[0] there seems to be a great irony that those leading these big AI companies are not themselves able to deeply reflect on their own actions, yet ask the AI to. How can you design something that you aren't intimately familiar with?
Building a data center near homes and running your incredibly loud gas turbine generators 24/7 for months, destroying the property values and quality of life for the people living there, is a giant middle finger to the community they've moved into. I'm not saying the backlash banning them entirely rather than adding some additional regulations is entirely logical, but it's very understandable. And should have been eminently predictable.
If we're going to rebrand things to blur lines, I propose rebranding data centers to pedophile content hubs.
The rest of your argument is full of similar cherry-picking for dishonest discourse.
No, it's frequently used in infrastructure discussions as well, eg. high speed rail or power transmission lines.
[1] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-great-downzoning/
I'm all for the datacenters, the more the better, it is the great race of acceleration of our civilization. Yet, it is pretty clear, and with history being the witness, that the tech-bros and MBAs will build it without any regard for the well-being of impacted communities. Thus we have the game of what communities will [be forced to] take a one for the team.
And this is why space base datacenters will be a thing :)
> OpenAI will pay our own way and protect residential and small-business customers [...] OpenAI will work to support new power generation in Texas
Notice how this very intentionally doesn't say they will work to support generating as much or more power than they will use? Because if they could do that, they would just generate their own power. It doesn't matter if they "pay their own way", they are now competing with households.
Same with water, all of these projects want to leech on existing systems because they don't even want to entertain developing their own systems.
However, having worked inside Texas DCs for a long time now, I think it's just the burst that's the issue, not the concepts. Sadly they'll share our resources, but I think they should pay a premium on their energy compared to residential (but it's hard to reconcile this with other commercial ventures that do not).
> We will minimize water consumption and prioritize efficient cooling technologies, including closed-loop systems.
> We will work with local communities and water providers to ensure our projects are responsibly planned around available resources
I can promise you that I'll do everything to consider the needs and wants of others.
But I won't promise to take actions that take those wants or needs into account, much less even actually consider them.
The only plausible way to recoup 1T is to automate large swaths of human jobs so that the companies stop spending money on humans, and instead give money to them. This is probably why the public doesn’t want AI, because AI in the rules of current society is perfectly designed to disempower and ruin humans, but is not actually capable enough to ruin humans in a state of nature.
Large massive data-centers that makes this economics work is not actually a fact of life, in a less stable country they’re actually a liability. If a countries technical prowess comes from a data center then an adversary just needs to bomb it to knee cap that country. On the other hand, if a companies technical prowess comes from a thousands of well trained humans, well that’s actually not easy to get rid of. They’re not stationary, they’re adaptable, they can pick up new skills quicker and cheaper. Any king would much rather invest in humans and not AI.
But in a country like US, where it’s hard to even imagine such instability, AI is perfect at outcompeting humans and ruining them short term, and ruining the country long term. No wonder, this seems to be turning out to become the most negative reaction the public has ever had to the advent of new transformative technology. Unfortunately I don’t think it will work, the AI companies are just going to steamroll them, steal their jobs and dignity and then put them on UBI and pay themselves on the back as if they did a good thing.
You may be too optimistic.
Never, ever will they do that. It’s the same bullshit like Musk telling people not to save for retirement. He can distribute his stock by now but instead he is grabbing on to more money.
If there will be UBI, it will be the absolute minimum to not starve. Basically the same as welfare now. No way they are going to share the wealth.
Well yeah. Realistically how much money do you think is available to hand out to every single person? Not enough for everyone to live comfortably. And if there was enough, you'd get large swathes of otherwise economically productive groups (aka the tax cattle schemes like this require) just deciding to drop out of the workforce.
https://aidatacentermap.org/
https://www.datacenterbans.com/
https://www.datacenterwatch.org/
https://www.brockovichdatacenter.com/
Look at how the TikTok kids (who went nuts for the Palestinians) don't give a crud about the Cubans.
At the same time, full blown humanitarian disasters, like the one that hit the Rohingya in Myanmar, people that were being thrown in pit and burned alive in the thousands, are completely unknown to the average adult in the west.
Anyway, here's actual evidence of elected officials contradicting your anecdotal narrative:
https://apnews.com/article/cuba-embargo-congress-pocan-leger...
I'm not saying empathy is a Chinese psyop. The empathy is real. But empathy requires awareness - and awareness IS controlled by the algorithm.
> dufus
Tsk tsk.
As far as I’m aware, children aren’t being shot in the head and forcibly starved by an occupying force in Cuba. But to say that folks don’t care is clearly inaccurate.
"Winning" in this context is simply slowing down permitting and construction until the capital bubble pops, at which point a great deal of these projects simply evaporate. And the bubble will pop eventually.
'Living in Hell': Data Center Neighbors Grapple With Noise, Air Pollution - https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2026-04-2... - April 28th, 2026
Measuring the Impact of Data Centers in the United States Economy: Monetary Damage from Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions - https://www.nber.org/papers/w35100 | https://doi.org/10.3386/w35100
> This paper quantifies the environmental externalities associated with electricity consumption by data centers in the United States, focusing on damages from local air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using facility-level data for approximately 2,800 operational data centers in 2025, combined with electricity grid characteristics and emissions data, the analysis estimates pollution impacts through the AP4 integrated assessment model and applies the social cost of carbon for GHG valuation. Results indicate that data centers consume roughly 250 TWh of electricity—about 5–6% of U.S. generation—and generate approximately $25 billion in gross external damages (GED), with a range of $10–$33 billion. These damages are highly geographically concentrated, with Texas and Virginia accounting for 30% of the national total. While GED comprises about 5% of industry GDP, this ratio varies widely across states, exceeding GDP in some regions. Planned data center expansion could increase electricity demand and associated damages by up to 85% in the near term. Despite these environmental costs, preliminary comparisons suggest that the damages attributable to AI-related energy use are small relative to potential productivity gains. [My note: potential gains]
Health implications of the rapid rise of data centers in Virginia: an exploratory assessment - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.338... | https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2026.1648912
Virginia mostly used by-right zoning, which treated data centers like just another office block. The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center. Loudoun recently changed the zoning laws to end by-right development of data centers, but it's a bit too little, too late. Yes, some of those homes predate the data centers. Yes, not all of them - the county has allowed this mixed development for 20+ years now.
1 - https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/GettyIm...
2 - https://oxfordamerican.org/media/pages/oa-now/how-data-cente...
Is this supposed to be bad? Maybe the datacenter in the first picture has an ear piercing whine, but neither of the pictures looks obviously bad.
Data Center Disputes Fuel 33 Recall Efforts, Ballotpedia Finds - https://ballotpedia.org/Press_release_Data_Center_Disputes_F... - July 7th, 2026
Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-se... | https://archive.today/MMot6 - June 24th, 2026
The datacenter controversy has nothing to do with caring about the environment and is a complete scam that preys on low-information voters. It is a product of outside Chinese money being funneled into US politics to hobble the US in Artificial Intelligence.
Or this could be Russian propaganda, to manipulate US opinion against China in this case. What are your sources?
Without evidence to the contrary, the prevailing narrative is more likely correct- people have been told by the tech titans that AI will change everything and they'll loose their jobs, so they don't like it.
In fact, whoever is saying the Chinese are tricking Americans may be trying to get more people to support US big-tech's AI build-out (or stock market bubble) by appealing to nationlism - that the Chinese will get us. A double cross.
Seems like something that ought to be addressed as well, and should not be used as a justification for other lousy things.
Please provide citations and evidence for this assertion. As it stands, this is an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
NBER w35194 (Alvarez et al., May 2026) instruments for siting and finds the opposite: +6.2% establishments and +8.2% AGI at 25 years.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35194/w351...
Are you arguing that the leaders of a state, who were elected by the constituents, should not experiment and try make things better? By definition, some experiments will fail.
You can experiment on everyone, or you can experiment at the local level. One is obviously preferable over the other.
Nobody has all the answers.
Oracle's doing something just outside the Milwaukee metro. I'd imagine there are others. Datacenter buildout is wildly unpopular around the Great Lakes, and that's not new. For Wisconsinites specifically, the whole thing has a whiff of Foxconn about it.
For the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconn_Valley_Science_and_Tec...
Beyond the construction they employ very little people and bring very little taxes at a gargantuan cost in resources.
The former middle class has entered the chat.
I don’t know much about the impact of their data centers compared to others, but there weren’t many (if any) concrete commitments in this letter. The promises all seem like areas that even an evil corporation could pay lip service to.
If you are just paying the bills and leasing the space, is it really your fault a datacenter some other entity built is sucking the water table of Levelland dry?
If I just use and don't own the data center, then how can I be held accountable for it's impact others?
Assuming OAI is the sole tenant in these facilities, I'd say we are approaching 100% control.
Just like it supported 'Open AI'?
when i go home and hear about this i'm conflicted. it brings short term economic prosperity. what's the cost if there's no commitment to clean energy in reality
the developers on these projects will do whatever it takes to simply get the project done
People have legitimate complaints when they are built within audible distance of housing.
"Abbott is asking the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail Abbott’s ordered “comprehensive verification and audit” should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said."
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comp...
"“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” said Governor Abbott. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”"
https://environmentamerica.org/texas/center/media-center/new...
"The Lone Star State generated the equivalent of 37% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal power in 2025"
I suspect the success of renewables in Texas has more to do with the bottom line than anything else. They certainly get a lot of badmouthing from people in rural areas. And honestly this is the best possible outcome. The impact of good intentions wavers along with cultural evolution, but it's hard to stop something that just makes financial sense.
Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate and currently serves as attorney general, proudly announced cracking down on "solar scams": https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-...
Plus his campaign site makes no mention of supporting clean energy: https://www.kenpaxton.com/
I will repeat: it's political suicide to run on a platform of clean energy or education in Texas. That does not mean companies are not building clean energy. But politicians will not make it part of their platform during elections.
If you really think Republican voters in Texas care so much about it, wouldn't the obvious play for Democrats be pointing out how much green energy these Republican politicians have allowed to be built under their watch? I think you're painting Republican voters with an extremely broad brush here and honestly, fail to understand what exactly they object to in the first place regards to green energy. Their main objection is being _forced_ to use it (or being chided by ivory tower know-it-alls) in contexts where they have certain preferences (like driving a big ass truck).
Not a single one is going to object to cheap energy so long as it doesn't degrade their current lifestyle. That's the point people like you forget when you're creating Republican straw men.
Oh and it reduced our green house gas emissions. That was the catch.
(I got coal rolled just yesterday, in Tahoe. Who knew that was still a thing…)
https://texas2036.org/news-analysis/gale-force-growth-texas-...
And to which companies would this apply? Only Datacenters? There are other energy intensive industries too, should this also apply to them? And what is the cutoff for that? Does every bigger 21st century company also need to be an electricity company?
It would be less arbitrary if all negative externalities would be taxed (for example, carbon tax or noise pollution tax) and maybe prioritize households on the public grid.
carbon taxes dont work because all they do is make production more expensive, and businesses are always happy to pass on any extra costs to their customers. its the same with noise pollution and water use. the only way to actually stop them is direct regulation.
buying land does not give you the right to do whatever you want with it. stop worshipping property and markets and focus on real problems like limited number of business licenses, exclusivity contracts, long or lifetime post employment terms, weak competition rules and long waiting times at government offices. all of them go against the right to buy what you want, work for anyone who wants to take you or to start a business. thats the real economic freedom that is in danger today.
I'm about as pro-nuclear as you can be, but that's probably a good thing. Modern reactor designs are amazingly safe, and the industry itself has a really amazing track record, but there should be no room for the usual corner cutting shenanigans when it comes to nuclear.
I do genuinely believe that the West at large has lost the capability of getting any kind of large infrastructure project built due to hilariously blatant corruption. Even France, the poster child for nuclear energy and how much of a success story it can be, is struggling with their latest nuclear expansion because we let the private entity ghouls come in and suck everyone dry for every penny they can manage.
The best option is to get everyone on the same page about AI benefits and hazards, and not be unrealistic about the way AI could shape up as a transformative element of human society.