As the world economic artificial scarcity objectives of Agenda 2030 take hold, the Bitcoin and crypto rush combined with a global race for artificial intelligence supremacy are exploding electricity demand that will easily outstrip market ability to supply power to offset massive cost increases to average electric customers. The grid simply cannot sustain it.
The construction of massive data centers to store and feed machine learning and artificial intelligence projects are slated for more than a dozen states, including South Dakota, where comparatively affordable electric rates attract power intensive industries that will quickly drive up electric bills for every South Dakotan.
While nothing will stop the global “arms race,” for artificial intelligence supremacy, critics warn that the placement of power hungry data storage and quantum computing installations on America’s increasingly dysfunctional electric grid is a recipe for grid instability, electric power scarcity and massive increases in electricity bills.
The push for data center projects and crypto mining coincides perfectly with the intentional destruction of America’s electricity system, replacing stable, dependable coal-fired and natural gas power plants with intermittent wind and solar installations which are incapable of even equal replacement of present electric supplies and require hundreds of thousands of acres for even equivalent gigawatt power production.
A single hyperscale data collection center (occupying acres of floorspace with hundreds of computer server racks) can consume 450 to 800 megawatts to operate, with power consumption rising as data computational demands increase. A single hyperscale data center could potentially consume more electricity than all the residential homes in South Dakota during peak hours.
South Dakota lawmakers should move immediately to require any data center or crypto mining operation to be “electric cost neutral” to offset increased electricity demand with direct payments to electric providers to defray increases in KwH customer electric rates and to invest in a “future infrastructure expansion fund” that could be used to build new power generating facilities and transmission lines to keep electricity prices low.
President Donald Trump has promised that the United States will lead the world in artificial intelligence development. A Dubai investment concern has already announced a $20-billion AI project with multiple high capacity data centers in several states.
KEEP SOUTH DAKOTA FREE.
