Disrupted

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by

ljndawson
in

I think (?) I’ve checked in with all my loved ones who could be impacted by the coming storm. It’s supposed to be bad – I’ve booked a TaskRabbit to come dig out my car on Monday, assuming the roads are passable on Tuesday and I’m expected back at work.

These storms involve so much, when our lives depend on connection and electricity. I have a ton of candles, I have a very warm coat, I have an old moth-eaten mink that I bought from eBay, I have Uggs. I’m charging all of my devices. ALL of my devices – not just the iPad and the Kindle, but the emergency radio and the book light, and the extra headphones, and the two laptops.

But it’s more than that. It’s not the snowstorm. It’s the fear of the power going out. The power…that we pay too much money for. My electric bill has quadrupled since 2019, and this is the reason. The AI companies who install these data centers – which use up our water (for cooling) and power (because power) – are raping our neighborhoods, and I don’t use that word lightly.

I pay $400/month in electricity bills for a tiny apartment on Staten Island – a one-bedroom with a single bathroom and a postage stamp of a kitchen. Yes, everything is electric – the cooktop, the oven, the radiators. But it’s A FUCKING TINY APARTMENT. One bedroom, one bathroom. If I’m paying $400/month, I’m obviously subsidizing something.

And I’m not the only one.

We’re being used. We’re being exploited. It’s not okay.

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Comments

2 responses to “Disrupted”

  1. glecharles Avatar
    glecharles

    We’re in our 5th year in our (very old) house and our PSE&G bill has gone up ~50% in the last two years, and we’re on natural gas, which was supposed to be the affordable option. This deep freeze isn’t helping anything, either. 😭

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    1. ljndawson Avatar
      ljndawson

      This is probably the most expensive winter I’ve lived through yet. A 50% rise in the cost of power over the last 2 years reflects my reality as well – and it’s clearly not due to any increase in power usage (until the last couple of weeks, which have been unprecedentedly cold). I dread what my bill will look like. Fucking data centers sucking up water and coolants and electricity, and charging the surrounding population instead of incurring the cost themselves.

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