Environment & Energy

progree

(12,241 posts)

3. So it will initially use 7.2 Times what all the state's homes use, and can scale up to 40 times

Thu Jul 31, 2025, 01:15 AM

Jul 31

The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement. A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that’s more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people.

If Wyoming has 2.4 people per household on average, then the 0.59 million population occupies 0.25 million homes.

And it says "a gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes". I see similar metrics, basically 1 home = 1 KW average usage on a round-the-clock average basis.

So therefore, the state's 0.25 million homes uses 0.25 GW.

The data farm will initially use 1.8 GW of electricity, so that's 1.8/0.25 = 7.2 times what the state's homes use.

If it scales up from 1.8 GW to 10 GW, it will come to 40 times what the state's homes use.

It makes me feel like a silly dildo to be worrying about the environmental cost of the electricity I use, and suffering some inconvenience and time-consuming efforts and discomfort to reduce my electricity use, and then I see this crap where one data center initially uses 7.2 times what all the homes in Minneapolis proper plus a couple of its suburbs use (to put it in terms matching my location).

The article doesn't say anything about water usage. Data centers are a huge consumer of water (for cooling) from what I read.

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Huge "Game Changer" AI Data Farm In WY Will Use More Electricity Than All The State's Homes [View all] hatrack Jul 30 OP

Ai data farms are the new crypto farms Demovictory9 Jul 30 #1

Insanity. So much harm to so many for the profit of so few. highplainsdem Jul 30 #2

So it will initially use 7.2 Times what all the state's homes use, and can scale up to 40 times progree Jul 31 #3