News Power utility built $95 million 500-megawatt power substation for Intel's $100 billion Ohio fab, but six-year delay leaves substation capable of po...

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Kudos for the local companies and authorities who managed to get such a large infrastructure project implemented so quickly and on time! I live in a place where it seems this would take a decade to get done. as as Process is easily 50% of the cost, I think the situation is not so bad.

Intel's track record for said achievements has been ... mixed ... my 30tft estimate is that local authorities carefully considered the SWOT matrix and decided that a few 100 $ per household risk was worth the long-term benefits for the entire community.

Now, if some madman were to have thrown a red monkey-wrench into the works, causing this delay, this could have justified implications in a year or two. But generally, I would say better to invest in solid infrastructure, even at the dire risk of benefiting someone else more than yourself.
 
How on earth is that fair, consumers are paying for Intel's electricity and boosting everybody's profits, no wonder the US top riches people and companies they own or manage are getting richer by screwing over the little guy and Government is helping them!
 
I don't know details of the contract that explains why the substation can't go online without Intel; however, more power could also be used by an AI datacenter and many of those are ready except for the power.
 
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das_stig said:
How on earth is that fair, consumers are paying for Intel's electricity and boosting everybody's profits, no wonder the US top riches people and companies they own or manage are getting richer by screwing over the little guy and Government is helping them!
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welcome to capitalism where everyone competes fairly.... well... except for the corporate welfare part..
Pfff, I remember all of the excitement around big high paying jobs returning to the rustbelt.... Instead, the rustbelt gets an additional burden paid by their already stretched taxes...

For Non-Americans, the rustbelt is a region of the united states from western NY/western PA, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and south-eastern Michigan. Former strong holds of blue-collar industrial activity, now full of brown fields and rusting structures with cities sporting decaying infrastructure (roads, bridges, water supply, sewar, rail etc...)
 
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SonoraTechnical said:
For Non-Americans, the rustbelt is a region of the united states from western NY/western PA, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and south-eastern Michigan. Former strong holds of blue-collar industrial activity, now full of brown fields and rusting structures with cities sporting decaying infrastructure (roads, bridges, water supply, sewar, rail etc...)
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My understanding was 'rust belt' referred to the states that use salt - and lots of it - to treat the ice and snow on their roads.

The salt is extremely corrosive and causes all vehicles to prematurely 'age' and rust out. Unless the owners take extreme and regular measures to wash the corrosive stuff off (which most don't).
 
SonoraTechnical said:
welcome to capitalism where everyone competes fairly.... well... except for the corporate welfare part..
Pfff, I remember all of the excitement around big high paying jobs returning to the rustbelt.... Instead, the rustbelt gets an additional burden paid by their already stretched taxes...

For Non-Americans, the rustbelt is a region of the united states from western NY/western PA, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and south-eastern Michigan. Former strong holds of blue-collar industrial activity, now full of brown fields and rusting structures with cities sporting decaying infrastructure (roads, bridges, water supply, sewar, rail etc...)
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Yeah, that's not pure capitalism, it's crony capitalism. The U.S. has been rife with this for ages.

Consumers pay a share for infrastructure projects who's majority beneficiary is a for-profit business? Now that should be downright illegal. Shame on Intel and shame on AEP. This practice is 100% unethical. Now look at what we have: consumers footing the bill for a power station that won't be utilized before 2031.
 
DS426 said:
Yeah, that's not pure capitalism, it's crony capitalism. The U.S. has been rife with this for ages.

Consumers pay a share for infrastructure projects who's majority beneficiary is a for-profit business? Now that should be downright illegal. Shame on Intel and shame on AEP. This practice is 100% unethical. Now look at what we have: consumers footing the bill for a power station that won't be utilized before 2031.
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A "form of government", as well as corporations, are only as good as the people in it.
 
SomeoneElse23 said:
My understanding was 'rust belt' referred to the states that use salt - and lots of it - to treat the ice and snow on their roads.

The salt is extremely corrosive and causes all vehicles to prematurely 'age' and rust out. Unless the owners take extreme and regular measures to wash the corrosive stuff off (which most don't).
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I always assumed the rust belt was all the states that used to provide the most manufacturing and processing of steel, iron, copper and other metal products in the USA.
 
Shooting from the hip, this seems like a misbalance in government regulation. As a public utility, the way these companies operate is highly regulated, and even as someone who prefers small government I can see the good reasons for this. As such, they are probably prohibited in some way from charging Intel specifically for this infrastructure. Any less-regulated industry would not make such an investment without contractual guarantees, some sort of down-payment, or straight up charging for the infrastructure to be installed, all of which seem reasonable given the size of the investment here.

EDIT:
I will add, I think the promise of this fab came when Intel desperately needed cash for operations and so they "planned" it to cash in on the CHIPS act.
 
SomeoneElse23 said:
I used to live on the east coast, and I apparently reached the mistaken conclusion it has to do with salt causing rust.

Apparently I'm wrong! At least according to wikipedia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt
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As a resident of the Rust Belt, I'd say they're all sort of true. There used to be a lot of steel production in the region, which did turn into rusting structures and decaying infrastructure, although the last 20 years have seen a lot of redevelopment that's made this less visible in many places... and we do salt the absolute daylights out of the roads, which used to eat cars really bad, but somewhere in the 90's most manufacturers got their metallurgy and paint figured out to the point that not leaving exposed metal showing after a fender bender and taking it through the automatic wash at the end of the salt season is all the "extreme and regular measures" you need.
 
What really angers me, as an Ohio resident, is that AEP just increased their rates. Moreover, the regional authority, PJM, threatened rolling black-outs this summer, while Google and Facebook datacenters in central Ohio suck down enormous amounts of power. It's enough to cause a riot.
 
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jlake3 said:
As a resident of the Rust Belt, I'd say they're all sort of true. There used to be a lot of steel production in the region, which did turn into rusting structures and decaying infrastructure, although the last 20 years have seen a lot of redevelopment that's made this less visible in many places... and we do salt the absolute daylights out of the roads, which used to eat cars really bad, but somewhere in the 90's most manufacturers got their metallurgy and paint figured out to the point that not leaving exposed metal showing after a fender bender and taking it through the automatic wash at the end of the salt season is all the "extreme and regular measures" you need.
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What you state is true for paint.

It doesn't help with undercarriage, suspension, and brakes, which is where the extreme and regular measures come in.
 
TechNomad said:
What really angers me, as an Ohio resident, is that AEP just increased their rates. Moreover, the regional authority, PJM, threatened rolling black-outs this summer, while Google and Facebook datacenters in central Ohio suck down enormous amounts of power. It's enough to cause a riot.
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Meta is apparently building a new datacenter close to where I live... We can see the work going on and the electrical infrastructure in place to service it. Something needs to change because you're right, people are not going to stand for rolling blackouts/brownouts while these giant datacenters get unlimited access with expensive "socialized" infrastructure.
 
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SomeoneElse23 said:
My understanding was 'rust belt' referred to the states that use salt - and lots of it - to treat the ice and snow on their roads.

The salt is extremely corrosive and causes all vehicles to prematurely 'age' and rust out. Unless the owners take extreme and regular measures to wash the corrosive stuff off (which most don't).
Click to expand...
While that's also true, it's really referring to the decline of the steel industry and perhaps manufacturing more broadly, causing run-down communities all across the rural Midwest. I'm sure it already peaked in terms of visibility due to using different materials, but the economics still aren't great in some of the states, especially Illinois with the 2nd highest gasoline taxes in the country, 2nd highest property tax rate, income tax rates that aren't great (some states don't collect income taxes for those that don't know), and so on. Yet roads are total s**t.

Anyways, finance concentrated on the East Coast and technology on the West Coast and now Southwest as well, leaving not much in the middle of the country. Intel almost helped, and then they didn't and actually made things worse. I mean come on, 2031 plans? We might as well consider the whole thing scrapped.
 
DS426 said:
Yeah, that's not pure capitalism, it's crony capitalism. The U.S. has been rife with this for ages.

Consumers pay a share for infrastructure projects who's majority beneficiary is a for-profit business? Now that should be downright illegal. Shame on Intel and shame on AEP. This practice is 100% unethical. Now look at what we have: consumers footing the bill for a power station that won't be utilized before 2031.
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Happens all the time.
Like all of the Stadiums for Football/Soccer/ Baseball/Basketball etc........
Taxpayers funded these buildings/structures.
And the franchise owner gets to keep the profits.
I do not watch sports or TV in general. PBS,NOVA, NATURE , that type of program and movies.
Why do my taxes go to support a sports franchise?
 
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Unolocogringo said:
Happens all the time.
Like all of the Stadiums for Football/Soccer/ Baseball/Basketball etc........
Taxpayers funded these buildings/structures.
And the franchise owner gets to keep the profits.
I do not watch sports or TV in general. PBS,NOVA, NATURE , that type of program and movies.
Why do my taxes go to support a sports franchise?
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Oh I know. Funny you mention sports as I'm not into to sports at all. Like I mean I don't have a sports team in any sport. I also didn't care for cable TV charging a separate fee for sports... sports that I don't watch, lol. That's a little more tolerable because at least it's levied from a private corporation, and I can choose to not have cable TV (no longer do of course with all the streaming services today).

To be fair, a perfect government isn't possible, just as a utopia isn't since power causes corruption and greed as a condition of the heart are inescapable truths of humankind.

Digressing, I'm not against local incentives. For example, if my city would like to incentivize an employer to come to town and add 500 jobs by providing a local tax break, I say go for it. This, namely if it's a referendum and not just some city politician getting kickbacks or propping up their stock account with said company.
 
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TechNomad said:
What really angers me, as an Ohio resident, is that AEP just increased their rates. Moreover, the regional authority, PJM, threatened rolling black-outs this summer, while Google and Facebook datacenters in central Ohio suck down enormous amounts of power. It's enough to cause a riot.
Click to expand...

We ahve the same issue here where I live, but the resource is Water. The Copper Mines and the Pecan Groves use about 95% of the water.... When we experience severe droughts, households cut back... you know.... to conserve that 5% that we are using... 🙄
 
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