Originally published at: Trump’s Desperate Data Center Pivot
Don’s ‘Dividends’ Republican incumbents and candidates facing data center outrage back home have been trying to get President Trump to land where he just landed on data centers for months, as the party works to develop some sort of concrete campaign position for candidates on an issue that has sparked ubiquitous backlash across the nation.…
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Frist.
When I heard of the Ramaswamy ad, I pretty much knew who was behind in the polls. And yes, it’s despicable. Even the Libertarian candidate condemned it. I think it’s gonna’ backfire.
As for Vance, we now know he’d put a naked photo of his own grandmother in an ad if he thought it would buy a couple tenths of a percentage point.
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Sorry Trump, I already voted Democrat.
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ICE denies hitting California 'agitator,’ accuses man of ‘flopping for the camera’
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article317719641.html
Note well: The ICE vehicle kept driving.
Now, I ain’t no lawyer. But CVC 20001, felony hit and run with injuries, seems like a pretty plausible charge.
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The rot and corruption of Trump and MAGA know no depths.
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All respect to Nicole for handling the Where Things Stand post, but this:
Now, just shy of two weeks from Election Day, he’s come around to other Republicans’ position. In a Truth Social post this morning, Trump “mandated” (whatever that means) that tech companies “make their own electricity” and pay communities that host the facilities “dividends” (he also put this term in quotes, so unclear if he or anyone knows what that means):
Is completely missing the point: that AI data centers are already bypassing local electric grids because they can’t possibly supply the ginormous amounts of power needed.
So they’re trucking in dozens if not hundreds of portable gas-fired electric generators for each new data center that results in local air pollution and heat island effects. Trump is just giving a wink and a thumbs-up to the environmental disaster that the hyperscalers are already doing!
What’s needed is Federal, or at least State regulations that prohibit this way of bypassing insufficient power on the local electric grid. Not enough local grid power (or water, a separate issue), you can’t build here!
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If it’s bad for the average person and bad for the environment then you know Trump is for it.
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This project - currently planned for rural Utah - was summarized by AI so there is a possibility that some of the details may not be correct, but I know that the bigger picture is.
The Valar Atomics campus, officially known as Project Beehive, is a massive, proposed nuclear-powered industrial and artificial intelligence computing complex located just north of Wellington in Carbon County, Utah.
Designed to operate completely independent of the traditional electrical grid, the campus acts as a “gigasite” that co-locates power generation, advanced computing, and fuel processing in one footprint.
Scale and Footprint
- The Land: While initial state approval secured a 640-acre lease of Utah State Trust Land (about six miles north of Wellington), the full scope of Project Beehive is much larger. Valar Atomics has submitted applications to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to lease over 9,000 acres of surrounding federal land.
- Energy Output: The campus is designed to generate a staggering 9.6 gigawatts (GWe) of power. To put this in perspective, that is more than double the average electricity output of the entire state of Utah.
Nuclear Infrastructure
The core of the campus is a modular, manufactured approach to nuclear energy:
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The “Nuclear Battery” Array: Rather than building one large traditional facility, the campus will house 456 small modular reactors (SMRs). These are High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors (HTGRs) scaled to act like localized batteries.
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Dry, Helium Cooling: The reactors use helium as a coolant instead of water. This waterless design is crucial for the arid Utah desert and helps alleviate typical power-plant water strains.
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On-Site Fuel & Waste Facility: To maintain a closed loop, the campus layout features its own dedicated nuclear fuel production facility (utilizing tri-structural isotropic, or TRISO, fuel particles) and on-site nuclear waste storage infrastructure.
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Nvidia Partnership: The primary consumer of the 9.6 GW of electricity will be a series of cutting-edge AI data centers built in partnership with Nvidia.
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Waterless Computing: Much like the reactors, the data centers are engineered to be waterless. Instead of relying on evaporative water cooling—which typically drains millions of gallons from local watersheds—they utilize advanced, self-contained cooling systems tailored for rural Utah.
The campus isn’t just for digital computing; it leverages the intense byproduct heat of hundreds of reactors for “heavy” industrial applications. Plans for the broader gigasite include:
- Hydrogen Production: Utilizing a sulfur-iodine cycle process powered by the reactors.
- Clean Hydrocarbons: Combining generated hydrogen with captured carbon dioxide to create synthetic, clean fuels.
- Thermal Manufacturing: Using direct thermal heat for location-agnostic needs like green steel manufacturing and bauxite electrolysis.
The campus is being designed and constructed using a rapid, simultaneous deployment model. While Valar Atomics already operates a small test reactor (the Ward 250) nearby at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, the Wellington/Price campus is still navigating federal approvals.
The company aims to begin non-nuclear site construction by the end of 2026, targets its first operational reactors by 2028, and projects a full campus buildout by 2032.
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Yeah, there’s a thing called SMR for Small Modular Reactors that has mostly been an investor honey trap scam and nobody has figured out how to make it commercially viable at scale yet. Something you could sell to data centers for power. Sabine Hossenfelder is on it (skip through the paid promotion near the beginning to 1:23, the rest is worthwhile):
Maybe we’ll get there eventually but not any time soon, and not soon enough to stop the AI bubble investment crash that’s coming.
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Got this today from Social Security. Gotta get those seniors to appreciate how much Donnie is doing for the grandkids
Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Working Families Tax Cuts, which included a historic tax cut for America’s seniors. That law also created Trump Accounts, individual investment accounts for America’s children designed to grow with the U.S. economy and build long-term savings.
Today, nearly 70 million Trump Accounts are open for all American children. Parents and legal guardians simply need to claim their child’s Trump Account through the official Trump Accounts app,
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Because he’s getting a cut of the profits.
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“The harm in this matter is difficult to overstate, and goes to the heart of Facebook’s basic business proposition,” Judge Matthew wrote in a 20-page judgment. He said the “extraordinary number of willful violations” that repeated over years “support the highest level of penalty.”
Cue the “I only use it to keep in touch with family and friends” excuses.
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“Politics is a tough business"
Politics is not a business. To say so is a cop-out made by losers who can’t do the job, so they resort to bribery, embellished by society’s highest values.
Civil Service is the job, emphasis on “service” to every individual constituent. The people who do that job sit in customer service windows every day, they keep facilities clean and operational. They don’t get month’s-long vacations.
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There’s a global shortage in usable helium supplies, which has become quite serious, thanks to the very stable genius’s little Iranian conflict.
So the outlook on having enough helium to use as coolant for those (very, very theoretical) SMRs and corresponding data centres is not looking good at this time.
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Sigh, I know that it is coming, but as a small fry, there is really no way to personally avoid it with respect to retirement investments. Because, when it happens, everything around it will crash, too.
If I’m so smart, why aren’t I rich?
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Same here. 401Ks are already invested in the AI bubble and it’s all going to be hit. I’m just hoping for a soft landing, however that pans out.
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A campus is an institution. Data centers are businesses.
The difference is that institutions have an inherent, general, social benefit, like elementary school. Data Centers drive people insane.
Even their staffs won’t live anywhere near them.
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In English, give your money to a guy. He’ll keep it nice and safe for 60 years, when you get it back, assuming you can find him. It’s absolutely free to give them your money.
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I never buy lattes or eat avocado toast. Why am I not a millionaire?
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Maybe it’s the car you drive? I drive a 2020 Subaru Forester here in Miami, and I swear every time I’m out on US1 I see at least one gen-uwine Ferrari in the traffic. Alway red of course. Also G-wagons and other high end wheels.
Maybe I need to get one, although why anyone would drive a gen-uwine Ferrari in heavy stop and go traffic and never be able to open it up, escapes me.
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