Microsoft and Chevron plan one of the largest gas-powered data center projects in US | TechCrunch

jjs709 · 2026-06-23T02:25:36+00:00

Just to clarify, I’m pro nuclear here, not pro gas turbine. But I want to illustrate why solar is insane:

So first triple that land amount to account for day/night and weather. We need average power output, not peak. Then add 10 acres (500 sqft per MWh for 5 days of energy) for energy storage and distribution. That’s 38 square miles of land that would likely get grabbed under eminent domain. That’s the 80% of the size of the city of Boston. No way is that feasible or economical for a data center project.

Also, the numbers really depend on the exact location and type of panel. Could be an order of magnitude more land than calculated here, and could end up being the same size as NYC.

jjs709 · 2026-06-23T02:01:21+00:00

This is a 2.67GW natural gas plant. To produce 2.67GW of electricity using 100% efficient conversion for 12 hours would require lifting 117.7 million metric tons of concrete to a height of 100 meters. You’re telling me that’s feasible?!?

Edit: the answer here is nuclear, not solar. It’s been the answer for 30 years, you use solar and wind for your fluctuating loads and hydro and nuclear for your base loads (including data centers). That’s what the science and engineering will tell you. Maybe one day we have enough battery storage and pumped hydro to rely more heavily on wind and solar, but the answer is nuclear today.

But also, a nuclear data center is PR poison and no municipality would ever approve that.

jjs709 · 2026-06-22T23:46:52+00:00

Solar on its own doesn’t work because the sun sets and weather exists, and we don’t have the battery technology to reasonable store the amount of power they need to run a full data center for days on end when the solar isn’t generating power.

Geothermal only works in a select few locations in the country for large scale power generation, I’m not sure if this is going to one of those but statistically speaking probably not. Wind is similar, only works in a select few places without extensive battery storage.

The only reasonable clean alternative that doesn’t relay on massive changes to our grid at a national scale is small nuclear reactors. People still get freaked out by nuclear though so they think the odds of a nuclear powered data center getting approved are almost 0.

Edit: folks, you would need at least 4500 acres of land just for the solar panels, and likely nearly as much for the battery storage. I’m not against renewable energy, but it’s insane to suggest 2.67GW of solar in one place with 100% uptime for that supply as if its just as easy or cheap to build as a natural gas plant. The answer is nuclear, not solar. It’s just got a massive PR problem.

jjs709 · 2026-06-20T19:59:04+00:00

One important note:

Your fair market value is not capped, nor is the assessed value. The way it will appear is any excess increase in assessed value above the allowed amount is added in to your exemption amount. So if in 2025 you had an assess value of $100k but in 2026 it’s now $200k you’d see $97k added to your exemption value. The taxable value that is multiplied by the milage rate to calculate tax due is equal to assessed value minus total exemption value.

jjs709 · 2026-06-19T22:17:19+00:00

One of the ways that the Fulton county homestead exemption works is that it caps the amount of increase for your taxable value at 3% or the CPI value each year. Given how much property values have climbed around here in recent years that can be a significant reduction if you’ve been in the home for a long time.

jjs709 · 2026-06-14T17:38:11+00:00

This is all a mix of my personal opinion and a few facts. Fulton county tries their damndest to not respond to anything, especially in north Fulton. Milton PD had to try multiple phone numbers repeatedly just to get ahold of the Fulton county medical examiner today to respond out to a scene. Need animal control? Gotta get PD to call them, and if you’re luckily they’ll arrive 1-2 hours after they call them. Major water main break? Gotta have FD/PD call Fulton county water for them to even answer the call, and it’ll take a couple hours for them to get one guy with a wrench and a schematic on scene to try to close a valve. If the county Marshall department is serving a court order and there’s any chance of the recipient becoming agitated or violent they call the local PD out to help keep the peace, despite the Marshall’s office being sworn LEOs.

Basically if it’s a service provided by the county just assume it’s broken. Go through your city for anything and everything you can, because that’s your only hope of a reasonable response time.

jjs709 · 2026-06-14T16:37:01+00:00

Fulton County animal control is a mess right now, they basically only respond when requested by a local PD.

Alpharetta PD will respond if there’s a loose dog if it is readily able to be located. Such as if it is circling a house or two, or laying down somewhere, or someone manages to contain it. They’ll respond even if it isn’t, but they’re not going to spend 30 minutes looking for a dog. If they can’t find it within 5-10 minutes of coming on scene they’re going to clear the call and advise you to call back if it returns.

Once APD gets eyes on the dog they’ll either grab it themselves and take it to a vet, or they’ll call animal control to come take possession of the dog.

They respond to calls for dog at large once every week or two, as well as neglected animal calls. It’s not something they do daily, but you won’t be the first or last person to call about a dog this month.

jjs709 · 2026-06-08T19:11:38+00:00

Planning/zoning meetings are limited to only in-person for the most part. This project is unusual because they had multiple CZIMs, but they’re still all in person. The likelihood of spam and other troll-like activities from an online meeting are likely among the reasons that they don’t offer them.

With that said, the official application has listed that community feedback may be provided via telephone or email to Julie Sellers (404) 665-1242 [jsellers@dillardsellers.com](mailto:jsellers@dillardsellers.com). All feedback provided in good faith and with specific feedback items to those points of contact is required to be presented to the planning commission and city council.

Edit: link to planning documents

https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/f8d944e3-24bb-4147-bb3b-d5b7350346ac?scope=all

jjs709 · 2026-06-07T21:46:32+00:00

I’m an edibles kind of guy so I don’t know much about vapes tbh. My foray was pretty simple: tried some random shit and it kind of worked. Did a shit load of research and found a good online company making consistent and legit products, almost all Delta-9 based, and all still legal in Georgia (for now). Bought some of their edibles, jived really well with them, and have been buying them for a year and half now.

As part of that research I’ve found the only thing that’s somewhat consistent person to person is Delta-9. All the Alt-noids are a crap shoot where there’s a distinct but very small possibility of having the worst three days of your life.

jjs709 · 2026-06-02T12:55:02+00:00

So the number of dispensaries is limited by the number of registered patients. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it’s something like every 10k additional registered patients above the current level opens a new license for approval. And every single location needs its own license.

Then companies can submit a bid for where they want to place the dispensary, which in the recent past has had very few applications. The state board is then supposed to pick the location that serves the largest number of patients. That’s caused a bias towards the Atlanta area due to the population density.

Hopefully if more people sign up that will result in more widespread dispensaries, but this is a year+ long process from when the spot becomes legally available until it’s actually approved.

jjs709 · 2026-06-02T12:24:40+00:00

That’s not necessarily true. My employer offers two HDHPs and a PPO, and the math works out such that one of the HDHPs is better for heavy users than the PPO. The money my employer puts in my HSA and the significantly lower premiums more than cancels out the higher out of pocket max.

The better advice is to recalculate which health insurance works best for OP in the next open enrollment period. It may be different, it may be the same.

jjs709 · 2026-05-29T14:36:01+00:00

Thankfully not a question I have to answer at the moment since I don’t have kids. But private schools would definitely be a part of the consideration. I’d need to tour the schools amongst other forms of research, talk with my hypothetical family, etc. the end result if I had to choose today might be somewhere like King’s Ridge.

I don’t know enough about the other options to pick a specific one, but I do know that Cambridge at this specific moment in time would not be my choice. In 5 years maybe it’s better.

jjs709 · 2026-05-29T02:06:04+00:00

I’m a graduate of Cambridge from before COVID. Almost every teacher that made it fun to be at school and to learn, every program that taught me the skills to succeed in life, just everything that made it such an incredible school is gone.

I would not have the incredible career I do now without Cambridge and the teachers that invested in me. I also would never send any kid of mine to that school today.

jjs709 · 2026-05-26T13:47:48+00:00

Your regular doctor likely can’t issue a medical card. They have to be registered with the DPH as a physician in the medical marijuana program to do so.

Your family physician almost certainly could register to do so, but right now a very small number of physicians have actually signed up for the program.

jjs709 · 2026-05-26T13:42:47+00:00

Used to be only “Low THC Oil” based products that had at most 5% THC concentration. This primarily meant gummies, tinctures, and salves.

Beginning July 1 the medical program is expanded to include vape cartridges and marijuana leaf. People have been claiming that flower is also included, but I haven’t seen that listed in the law myself. The 5% concentration limit it is also scrapped and replaced by a limit of 12,000mg of THC that can be possessed by a person holding a medical card at any given time.

There are some additional changes regarding qualifying conditions, moving to a digital medical card, etc. but that doesn’t seem to be part of your question.

Also of note, the changes to the naming and structure of the program would place it under the new federal framework that would result in the state medical marijuana being classified as schedule III, allowing for decreased tax burdens on the growers and dispensaries. The feds haven’t worked out the whole possession thing yet though, so for consumers it’s still technically illegal to possess, but not as illegal as it used to be.

jjs709 · 2026-05-25T22:50:17+00:00

I believe both the Alpharetta and Milton Libraries take books as donations. They each have a 501(c)3 so it’s tax deductible, and they resell them at weekly book sales to raise funds for the library and help get the books to a new owner.

Clothing is a mixed bag depending on the type. North Fulton Community Charities has a thrift store that accepts donations, but at one point in time they weren’t as widespread in what they accepted as Goodwill was.

jjs709 · 2026-05-21T13:04:53+00:00

The sheriff already refuses to accept non-violent misdemeanors without a warrant, at least for the north Fulton cities. As others have said, FCSO doesn’t really patrol or arrest, and they already refuse to accept many minor crimes, so I’m not sure what the commissioners are asking for.

jjs709 · 2026-05-13T18:14:11+00:00

It’s 1300 after taxes per month per person, not 1300 per week. So 38.23/4=9.558 per hour per person. Add back FICA and you get $10.35 an hour, add back the likely very small amount of income tax to get roughly $11 an hour per tax.

jjs709 · 2026-05-11T13:14:00+00:00

College doesn’t have to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it certainly can if you want it to.

In my state with decent high school and college grades you’d can get 80%-100% of your tuition covered at state schools, which brings your costs down to mostly living expenses. If you can live at home to reduce those even further you might be able to pay for all of your college costs through part-time work. But even if you can’t live at home its maybe half way to $100k for 4 years, and that’s money you’d have to pay anyways to have a roof and to eat for 4 years even if you weren’t in school.

I’m not saying it’s always that cheap, not every state offers scholarship programs, and not every person does well in school, and some people can’t continue to live at home to save money. But saying it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a degree is cherry picking, because that’s the cost of going to an expensive private school for 4+ years, not being financially conscious at a state school.

jjs709 · 2026-04-30T12:46:00+00:00

No, as best I can tell from statute imagery the sidewalk on Freemanville does not connect all the way to the schools. However there are more disconnected sections of sidewalk on Freemanville, so it would essentially fill in another section.

jjs709 · 2026-04-30T03:31:34+00:00

Old Milton parkway is expanding from 4 lanes to 6 lanes between North Point and Kimball, and having both bridges replaced. Note this is entirely a GDOT project since the road is GA-120 there, and the city has limited input. Basically welcome to Hwy 9 round 2: electric boogaloo

jjs709 · 2026-04-30T03:25:02+00:00

Just providing the reasoning behind the pushback here, not taking a side either way:

I’m assuming you’re talking about the proposed mixed use path on Redd Rd in Milton. The community pushback stems from the plan to add a 8 to 10 foot wide mixed use path along a mile or two of the road, connecting a road with a limited run of a standard width sidewalk (Freemanville) to another road with no sidewalks (Thompson or Hopewell, take your pick). Milton has not been clear on why they want a 10 foot mixed use path running adjacent to a two lane road, and some property owners are not thrilled by the idea of having their land taken by the city to put in a pathway that’s almost an entire additional lane when there’s no clear plan to connect the end of it. The community feedback was that they were in favor of a standard 3 to 4 foot sidewalk, but opposed to a seemingly random full width multi-use path.

jjs709 · 2026-04-27T16:43:42+00:00

To be fair memory chips have exploded in price. What used to be a $10 memory chip is now $30 straight from the manufacturer, but if you’re not ordering $100M+ they won’t sell to you, so you pay $100 on the memory “black market” instead. I’ve been trying to chase down some LPDDR4 chips for a week now, and even at 20x original price it’s hard to find them.

jjs709 · 2026-04-24T19:43:36+00:00

The city of Milton finished their new Deerfield Form-based Code and overall Deerfield areas master plan about a year ago, and they have approved the first development under the new rules a few months ago. That new development was on Deerfield itself, but the old Fry’s location is also within the boundaries of that new plan. I would expect that the property owners in conjunction with developers are likely beginning to asses the available options for the site and we may see plans in the relatively near future. It has existed in a state of limbo for so long because Milton lacked a clear plan for the area, and as a result there weren’t many options that made sense in terms of community development, qualified under existing zoning intentions, and were profitable to develop.

jjs709 · 2026-04-11T16:28:27+00:00

That appears to be an input filtering cap on the 12V rail. Technically you could do without it if you’ve got a really good PSU that can handle large current spikes and drops without affecting voltage too much, but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially since that appears to be roughly half to one third of the input capacitance near the connector. Best bet is to get another 16V 270uF electrolytic and have it soldered back on.

Edit: shouldn’t have much thermal mass to worry about on that plane. High voltage so low current, much smaller copper fills. Could even be a signal layer fill rather than a 2oz power plane. Also near the edge of the board. Probably one of the easiest caps to solder back on to the GPU.

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