[Starlink] Re: Data centers are racing to space — and regulation can’t keep up

David Lang
2026-02-26T01:28:41Z

David Collier-Brown via Starlink wrote:

> I looked at the radiative cooling problem, and immediately thought ... "these
> things can't possibly work. What is the hidden agenda here?"

That was my initial thinking, but Elon made a post about the difficulty in
getting grid hookups (regulation hoops and delays) that greatly increase the
costs and time needed to build a datacenter.

Elon saw this before anyone else and bought up pretty much all the gas turbine
generators and transformers available. The manufacturers are now quoting lead
times of several years to get new ones, but are resisting increasing their
production capacity (they see this as a bubble and aren't willing to spend money
on bigger production facilities that will be extra capacity after the bubble
ends)

Since he initially talked about the problems in hooking up to the grid, I've
seen a lot of information from other sources confirming the problem.

David Lang