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A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

politico.com

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Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#41

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #9
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, "allowed" to vote on it? The county officials are the decisionmakers, who should have allowed or not allowed them? It also seems worth noting that these gas turbine generators are meant to be the solution to another big complaint people have about datacenters, that they might drive up local power prices if they plug into the grid. Like you and the people in the article, I'm personally very sensitive…

I mean, I'm fine with datacenters plugging into the grid, if they pay for it. I don't understand (and I mean feel free to explain it) this weird shit where a datacenter goes up and everybody's power bills start increasing. I have assumed that it's because the grid's facilities require upgrades to meet the new demand, but in the case of the "new demand" being "one structure consuming an assload of power" it feels incr…

As you say, it's because the connection between the increased load and the factors requiring additional spending are at enough of a distance that they're hard to account for. If the datacenter operator argues (often with support from the power company, who has to convince government officials their rate increase is OK) that most of the grid upgrades were going to happen regardless and they've already paid for the increase fairly attributed to their operations, how can you really know whether that's true?

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#42

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

SayThatSh wrote: post #4

I've seen a few videos with the audible whine heard from people's houses even super far away from these datacenters. Guess we'll see in a few years whether they were worth building in the first place or whether they end up abandoned once the bubble bursts.

These AI datacenters generally have invested quite a lot in Nvidia Chips and completely high end hardware by having DDR5 Chips etc.

And even more than that, the largest things for these things is how to supply enough water properly and water-cooling systems which aren't required in traditional systems.

They also are very conditional and spike the grid up and down with their use cases slowing the grid.

If the bubble bursts, which it will, It's hard to justify the billions of dollars spent on AI specific datacenters for essentially the bricks and mortars. I don't think that its very sound decision that they were worth building, it might make some compensation but not enough, in my opinion.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#43

Post by matheusmoreira »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #31
ryandrake wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting difficult to tell the difference between incompetence and corruption, as widespread as both of them are, and how their consequences always overlap.

One of the ways corruption hides its intentions is lying to make it look like incompetence. It takes a very long time for the truth to come out and it rarely does but corruption depends on people buying the lies and assuming its just incompetence.

Incompetence should carry liability as well. If some politician signs his name to random documents without understanding what he's doing and causes harm to people, he should simply pay the price to make the other party whole, whatever damage was caused should be undone to the fullest possible extent and he should be removed from office for good measure because he's clearly too dumb to exercise it responsibly.

That's the benign case. If it turns out he wasn't actually incompetent but was signing things in exchange for money or favors he should go to literal death row. Proven corruption should result in the death penalty for all involved.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#44

Post by gib444 »

Low-frequency noise is insidious and an assault on your sanity. Wind turbines are bad for it. And hea_t pump$ to a lesser extent.

Blocking low-frequency noise requires very heavy, well-designed construction, and retrofitting a typical dwelling to achieve large reductions is difficult and expensive.

This means all the blame goes onto the perpetrators – the developers, the politicians – because for all intents and purposes, residents can't do anything to stop it.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#45

Post by rayiner »

quickthrowman wrote: post #18

Sane municipalities, counties, and states have noise restrictions for power generation equipment, most of the AHJs in my metro area require no more than 60dB of noise from 100’ away for a generator, that would easily prevent gas turbines from operating. It’s common enough that generator manufacturers make different levels of enclosures to comply with noise regulations. It’s likely impossible to use gas turbines to ge…

> States that allow gas turbines anywhere near their residents homes does not give a shit about them, probably it’s a perfect circle venn diagram with states that reject expanded Medicare funding.

That’s a weird thing to say given the story is about Virginia.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#46

Post by fudged71 »

This just happened up north, apparently the largest proposed AI data center in Canada (Synapse's $10B 1GW campus in Olds, Alberta) was just put on pause after the Utilities Commission rejected its power application on March 6, 2026 due to noise pollution concerns from 20 gas turbines, 10 steam generators, and up to 600 diesel backups near 800 homes (just 200m away). The assessments failed to model cumulative worst-case noise. The proposal will be revised and resubmitted of course but the concern isn't going to go away.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#47

Post by eweise »

tren_hard wrote: post #10
bilekas wrote: post #3

> Stephenson said the data center’s operations team had not seen any “abnormalities” on the day in question. > “However, we take any reports of issues at the site seriously,” Stephenson wrote Absolutely no abnormalities because this is by design, but nobody wanted to pay attention when approving the building and zoning. Amazing what some money to politicians will get you. I can't even imaging living within ear shot o…

[flagged]

I used to live near a busy street. I eventually got used to the noise but when I bought my house I made sure to find a quiet spot. Now, its dead quiet at night and the difference in my quality of life is significant. I also made the city put shades on the street lights so they wouldn't shine on my house. Another huge improvement.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#48

Post by squibonpig »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8
bilekas wrote: post #3

> Stephenson said the data center’s operations team had not seen any “abnormalities” on the day in question. > “However, we take any reports of issues at the site seriously,” Stephenson wrote Absolutely no abnormalities because this is by design, but nobody wanted to pay attention when approving the building and zoning. Amazing what some money to politicians will get you. I can't even imaging living within ear shot o…

What do you mean, "allowed" to vote on it? The county officials are the decisionmakers, who should have allowed or not allowed them? It also seems worth noting that these gas turbine generators are meant to be the solution to another big complaint people have about datacenters, that they might drive up local power prices if they plug into the grid. Like you and the people in the article, I'm personally very sensitive…

There's an assumption underlying what you said that datacenters are gonna get built one way or another. But these aren't sewage plants or power plants or desalination plants or whatever, they aren't particularly important for the quality of life of most people. We could just kinda... not build them? How about we don't let them get built most places so it becomes fairly expensive. Make it so expensive that only say 1/5 of the amount get built. The rich techbros still have their videogen toys and nobody deals with noise pollution. It's not cheap to generate a picture of trump riding a frog, ya know, but like everyone's lives are no different from how they are now.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bilekas wrote: post #11
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, "allowed" to vote on it? The county officials are the decisionmakers, who should have allowed or not allowed them? It also seems worth noting that these gas turbine generators are meant to be the solution to another big complaint people have about datacenters, that they might drive up local power prices if they plug into the grid. Like you and the people in the article, I'm personally very sensitive…

> What do you mean, "allowed" to vote on it? The county officials are the decisionmakers, who should have allowed or not allowed them? Well I'm not sure how it works there but there are requests here made before building can start. Planning permission is usually first voted on by committee and then brought to the public in the area and public forums are where people get to ask questions such as "what's the expected n…

The article details why it wasn't so basic here. Loudoun County allows datacenters to be built by right without a hearing, because they were understood to be (and IME still usually are) very low-impact on the neighbors. The gas turbines were approved as a temporary power source, but then the local power company Dominion said "temporary" would have to last for years longer than planned. Now they're changing the rules for datacenter approvals to ensure that projects that might end up producing this kind of impact will get the scrutiny they need.

Re: A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine

#50

Post by catlikesshrimp »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #29
SayThatSh wrote: post #4

I've seen a few videos with the audible whine heard from people's houses even super far away from these datacenters. Guess we'll see in a few years whether they were worth building in the first place or whether they end up abandoned once the bubble bursts.

I assume once the bubble bursts they'll be turned into power supplies for bitcoin miners

Hopefully not, but they expect that scenario. For those as ignorant as me, I started reading this https://cointelegraph.com/features/the-last-bitcoin-btc-mine

They expect transaction fees will overtake minting earnings.

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