Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers • Hacker News Board

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#71

Post by nemomarx » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #48

piker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sorry that wasn't intended as a slight to Texas. Texas just does have a lot of barren landscape where datacenters wouldn't offend as much. I modified it to make that clear. Also, energy is playing a role here.

Is that really the primary concern about datacenters? Their aesthetics? I thought the major problem with them was that they muscle in on valuable resources like water and electricity, consuming what would otherwise be used by people, and driving the prices up.

Taking up land is one of the resources they use - consider cutting down trees to clear space for a large one, or the habitats that might have been in that space. That's not really an aesthetic thing.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#72

Post by rangerelf » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #26

9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #4

I live in Maine. Commercial power is crazy expensive. I don't know why you would build an AI datacenter here in the first place. As an obsessive self-hoster, I've researched building one, and there is no universe in which it makes sense. New Hampshire and Massachusetts are so nearby latency-wise.

As has been repeatedly demonstrated[1], it is the presence of new, large consumers that drives down the cost of bulk power by amortizing the infrastructure investments. Maine voters are, of course, notorious bozos in this field, having voted in a plebiscite in 2021 to cancel the link to Quebec Hydro, which was already substantially completed. 1: For example LBNL's latest banger: Factors influencing recent trends in r…

Do you have any links to support this? Because the commonality of all arguments _against_ has been that they make water and power crazy expensive for everyone that has to live close to the newly opened datacenters, while the DC operator enjoys subsidized land use tax, water and power.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#73

Post by yxhuvud » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #4

I live in Maine. Commercial power is crazy expensive. I don't know why you would build an AI datacenter here in the first place. As an obsessive self-hoster, I've researched building one, and there is no universe in which it makes sense. New Hampshire and Massachusetts are so nearby latency-wise.

Abundant access to a source of cooling can help offset high grid prices. Well places centres can a ton of money that way.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#74

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

lbarrow wrote: post #17

For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts. Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many…

If the factories only employed 50 people, polluted the earth at a much higher scale, and were mainly used to product fake cat videos and scam dating profiles, then yes I would support banning them too.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#75

Post by inglor_cz » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #23

lbarrow wrote: post #17

For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts. Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many…

For people who don't support this kind of ban, I'd ask: What's the alternative? _Requiring_ that states house data centers?

In free societies, bans should be the last weapon of choice. By default, any activity should be allowed, many of the allowed activies should be regulated and/or taxed, but outright bans should be very well justified.

Otherwise you will end up with a chaotic-authoritarian system banning whatever the current Zeitgeist feels icky about, which in the era of social networks means twenty different things each year.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#76

Post by beastman82 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

slabity wrote: post #33

lbarrow wrote: post #17

For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts. Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many…

> modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many local jobs. The factories in Maine employ thousands of people. Bath Iron Works alone has over 7k employees. The Lewiston datacenter that was planned to be built was expected to employ less than 30.

I'm guessing the population of Lewiston would welcome an employer of 30 jobs

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#77

Post by chao- » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #23

lbarrow wrote: post #17

For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts. Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many…

For people who don't support this kind of ban, I'd ask: What's the alternative? _Requiring_ that states house data centers?

I see no need for a false dichotomy of "require" vs "ban". There aren't laws requiring a state to have lumber mills, or outright banning them. There are many alternatives with a wide spectrum of attributes:

- Limiting the rates of builds allowed (e.g. total area per year, density per area per year).

- Requiring that the companies involved offset their resource usage in any number of ways (could expand this to three paragraphs on its own).

- Placing restrictions on proximity to $THINGS, whether that's residential areas, parks, you name it.

These are just the first three examples that come to mind, and I am confident that people smarter than me could come up with more.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#78

Post by nemomarx » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

rockemsockem wrote: post #67

smarf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more power to them that seems to be the idea!

Except that's wrong because greater electricity demand stimulates greater investment and leads to lower prices.

https://www.consumerreports.org/data-centers/ai-data-centers...

It seems like that has pretty substantial time lag. Maybe require the ai companies to build power plants before they're allowed to build data centers in a certain region?

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#79

Post by gensym » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC

lbarrow wrote: post #17

For people who support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts. Like data centers, factories use a lot of power -- which drives up electricity bills -- and their construction can have local environmental impacts. Data centers have a reputation for not providing too many local jobs, but modern factories are often highly automated and also don't provide too many…

No because the people who make car parts aren't promising to kill my livelihood and everyone else's.

The people who make car parts aren't telling me that the cars they build are likely to murder everyone I love.

The people who make car parts aren't writing long screeds about how if our dysfunctional government doesn't step up to implement a solution to the problems created by all the car parts, we're going to to see mass poverty and social chaos.

(To be fair, I don't believe all these forecasts by AI companies, but when they're making them, why on earth would I support letting them go about their business?)

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#80

Post by yxhuvud » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC

mystraline wrote: post #31

One could absolutely design data centers that were energy positive and ecologically decent (with respects to pollution). For a known amount of data enter power, dedicate 125% of power in solar and battery. Need cooling? Use liquid geothermal loops. Or radiate energy back into space. We know frequencies that do not reflect in atmo. Acoustic pollution is another area. Acoustic tiles, building plans, and natural noise b…

For cooling you can also use a heat exchanger and dump it into a river or an ocean or so.