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

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

#91

Post by bluGill »

didgetmaster wrote: post #28

How long until the AI companies start charging more to people who use AI services, but live in areas that do things like this? NIMBY causes energy prices to go up in areas that won't allow drilling, refining, nuclear or nat gas development, or power lines. When will the same happen for things like AI services?

AI results are generally easy to transport - just a few bytes over some fibre. Electric is harder to ship, there is only so much you can put in a wire (even high voltage DC). Widgets (car parts...) are even harder to ship and take longer which is why big things often get final assembly locally.

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

#92

Post by raincole »

AvAn12 wrote: post #52
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 they produce large negative externalities like data centers do, then yes absolutely. In a normal market, tech cos would have to pay for the messes they make (the negative externalities). With so much speculative financing available today, these costs are not being born by the companies creating them. Rather, random people (external parties) are forced to suck up higher electricity costs, noise, environmental degra…

> new competition for water

Data centers use minuscule amount of water compared to factories that make physical goods.

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

#93

Post by kube-system »

yxhuvud wrote: post #73
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.

Even in inefficient data centers, cooling is a minority of the power expense. Chasing a few percent of better cooling efficiency at the expense of a few percent more expensive power is a net negative.

Cheap power is much more cost effective than the smaller efficiency bump you get from cold weather -- and you can also get both by locating in the midwest or northwest. Hyperscalers build here for these reasons.

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

#94

Post by dymk »

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.

Like how demand for RAM and hard drives drove prices of those down, because of all that greater investment, right?

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

#95

Post by mlsu »

This shouldn't be read as a carefully considered policy with upsides and downsides. It's obviously silly to just ban datacenters from a policy perspective.

Read this instead as, people hate this shit. They don't want datacenters, they don't want AI, they don't feel like those things are doing anything for them.

You will win the policy debate by saying:

"a datacenter uses just as much electricity and provides just as many jobs as a car parts factory, so it's silly to ban the one and not the other when you can just as easily examine the externalities of the datacenter and blah blah blah"

But you will be missing the point, which is that people see building car parts as a solid, upstanding thing which has tangible and direct benefits to people; whereas building an AI datacenter means allowing some rich California surveillance czar to suck the water and power from your local community so that they can steal your job, fracture your community, and impoverish your family. One is good and one is bad and the voter's choice is to do the good thing and not the bad thing.

Even if car parts factories pollute more than datacenters do.

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

#96

Post by efromvt »

fr4nkr wrote: post #64
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…

The major data centers being built for AI are much more energy-hungry than car manufacturing, and they're being built at a pace that the US energy grid simply cannot accommodate in the short term... or quite possibly even the long term, considering the US's extreme aversion to expanding nuclear power. Also, you can call it Luddism if you want, but a car factory is going to bring a lot more net benefit to the average…

I wonder why this doesn’t get us frustrated with the grid, not data centers. Delays on interconnects for renewables and offshore wind both seem pretty self inflicted.

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

#97

Post by gmm1990 »

beastman82 wrote: post #76
slabity wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Not if it drives up energy prices and makes other businesses that employ more people less competitive. Not saying that is the case but it’s certainly not a given

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

#98

Post by bigfatkitten »

fr4nkr wrote: post #64
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…

The major data centers being built for AI are much more energy-hungry than car manufacturing, and they're being built at a pace that the US energy grid simply cannot accommodate in the short term... or quite possibly even the long term, considering the US's extreme aversion to expanding nuclear power. Also, you can call it Luddism if you want, but a car factory is going to bring a lot more net benefit to the average…

And a data centre brings absolutely no economic benefit whatsoever to its local community, unlike something like an auto plant that creates entirely new supporting industries to support it and its employees.

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

#99

Post by ainch »

culi wrote: post #90
km3r wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just require factories /data centers invest in solar/wind/renewables to cover their power usage. Banning is so childish when there is easy solutions.

The title is misleading. It's not a "ban", just a "moratorium" until November 2027 And your "easy solution" has had a lot of research debunking its efficacy and a lot of holes in it. https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/news/carbon-offsets-have-fa...

Carbon offsets are a sham, but you could just require them to directly pay for the actual energy infrastructure required. If you need 1GW of electricity, develop 1GW of solar.

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

#100

Post by pojzon »

orenlindsey wrote: post #82
fr4nkr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major data centers being built for AI are much more energy-hungry than car manufacturing, and they're being built at a pace that the US energy grid simply cannot accommodate in the short term... or quite possibly even the long term, considering the US's extreme aversion to expanding nuclear power. Also, you can call it Luddism if you want, but a car factory is going to bring a lot more net benefit to the average…

I would argue that with the rise of coding and debugging agents, the AI data centers provide (or will in the near future) even more benefit than a car factory, in terms of digital infrastructure. These technologies are just a lot more invisible so we don't realize how important they are.

Yet we read everyday that Agents generating astronomous amounts of slop and pointless projects are also straining global digital infrastructure.

Which is also “invisible”. Using this technology to make advancements in healthcare is 1% of its usage. While 99% is garbage apps noone needs, memes, deep fake videos and porn.

AI as a whole for now is a net negative for the world.

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