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

#151

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #14

shevy-java wrote: post #2

Good. But will RAM prices go down again? I don't want to pay 2.5x as much as I did ~2 years ago, for the same piece of hardware ...

There are multiple factors at here which have now gone beyond datacenters. 1. Iran war has made the prices of both helium gas and energy to asian countries higher which is making ram production more expensive. 2. Samsung workers are in a protest (15 thousand workers) 3. Jevon's paradox (even after turboquant, we might be just scaling things up in demand perhaps) 4. Some providers have already signed up/locked up more…

Do you have numbers for helium? Sure I've seen it mentioned, but is it even 1% of production cost right now?

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

#152

Post by rurp » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

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.

LLMs are and will be used as malware, propaganda, and slop generation agents more than they will be used as debugging agents. The amount of energy that we'll need to consume going forward just to defend against malicious users and to filter down the flood of slop is absolutely eye watering and will continue to grow as far as we can tell.

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

#153

Post by bombcar » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

physhster wrote: post #117

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.

Less than 30 makes no sense. It's easily in the hundred if you account for shifts and the specialized jobs required.

Once it's built, it basically runs itself.

You have a guard, some remote hands, maintenance, maybe additional security or two, times 4 for the various shifts. 30 sounds about right.

Even 20 years ago the datacenters I worked with often had fewer employees onsite than "visitors" - because they rented out racks.

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

#154

Post by throwaway27448 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:01 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…

It's also basically impossible to extract taxes on the products of data centers. It seems like a way to drain a locality of value while providing nothing in return but slightly lower latencies for corporations.

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

#155

Post by bitexploder » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

DrewADesign wrote: post #149

bitexploder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they are simply not taxed enough to benefit the community. If the local municipality is bearing a lot of these hidden costs, then perhaps the taxes need to be higher and directed at efforts that mitigate the worst of the problems. Water management solutions, air pollution management. Are there ways to mitigate the noise pollution? It seems like they should be taxed /more/ to help offset the negatives. There i…

The city making money off of it doesn’t make the impact smaller. You can’t tax away the air pollution coming from a gas turbine running in a populated area.

That was my point. It doesn't all have to be taxes. It can also be agreed upon mitigation maintenance. Better filtration on gas turbines, etc. Green spaces to mitigate sound impact. I don't know, I am just wondering if there is a model that can be designed that makes a data center "balance" within its local environment instead of getting the opposite, tax incentives. Right now I agree, they get to socialize the costs and reap the benefits of building data centers to a large extent.

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

#156

Post by jagged-chisel » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #58

If it meant that residents couldn't use AI, then the bill would be certainly dead. Given that, the bill is just for show, and not actually serious.

What does this have with the use of AI? You can use the services of data centers thousands of miles away.

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

#157

Post by yxhuvud » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #109

yxhuvud wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Closed loop heat exchange costs more electricity. It's not a free lunch that data center designers are overlooking.

That is of course true, but it is at least not a totally unreasonable practice, unlike using fresh water straight off the grid as a cooling source.

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

#158

Post by throwaway27448 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

km3r wrote: post #19

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…

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.

> Why not just require factories /data centers invest in solar/wind/renewables to cover their power usage.

That still doesn't cover making the data centers provide value to the people who live there.

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

#159

Post by rvz » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:02 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…

AI (in its current form) just needs to get its act together and find efficient alternatives just like cryptocurrencies did.

Bitcoin mining farms were taking lots of electricity and were the ones getting shut down and there was little opposition to that and it didn't matter anyway since there were efficient alternative cryptocurrencies available right away that did not need more data centers and energy requirements.

Now AI just isn't efficient enough to refrain from building more data centers. This is clearly a software problem which is getting to the point that the energy requirements going to surpass Bitcoin alone. [0]

[0] https://www.theverge.com/climate-change/676528/ai-data-cente...

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

#160

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:02 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…

[deleted]