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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

#161

Post by cucumber3732842 »

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 support this kind of ban, I'd ask if you would support a similar ban on new factories for, say, car parts.

They de-facto banned these things over the past decades by saddling them with requirements that make them non-competitive locally and/or globally while simultaneously opening up international trade. But they're in denial about this so they'll whine about how it's "not technically a ban" because hoops that are a non-starter to 99% can be jumped through at great cost when the 1% profitable enough to justify it example comes along.

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

#162

Post by jsnell »

jeffbee wrote: post #38
dpe82 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power is not the most expensive part of data center lifetime cost; especially these days when you're filling them with several billion dollars of nvidia chips. It's still an important consideration of course, but not the only one.

I don't know if that's really true. Given realistic life cycles of equipment (~10 years, not 3 as commonly believed) the operating power is going to be 75-80% of the TCO, or more.

I don't see how that number could possibly be realistic.

A H100 cost 30k when new, and uses 500W of power.

500W for a year is about 4500kWh, which at $0.10/kWh is $450/year if run at full utilization (unrealistic).

TCO of an AI data center should be entirely dominated by capex depreciation.

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

#163

Post by throwaway27448 »

Bratmon wrote: post #56
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.

Mainers hate seeing wind and solar plants- they consider them to be a massive eyesore. The people of Maine won't consider "We'll build something you don't like but we'll offset it by building something else you don't like" as a compromise.

> Mainers hate seeing wind and solar plants- they consider them to be a massive eyesore.

I mean, some do... this implies a terrible politician to not address the material concerns of Mainers though.

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

#164

Post by marcosdumay »

ronsor wrote: post #49
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #36

This is a natural response to the excessive pushiness and underhandedness that's been used to build many of these new datacenters, often in direct conflict with the wishes of the locals. Maybe the firms paying to get them built should take a more diplomatic approach instead of trying to railroad projects through.

Ironically railroads almost always got their way in the past.

Railroads were incredibly useful for the entire population.

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

#165

Post by hermanzegerman »

bitexploder wrote: post #139
DrewADesign wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Data centers are a net negative wherever they are. Giant, employ far fewer people than a grocery store after they’re built, crank up electricity costs, use tons of water, air pollution if it’s self-powered, noise pollution (it’s really worth watching Benn Jordan’s video on infrasound,) ugly… the only local entities that win are the landowner and the municipality that collects taxes on them. Though I’ve seen so…

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…

They lobbied for tax exemptions for 10 years or longer in most cases. Which probably is the useful lifespan, from most of the stuff in there

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

#166

Post by AgentK20 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #145
DrewADesign wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Data centers are a net negative wherever they are. Giant, employ far fewer people than a grocery store after they’re built, crank up electricity costs, use tons of water, air pollution if it’s self-powered, noise pollution (it’s really worth watching Benn Jordan’s video on infrasound,) ugly… the only local entities that win are the landowner and the municipality that collects taxes on them. Though I’ve seen so…

> Data centers are a net negative wherever they are. They really shouldn't be. There is a need for them and they aren't inherently damaging. There's no reason they can't be placed under some environmental regulations that cancel all their negatives, at least on some places. And they would still pay taxes. But no, datacenter owners are using their connections to remove any regulation instead.

Unfortunately it’s a race to the bottom in most of America: If you pass such regulations locally or in your state, the data centers will simply choose to not build in your area of authority (county/state). Unless we were to pass sweeping, nation-wide regulations (which this administration is aggressively against because they believe we are in an AI arms race with China), those regulations/bans just drive the data centers elsewhere.

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

#167

Post by xphos »

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…

Bad dichotomy they aren't saying no to data centers to spite them. They are saying no because that data centers are a major public drain and net negative on public resources.

Often they don't pay high taxes nor do they employ large numbers of people. Most of the money made by leeching of public power infrastructure and cheap electricity and export the profits to somewhere else. They are building and selling a non tangible good i.e where do you tax it?

Their is also noise pollution concerns which can destroy communities near by and water usage concerns. These plants drain aquaifers.

I just think you haven't substantially thought about the effect these have on the actual people living nearby. AI being .000001cent cheaper just doesnt help people that much

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

#168

Post by MattSteelblade »

swarnie wrote: post #43
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.

Imagine the additional space needed to power a scaled DC with solar. I think the number of people opposing the construction would increase when they release its half the county. But what's an extra 500 acres between friends.

A Technology Connections video recently changed my opinion on this. The land required to power the entire U.S. would be less than the farmland we currently use for ethanol production.

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

#169

Post by bombcar »

mediaman wrote: post #150
bigfatkitten wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Loudoun County in Virginia generates $1 billion in property tax revenues from data centers. It funds half of all of their expenditures. Can you imagine having half of your total municipal government budget being paid for by data centers? Their citizens pay much lower property tax rates, and get much better schooling and police. Henrico County (also VA) took $60 million in unexpected new revenues from data centers and…

Hopefully they don't end up with a "Digital Detroit" when datacenters start closing.

Though even if the AI market collapses, the capital spent means they'd probably keep operating; paying for 30 employees is much different than paying for 3,000 at a factory. But the datacenter might be owned by the creditors at that time.

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

#170

Post by fc417fc802 »

butvacuum wrote: post #81
swarnie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the additional space needed to power a scaled DC with solar. I think the number of people opposing the construction would increase when they release its half the county. But what's an extra 500 acres between friends.

Horrifically pessimistic numbers for PV (winter in maine with conversion efficencies half what they are now)... comes out to about a 50x50 mile square of panels to generate the entire USA's power demand from the most recent DOE numbers. Ignore that we can have wind, solar, and crops* in the same area. Turns out, btw, crops don't like high noon beating down on them. As a result we can reduce water usage and get nearly…

That isn't the whole story. At least some of these new datacenters are gigawatt class. That's multiple sq km of solar.

Water usage is also an issue. A continuous 1 gigawatt is enough to boil off 1.3 million liters per hour which over 24 hours equates to very roughly 90k residential users. If it isn't boiled but is instead returned lukewarm it will require many times that amount due to how large the heat of vaporization is. Compare to the entire state of Florida at "only" 23.5 million people.

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