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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

#221

Post by j2kun »

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.

My favorite class of HN comment: bringing concreteness to a vibes fight.

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

#222

Post by andrepd »

DrewADesign wrote: post #107
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.

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…

> Though I’ve seen some astonishingly misinformed politicians offering big tax incentives for data centers

My national government is currently giving massive tax breaks for one of these. It's going to be, after all, "the biggest foreign investment in the country ever"...

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

#223

Post by DrewADesign »

AgentK20 wrote: post #166
marcosdumay wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cen…

But people probably wouldn’t have a problem with them building a data center in central Aroostook. Nobody making these regulations wants to simply stop data centers from being built anywhere— they’re trying to stop people from building them where it will really suck to have them, like densely populated Lewiston. I actually left tech to work in manufacturing. I know the value it provides and how much it can negatively impact others. Big companies want to build this shit near population centers because it’s more convenient, profitable, easier to hire people, etc. Tough cookies, I say.

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

#224

Post by Bratmon »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #163
Bratmon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Data centers don't really help the material conditions of Mainers though. Here's the net effects of new data centers they'll really see, in material terms:

- A brief boost in construction jobs

- ~0 new jobs in the long term

- Increased electricity prices

- A slight chance of very slightly lower taxes, as data center taxes partially replace taxes on other stuff

It's not like the average Mainer is losing a lot from this decision. There's actually a good chance a data center ban is a net gain for the average Mainer materially, because the change in electricity demand (and thus prices) will outweigh all other effects.

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

#225

Post by Nevermark »

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.

Car parts factory?

With the an (energy-use + water-use + land-use)/employee ratio comparable to an AI data center?

I did not know those existed.

But, yes. I think in that case, the right answer is "Yes".

A pro-corporate viewpoint, without calculation of tradeoffs, reminds me of Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk's blatant illogic: Bitcoin means green energy!

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56844813

(For anyone not familiar with Bitcoin source, I can report that the green energy preference/requirement in the hash code is hidden very well. And that the non-benefits of holding Bitcoin in a third parties repository, or the micro-benefits of making a few transactions a year, are unusually minimal relative to the enormous global resource consumption. Not because crypto has to be so wasteful, but because the Bitcoin blockchain implementation has been an "entire-population-of-all-dinosaurs-that-ever-lived" efficiency lemon for most of its existence.)

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

#226

Post by andsoitis »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #98
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…

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.

> data centre brings absolutely no economic benefit whatsoever to its local community

Following that logic, are you suggesting that data centers should not be built at all?

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

#227

Post by xphos »

cheriot wrote: post #108
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.

Property taxes come to mind.

Local municipalities collect this and often get tricked into not collecting it via agreements to host it in or near their town for multiple year agreements. Also the assessed value of the property may not come anywhere near the costs of increased electricity demand, water usage and noise pollution problems. For locals

Their is typically high paying jobs in factories but these places dont employ a large staff beyond construction. It a tough spaces.

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

#228

Post by jmyeet »

ch4s3 wrote: post #114
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…

> AI are much more energy-hungry than car manufacturing This is not even remotely true[1]. Large auto plants use on the order of 200–250 megawatts of power, which is either on par with a data center or slightly more than a data center depending on the size and how cooling is handled. [1] https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/tools/Industr...

I suspect uou've misread that document. It is a good document though. It's saying a large parts plant uses ~188,000 MWh, I think per year.

A modern AI data center uses 20-100MW+ of electricity. Those two things aren't the same. 20MW of continuous electricity use (which AI data centers do) translates to 175,000 MWh of electricity per year. That's about the same as a minimum and might be 5+ times more.

This document is only about energy usage so we have to guess what "large" means in terms of employment but 3000 to 7000 seems to the range. Compared to 20-30.

But AI data centers are worse because they actually produce what I call negative jobs. Their currently only value proposition is in laying off people and otherwise suppressing labor costs. All while the residents all pay more for their electricity with the money no longer have because they got laid off.

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

#229

Post by unclad5968 »

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…

This is so ignorant it hurts. The same exact proposition was voted down in New Hampshire years earlier, because the transmission line goes straight through natural forests, to Massachusetts, and has little to do with the state other than chopping down a bunch of trees. Neither Maine nor New Hampshire have an extra $1 billion to waste on enhancing the grid mainly for the benefit of southern New England states.

Neither Maine nor New Hampshire voters are "bozos" for voting it down. The whole ordeal even prompted Maine voters to establish a new law to stop foreign investors from influencing local referendums because Hydro Quebec spent so much money trying to sway the vote.

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

#230

Post by 8note »

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…

there's a lot of work already done on understanding what makes factories safe or not.

whats the infrasound danger of a factory? how long can a new factory use emergency nat gas generators because they ignored the environmental regulations?

data center owners are much much more powerful than factory owners having the ear of the president, supreme court, and congress. if you tried to regulate one after it gets opened, youre screwed, and theyre gonna ignore your regulations

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