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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

#391

Post by will4274 »

Eji1700 wrote: post #207
BlueRock-Jake wrote: post #84

I feel like this is always the case with new technology. People had the same reaction to the invention of the printing press. New is scary. It doesn't mean there aren't valid concerns, but unfortunately this feels a bit like an inevitability. The focus shouldn't be on stopping it, but how to maximize the gains and minimize the losses to the local communities where these are being built.

You're not doing your side any favors by using the printing press of all things as your comparison. People very legitimately don't want things like fracking in their area even IF it brings a boatload of jobs due to the costs on communities. Datacenters might not be as potentially destructive, but they're also a massive net negative for the community in many real world ways. If you want them to "maximize gains", then…

> Datacenters might not be as potentially destructive, but they're also a massive net negative for the community in many real world ways

No they aren't. Datacenters are air conditioned buildings that consume a moderate amount of power and generate a moderate amount of tax revenue through a small number of middle class jobs. They use a negligible amount of water compared to golf and farming and produce a negligible amount of heat compared to cars.

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

#392

Post by mylies43 »

trollbridge wrote: post #287
bombcar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the water go afterwards? Is it evaporated? Sewer?

Evaporated. Given how the water cycle works, it should be expected it will be precipitated back as rain.

With the catching being of course that it won't end up where it was being pulled from.

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

#393

Post by inglor_cz »

petre wrote: post #133
inglor_cz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a free state. Like the Swiss banned minarets in Geneva the Mainers should be allowed to vote to ban datacenters. AI bros can always opt to build their stuff elsewhere, like Texas or Abu Dhabi.

I was talking about a free society. You changed that into a free state.

State X may be free in the sense that there is no military occupation or outright dictatorship, but that does not mean that its society values freedom highly. There are degrees to "lived freedom", and being too ban-happy is on the (for me) bad side of the spectrum.

Imagine a very religious society, something like a Puritan state, or a Wahhabist colony, where the faith itself imposes significant restrictions on everyday life of an individual and all laws are derived from religion. Would you call it a free society? What about the few non-believers who live among them, what level of freedom do they enjoy (except the freedom to move away, if they have the means to do so)?

This is not a simple boolean variable.

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

#394

Post by will4274 »

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…

- Datacenters don't use tons of water compared to just about any other business.

- It's not really fair to blame datacenters for using the municipality's electricity and then blame them again for being loud and generating electricity instead of using the municipality's electricity. Any given datacenter is only doing one of these.

- Presumably, the municipality's tax dollars benefit the people who live in the municipality in the form of better services

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

#395

Post by will4274 »

DrewADesign wrote: post #120
beastman82 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So maybe someone can open a new sandwich shop and accomplish the same thing without screwing everybody else in the process. Not only that, Lewiston probably doesn’t have a glut of data center talent seeking employment —I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that not a single person living in Lewiston when a project like that was approved would be employed there.

The data center jobs are middle class. With progressive taxation, those 30 middle class jobs generate about 100 average people's worth of revenue. Presumably Lewiston has schools which could use the funds.

And presumably everybody in Lewiston already has lunch somewhere, so a new sandwich shop that was successful would put another lunch spot out of business, for a net zero jobs.

Edit: the larger point here is that jobs, particularly skilled jobs, don't grow on trees (much like money). New technologies and new jobs replace old technologies and old jobs. If you put a ban on new technologies and new jobs, you'll just have more unemployed people.

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

#396

Post by pj_mukh »

throwaway-11-1 wrote: post #373
pj_mukh wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appointing a council of elders who will think through every imagined horror before approving a project (or a “framework”) is basically the textbook definition of NIMBY-ism. Every NIMBY thinks they’re being optimally thoughtful (tm), except the answer is always the same, two years of environment studies, followed by a loud resounding “No”. Why would they approve anything? They have no incentive to.

Do Yimby’s actually believe in democracy or that markets should basically make every decision? Honestly starting to get a little suspicious.

If the whole voting population came together and said we’d like to pay ourselves $100,000 in straight cash today by borrowing it from future generations. Should they be able to do it in the name of direct democracy? Blocking all future growth due to aesthetic reasons is 10x worse, atleast the $100,000 could be meaningfully spent now.

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

#397

Post by pibaker »

pj_mukh wrote: post #307
piker wrote: post #3

Such a law illustrates the beauty of federalism. Texas and other states can have them if they want them! Maine has not nearly as much space and much more natural beauty to protect [per square mile], so it can and maybe should have a different set of rules. That's cool.

This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial . Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3]. Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this w…

> This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states.

This too is the beauty of federalism. You want to live in a dead retiree state? You can. You want to live in a bustling industrial district? You can too. As long as you do things through proper democratic channels.

> Now do this for housing

But this bill is not about housing. This response makes as much sense as responding to a new law legalizing marijuana and saying "now do this for heroin, rape and murder."

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

#398

Post by pj_mukh »

pibaker wrote: post #397
pj_mukh wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial . Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3]. Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this w…

> This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. This too is the beauty of federalism. You want to live in a dead retiree state? You can. You want to live in a bustling industrial district? You can too. As long as you do things through proper democratic channels. > Now do this for housing But this bill is not about housing. This response makes as much sense as responding to a new law legalizing marijuana and sayi…

[flagged]

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

#399

Post by dclowd9901 »

cloudfudge wrote: post #32
dclowd9901 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In what universe is requiring them the only alternative to banning them? The actual alternative is obvious: not banning them.

If you can't ban them, what else would you call it?

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

#400

Post by ikr678 »

bombcar wrote: post #146
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…

Almost anything can be mitigated at some cost - but it has to be determined what those mitigations are, and then demand them. Many municipalities are unequipped to deal with a "datacenter" because on paper it is the same as an office building (that draws a lot of power), where it should be treated like an industrial site (rail yard, factory).

Large industrial customers often have to sign up to load-shedding agreements wiith grid operators in times of peak grid load.

Can datacenters load shed when requested? If not, they should be paying a premium/spot market prices for power if they arent participating in load management.

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