Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

niemanlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 346 posts

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#141

Post by no-name-here »

jmye wrote: post #126
cryptoegorophy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If water is the problem then why are we ignoring how much water beef needs? If we measure per person use it is hundreds times more than data center usage in comparison if we measure in per person consumption

Is this a serious comment? No one, in an environmental discussion, ignores how much water beef needs. It’s a central part of most vegan/vegetarian commentary. But this is a conversation about data centers. It would be great if you had the capability of staying even vaguely on topic instead of spinning off into “what about” bullshit.

1. Beef uses trillions of gallons of water per year, while data centers use billions - data center water use is nowhere remotely as much as beef.

2. Despite beef using far more water, is it getting anywhere remotely as much coverage as data center water use?

3. Senators like Sanders proposed stopping data center construction nationwide - have senators proposed similar nationwide bans for beef?

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#142

Post by ashdksnndck »

ajross wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

I mean, the wastewater issues can be real in some environments. It's not a completely insane idea and like all things can be reasonably discussed and mitigated. It's not like these things have the ecological impact of steel foundries or fruit orchards, but they're not parks either. I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though. Freakouts about AI (which ultimately is what th…

> I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though.

The industry is actually doing real work on water issues in response to these complaints. Big tech companies are funding projects that will allow them to replenish more water than their datacenters consume. This isn’t actually that hard of a goal for them to meet, because as we know, the amount of water we’re talking about isn’t much on a national scale. Regardless, this will mean companies making some positive change in the communities where they build datacenters.

Anyway, all of this is a distraction compared to the real problem of carbon emissions. It confuses me that environmentalists are getting sidetracked by the water use distraction here when more natural gas and coal plants are coming online.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#144

Post by robwwilliams »

rcpt wrote: post #104
jeffbee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving equal weight to real data centers and 1000sqft telco switches on this map is sort of misleading.

Neither have much impact on the local area so equal weight makes sense

Living downwind of Colossus I and Colossus II in Memphis has orders of magnitude more weight than even a convention large data center. On par with a large cargo airport like MEM (FedEx hub).

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#145

Post by doctorpangloss »

Morromist wrote: post #46
doctorpangloss wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty insincere of a complaint, when in those communities, 100x more land and water is used for farming, just because farming is a heritage, no?

AI is useful for programmers and a few other groups of people to do their jobs faster. For most people it is just a thing that produces crappy facebook memes, has made certain parts of life more dystopian - like job interviews, and people keep saying is going to take away your job and the jobs of your children. And energy prices keep going up. If you can't see why AI is unpopular you're just very out of touch.

automation is pervasive in farming. it's already an AI business. it will be a generative AI business in many ways too. farming, lots of kinds of farming, especially the most profitable kinds, is unpopular too. to me, this popularity contest thing, that boils down to, "everything visible that people do for money is invalid, except for the thing i do," is not a good way to lead.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#146

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 »

it's a mind boggling delusion to believe that fighting data centers will defeat proliferation of AI. they'll just be built in Romania instead, or maybe even in Russia after the war - electricity and water are borderline free there.

there is almost no reason to build them in the US even without this luddite bullshit.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#147

Post by smegma2 »

cratermoon wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

[flagged]

What ecosystem is it endangering? Is using the land a problem? Utah has 10.5 million acres of farmland that I would think has some impact on the ecosystem too, should we stop doing that too?

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#148

Post by taybin »

no-name-here wrote: post #127
tptacek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it that way at all, but then I'm a housing activist, and I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building than to some of these data centers. People just like opposing development. It's very satisfying! When I see a protest over a golf course opening, I'll take data center water use concerns seriously. The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. People are being hypnotized…

> The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. That seems very untrue - multiple areas have already banned data centers, and senators like Bernie Sanders have proposed stopping data centers nationwide. This is just the next phase of NIMBY-ism. Alternatively, source that the "data centers the industry wants are all going to get built"? > I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building t…

Bernie Sanders proposes a lot of things that are never implemented. I’m not sure his support is actually a useful signal of greater support.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#150

Post by bblb »

testfoobar wrote: post #91
ralph84 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Tech isn't exactly doing a great job of marketing them. Saying they're for AI while doing mass layoffs attributed to AI isn't a winning message.

Any individual layoff is truly awful. But at the macro level, it is not really a big number so far. From ~2.48 million in 2023 to ~2.37million now. Or a 5% drop in employment in 3 years. Fred: All Employees, Computer Systems Design and Related Services (CES6054150001) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001

Interesting stats to look at.

Is "Telecommunications" the only tech that's actually been steadily automating it's workforce since 2000:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051700001

edit: or is "Telecommunications" the old school landlines and such, and this is just the effect of the Internet

Post reply on HN