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Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

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Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#151

Post by nemomarx »

oersted wrote: post #122
vitally3643 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The noise pollution is quite significant in the immediate area, and the heat output notably raises outdoor temperatures in a surprisingly wide area. That also of course ignores air and water pollution caused by the increased demand on electricity generation (or jet turbines spun up in the parking lot). But the point is they suck up land and resources for no material or economic benefit to the local population. There'…

But are they really at the same level of disruption as any steel, chemical, nuclear, gas, manufacturing, recycling... plant? A mine? A port? Industrial farming? I get it though, they don't mind if it benefits the local community, that's the issue. I suppose it does make a lot of sense for at least the local municipality to charge steep ongoing land rents or fees for the zoning license. And I suppose that requires nat…

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Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#152

Post by Aurornis »

agentultra wrote: post #81
perks_12 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. But currently we are choosing the Luddite way of doing things. Simply ignoring this fantastic technology is not a choice but economic suicide.

The Luddite movement wasn’t opposed to progress or technology. They were demanding protections from exploitation by the capital class: abolishment of child labour, fair wages, social protection from job loss, etc. There was no labour law at the time. Destroying the machines was a way to gain leverage, nothing more. Ultimately the capitalists won that conflict. Many Luddites were murdered or jailed. And the history th…

I agree that the original Luddite movement has been mischaracterized, but you're also leaning toward mischaracterizing them in too friendly of a light.

The Luddites were also guilty of violent acts and they were afraid to threaten or use violence to protect their interests. It wasn't a simple disagreement of evil capitalists versus saintly laborers. They cared more about protectionism for their personal businesses.

They were also very clearly on the wrong side of history. We would not be better off if the Luddites had won and forced us all to be doing manual labor all day without the help of those evil machines they were destroying.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#153

Post by gruez »

toyg wrote: post #100
oersted wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, do they really have such an impact? They are of course big and expensive, but surely most datacenters are relatively innocuous in terms pollution and general disruption to the area compared to any regular heavy-industry site, right? Please let me know if I'm wrong, I'm not sure. EDIT: I do get it, it is mainly about local benefit not really about pollution or disruption, even if they are loud about that…

Heavy-industry sites are also extremely discouraged across Europe, outside of very specific zones. If anything, the current shift is about bringing datacentres in that same category.

>If anything, the current shift is about bringing datacentres in that same category.

But datacenters are hardly that? Sure, maybe whatever musk's doing with on-site gas turbines might qualify, but it's hardly representative of datacenters, which are probably closer to light industry or warehouses in terms of local impact.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#155

Post by jeffbee »

Aurornis wrote: post #150
vitally3643 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The noise pollution is quite significant in the immediate area, and the heat output notably raises outdoor temperatures in a surprisingly wide area. That also of course ignores air and water pollution caused by the increased demand on electricity generation (or jet turbines spun up in the parking lot). But the point is they suck up land and resources for no material or economic benefit to the local population. There'…

> and the heat output notably raises outdoor temperatures in a surprisingly wide area There was a study posted here on this exact topic a few weeks back. The most they could measure was a little over 1 degree C near the datacenter. > But the point is they suck up land and resources Land use for a datacenter is kind of negligible. Even the largest data centers are barely a rounding error compared to all of the other c…

That paper was 100% garbage. It hinged entirely on the observation of 1 huge industrial park in Bajio, Mexico, which contains one AWS data center and about 3000 auto parts factories. The before/after breaking point of the effect was during the time that the park went from bare ground to industrial park. It has nothing to do with the data center.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#156

Post by Aurornis »

jeffbee wrote: post #155
Aurornis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the heat output notably raises outdoor temperatures in a surprisingly wide area There was a study posted here on this exact topic a few weeks back. The most they could measure was a little over 1 degree C near the datacenter. > But the point is they suck up land and resources Land use for a datacenter is kind of negligible. Even the largest data centers are barely a rounding error compared to all of the other c…

That paper was 100% garbage. It hinged entirely on the observation of 1 huge industrial park in Bajio, Mexico, which contains one AWS data center and about 3000 auto parts factories. The before/after breaking point of the effect was during the time that the park went from bare ground to industrial park. It has nothing to do with the data center.

Interesting. So the minimal heat rise observed was from the total transformation of the entire area and they blamed it all on the datacenter?

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#157

Post by jayGlow »

dsign wrote: post #78

I would bet, 55% chance, that in 15 to 20 years that region will be filled with autonomous farms. Companies mostly run by AI, and labored by agricultural bots. Not an outcome that, even then, people will want. But we rarely get what we want.

I thought we wanted robots to take over the boring and back breaking jobs?

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#158

Post by criddell »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #83
vessenes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they pay much in taxes? hyperscalers are pretty profitable.

Where? What do you tax? Per request? They will shuffle most gains around to the place with the lowest taxes. E.g. by internally buying and selling (overpriced) services. The only realistic tax is coming from the jobs that serve those data centres (builders, maintenance, that little IT staff left for on-site jobs). And those are rather low margin jobs.

Tax per megawatt, decibel, and gallon of water. That would provide incentives to reduce power consumption, noise, and water use.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#159

Post by perks_12 »

jjj123 wrote: post #69
perks_12 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is front and center of any new digital product these days. More and more tedious tasks are automated using agents, even in small businesses. Assuming Europe won't invest in datacenters, eventually it will find itself in a position where it is completely dependent on US and Chinese companies providing the core to such solutions to them. This will eventually lead to a situation where more and more value creation wil…

But in this case what does a country lose by blocking any and all data centers in its borders? A few ms latency?

You are assuming friendly and equal terms for all customers. What if Trump decides there should be 50% tariffs on tokens? Or what if certain use cases get blocked by OpenAI because they do not fit their worldview? Is it clever to implement AI in every step of the economy without the ability to self-host?

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#160

Post by gruez »

amluto wrote: post #145
vitally3643 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The noise pollution is quite significant in the immediate area, and the heat output notably raises outdoor temperatures in a surprisingly wide area. That also of course ignores air and water pollution caused by the increased demand on electricity generation (or jet turbines spun up in the parking lot). But the point is they suck up land and resources for no material or economic benefit to the local population. There'…

I’m sure there is real data and real math available. For heating: imagine a 1km^2 campus. That’s 1e6 m^2, and peak daylight is around 1kW/m^2. So peak daylight on the campus is about 1GW. (Wow, just covering the whole campus with solar panels would be pretty awesome!) If you put a 1GW datacenter there, that is equivalent to full daylight, with zero albedo, 24/7. Hmm, I’d rather live at a considerable distance from ju…

> If you put a 1GW datacenter there, that is equivalent to full daylight, with zero albedo, 24/7. Hmm, I’d rather live at a considerable distance from just the dissipated heat.

Doesn't this comparison fall apart when you consider that the heat is going to be dissipated across a large area? The reason why stuff gets so hot during the day is that the surrounding areas also get heated, so there's nowhere for the heat to escape other than up. If only 1sq km is getting heated, and that's getting dissipated, the effect is going to be far less than your implied comparison of 2 suns. To bring it back to your example, a patch of payment in the sun (ie. 1kW/m^2) can get scorching hot. But in absolute terms it's less than the output of a space heater (typical one is 1.5KW), not even enough to keep a room warm.

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