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New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

reuters.com

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Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#71

Post by thisisit »

khurs wrote: post #31

>The state currently has more than 130 data centers, according to Data Center Map, compared with more than 600 in Virginia and about 500 in Texas. Texas is physically larger and 'business frienedly' so suspect they will be getting a lot more. Taylor Sheridan can do a new series where a Ranch owned by a family for many generations is targeted by a Datacentre company.

> Taylor Sheridan can do a new series where a Ranch owned by a family for many generations is targeted by a Datacentre company.

More likely he is going to make something like Landman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landman_(TV_series)#Renewable_...

story about a salt of the earth datacenter operator who manages the datacenter and people while spreading misinformation about the impact of datacenters on people.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#72

Post by nekusar »

buellerbueller wrote: post #25
newaccountman2 wrote: post #14

[flagged]

[flagged]

The real question is "why do rates go up with a data center?"

That answer is interesting. Its cause in most states, if a company formally requests a power hookup, the power company MUST comply. Thus entails in upgrading substations, transformers, supply lines, etc. And all those upgrades are borne by the citizens in that region.

That's why you bill goes up, cause datacenter upgrades dump on the public their externalities.

In some states like Indiana, the governor is already talking about changing that law requiring data centers to pay for upgrades.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#73

Post by pj_mukh »

afavour wrote: post #42
pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking is easy, UN-blocking is hard (see: zoning and housing). There are no objective concerns to be met, and there will never be. I would bet a lot of money the moratorium is indefinitely extended every year. Always thought letting populism define a "slow-down" was silly, its a moratorium and a permanent veto everyone is looking for. It's fine, the data centers will be built elsewhere in more politically impoveris…

> There are no objective concerns to be met Are you sure? Most of the objections I've seen center around environmental impact and effect on residential energy pricing in the surrounding area. Both of these seem to be to be objectively measurable. > the data centers will be built elsewhere in more politically impoverished states What does "politically impoverished" mean? I'd say more "politically permissive" states wo…

"environmental impact and effect on residential energy pricing"

Sooo, how does that change in New York in a year? You've mostly re-inforced my point. And specifically the bill doesn't use any automatic re-enablement criteria, so data centers are basically dead in the state.

Realistically, this is a canard, AI scares people and environmental impact is a lever to use to stop it. Ask yourself this: if this was a new Ford plant (dirtier, also uses a lot of energy), would we be having this conversation?

I actually do mean politically impoverished. Banning Data centers is a horsehoe populism issue, the right wing loves it too. The data center builders will just have to find municipalities with less people and/or a less engaged political atmosphere aka politically impoverished. They mostly already have.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#74

Post by freejazz »

orangedog wrote: post #13
cmiles8 wrote: post #5

Small town politics generally fly below the radar but this is a real hot button issue in a growing number of communities. Town meetings are dominated by residents lacking the room for otherwise sleeping zoning hearings that nobody attends. Folks don’t want data centers in their town and they’re increasingly successful in chasing developers out. Outside the bubble of tech the attitude towards AI and everything associa…

Recent survey showed on HN that 60% of adults in the US dislike it which means that 40% either don't care or like it 40 is a massive number, you're not that far from a coin flip. I don't think any of us have a good read on how people feel because the vocal people are very vocal. Here on HN you'd guess everybody hates it or loves it and there are a bunch of us like me that just view it as a tool with consequences that…

> 40 is a massive number

Where does that leave 60, then?

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#75

Post by dgellow »

giantg2 wrote: post #49
ronnier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The people who oppose them don’t want data centers anywhere, at all.

Not exactly. Much of the anti-datacenter population got that way from hearing about the irresponsible ones and don't want it happening in their area. If they never heard about it because it was in the middle of nowhere, then they wouldn't be involved. It's NIMBY - data center or houses, don't build it near me.

A datacenter has way more impact on it’s surroundings than housing, I don’t think it’s fair to say they are both coming from the same NIMBY sentiment. Anti-housing NIMBY are afraid to see their overvalued houses reduce in price, while anti-datacenter folks see how loud and damaging they can be and say no

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#78

Post by bb86754 »

int32_64 wrote: post #57

I have a family member that wants to ban all data centers and I felt like Daniel Plainview in the milkshake scene showing them the AWS region selector interface, explaining that regional data center bans in deep leftist areas won't move the needle. Nothing short of a totalitarian one world government can stop the development of AI technology, there's simply too much demand. It's just not happening. These people shoul…

"totalitarian" for a democratically elected representative government to ban something? How? If other counties or states want them fine, godspeed, take them. We'll be just fine without them.

- Lifetime resident of what might as well be called AWS us-east-1, Virginia now.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#79

Post by dgellow »

twosdai wrote: post #4
baby wrote: post #2

I've been very curious about these, because of course these are measures that are anti-tech in a number of ways (or at least unpopular in the tech circle). I have trouble understanding why Sanders has decided to be vocal about these, especially as he's been on the right side of the societal debate fence since forever. My guess is that he cares more about what AI is going to do for the common people, and he knows that…

Ny also for as long as I've been here, does not try to have first mover advantage. The state really does usually show up second or third to the party. So to speak.

Too often people forget to mention all the first mover disadvantages. It’s often perfectly fine to wait for things to evolve and join when they are better understood and stabilized. Let the others spend money, political capital, and figure out what works, then eventually join the party, without all the baggage the first movers have accumulated.

Same with AI stuff. No you don’t need to be at the forefront of whatever is happening. No you won’t be left behind if that actually completely revolutionize the world, you can let the others try and fail to integrate LLMs in their systems. When it is eventually proven to boost ROI in a reliable way and AI vendors have actually figured out a reliable business model, it’s actually pretty simple to learn the technology and integrate in your existing infra

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