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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

#171

Post by burnt-resistor »

whartung wrote: post #97

How are (can) datacenters be taxed? Mind, I don't know, but normally you put in a business, or factory, etc. the state can tax the economic output of the factory. The factory builds things, sells things, they tax the sales of those things. Local employees get salaries that can be taxed, etc. Of course, property taxes on the land and improvements. But how does that work with a datacenter? If I pay $5 for an EC2 instan…

Data centers should probably be mostly regional or local co-ops with community-based dividends like Alaska.

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

#172

Post by overfeed »

orangedog wrote: post #46
piltdownman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Governance of that oh-so-dependable Texan power grid are going to engage in some macabre arithmetic this Winter...

That happened in 2021 and we haven't had similar issues since. I haven't experienced a power grid failure since then.

The previous failure was in 2011, and didn't happen again until a decade later. The root cause hasn't been resolved since 2021: the demand and weather conditions simply haven't recurred since.

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

#173

Post by pj_mukh »

QuantumFunnel wrote: post #167
beAbU wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tax the revenue that the entity that owns the datacentre generates, like any other business. Am I missing something?

The entities that own the data centers (the mag7) famously do not pay much in taxes due to their extensive use of tax havens and loopholes

"tax havens and loopholes"

Feels like we should fix those instead of wonton lashing out at any and all economic output.

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

#174

Post by orangedog »

overfeed wrote: post #172
orangedog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened in 2021 and we haven't had similar issues since. I haven't experienced a power grid failure since then.

The previous failure was in 2011, and didn't happen again until a decade later. The root cause hasn't been resolved since 2021: the demand and weather conditions simply haven't recurred since.

Yes, it's just tiring to hear the same meme putdowns about how this Winter we're all going to suffer when we probably have less brownouts etc than a lot of other places.

I remember 2011 but I didn't actually have any issues with a power failure it was just extremely icy. These are freak weather events, generally the grid holds up fine. I'm not saying we don't have issues but it is kind o foverblown.

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

#175

Post by AngryData »

afavour wrote: post #50
newaccountman2 wrote: post #14

[flagged]

> People in red state have been voting to shit on the environment for longer than I have been alive, Red states still have a significant population that don't vote Republican and they're more often than not the ones who bear the brunt of negatives like data center construction.

Yeah, I hate this narrative that rural areas are 99% republican maga people. Often they win the vote by at best a few percentage points.

Like how the dnc is surprised when their overzealous and poorly thought out gun control measures are turned down by democratic voters. Of course they are, near 50% of rural areas are democrats and many own and use guns. They aren't going to just bandwagon along with poorly conceived legislation that restricts their actively used rights.

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

#177

Post by overfeed »

tencentshill wrote: post #150
measurablefunc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Google, Texas currently has about 87GW of peak capacity & a data center production pipeline that will require 75-100GW. So the state will have to basically double its peak capacity to supply power to all those new data centers.

They have a very strong solar buildout going on, and they don't care how many environmentalists they piss off to get them built, ironically.

Using solar to cater to demand increase from data centers will compound the issue.

The 2021 grid failure was triggered by a winter storm which had 3 effects: pushed up energy demand for heating, kneecapped solar generation, and caused failures in bringing up backup sources online (because operators didn't invest enough in "winterizing" their equipment)

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

#178

Post by AngryData »

weberer wrote: post #112
verdverm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sea water would have to be piped to places like Dallas, whereas much of Finland's people/data centers are closer to the shoreline. A solution that works in certain places does not generally work everywhere.

There's no need to build them in Dallas. Just keep them near the shoreline. The only reason you have so many data centers in North Jersey is so high frequency traders can make their calls 0.02ms before their competitors on the NYSE. For an average user, the 1ms ping between Dallas and Corpus Christi is not a problem.

Building closer to shore can bring other problems like a corrosive salt filled atmosphere and higher hurricane and flood dangers.

Im not saying it can't be done, but building near the ocean has its own set of drawbacks and costs.

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

#179

Post by newaccountman2 »

ianm218 wrote: post #123
ASinclair wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people move to jurisdictions that are building AI datacenters? It seems like people would move away from them.

People move towards places with growing economic opportunities. New York heavily restricts construction and infrastructure projects of all kinds. The tech and finance elite will stay here but normal people who are trying to make a decent living in construction and similar trades will end up following opportunities. NYC population is declining after all [1] largely because the city would rather treat housing as a scar…

> NYC population is declining after all [1] largely because the city would rather treat housing as a scarce resource for them to divy up than something to increase the supply of.

The Mayor is literally implementing stuff to build more affordable housing. I agree that ultimately a lot less regulation is needed to make it easier to simply build, but your take on it belongs in a New York Post editorial. It's not serious.

> The tech and finance elite will stay here but normal people who are trying to make a decent living in construction and similar trades will end up following opportunities.

Your dichotomy is bullshit. People in blue collar trades are no more "normal" than most of the people working white collar jobs in tech, finance, law, etc.

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

#180

Post by unethical_ban »

coryrc wrote: post #161
unethical_ban wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including in-flight projects, that totals several GW. Texas demand today is pretty low for noon - clouds and rain in much of the state, and we're at 70 GW.

Building interconnects costs money. What's the ROI on building more? Positive ROI becomes present if Texas has large amounts of nondispatchable power and the neighboring areas do not have the same. So if Texas builds more wind and solar than they can consume themselves , then it makes sense to invest in more interconnection capacity. But that's predicted on excessive production first. Finally, let's just say they bui…

I haven't been arguing for or against anything, and I don't think the original thread creator was, either.

The comment from @piltdownman merely clarified that Texas is for the most part an isolated grid. That if demand matches predictions from our state regulator, Texas needs to continue massively increasing energy supply.

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