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Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

reuters.com

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Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#81

Post by SoftTalker »

phil21 wrote: post #52
SoftTalker wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen Alpha or whatever the latest rising adults are called might. They are too young to remember any of the disasters

All… three of them if you really try hard? Really only two qualify as disasters to me. Three Mile Island wasn’t great, but certainly not a disaster on any level I can figure.

Yeah Chernobyl was the only really bad one. Windscale was bad also but that was a long time ago and not a power reactor. Neither reactor design is anything anyone would try to run today.

Edit: Well, RBMKs are still running in Russia but with significant safety upgrades.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#82

Post by phil21 »

ninkendo wrote: post #64
phil21 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water usage in this context is a rounding error on a rounding error on top of a rounding error when it comes to corn production for ethanol. Anyone bringing it up does not actually care about the water usage. It’s just a politically easy topic to get traction with. If anyone starts off their anti-datacenter screed with this, it instantly outs them as someone you can ignore as unserious person on the topic. Plenty of…

I’m against corn production for ethanol too: that AI datacenters aren’t as bad as one of the worst ideas our country has ever had, isn’t much praise. You know what instantly outs someone as unserious on the topic for me? When they give an unqualified “none of that is true” when someone talks about water use. I agree discussion should carry the nuance, but this conversation started with none of it. A modern 100MW scal…

The fact there is not the social media and political outrage there is on stuff that is literally 10-1000x the water usage is what outs folks as being unserious on the topic. Collectively speaking, people do not give a shit about water usage at all for any reason.

It’s like private jets. If you talk about PJ use in the first 10 minutes about your diatribe about climate change I already know you give zero care about co2 production and only want to either hate rich folks for valid but unrelated reasons, or are an entirely unserious person.

Both are focusing on a mathematically immaterial number when it comes to the supposed problem they say they care about. It they actually cared, they would be talking about things that matter and can move the needle if they “win”.

I welcome high water use stuff in my back yard because my region has plenty of water, plus I firmly believe in the fact that a society cannot have wealth without industry. Datacenters, steel production, whatever. Bring it on.

Are there specific bad projects that should not happen due to local water concerns? Absolutely! But that is not the discussion anyone is having. Datacenter water usage as an industry is a total non issue and is an increasingly immediate tell that someone has no clue what they speak of.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#83

Post by phil21 »

esseph wrote: post #80
phil21 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about fan noise is low pitched? I generally agree that I would not like to live across the street from a datacenter. Having worked inside of dozens of them, I could not care less if I lived half a mile from one. Most people who live within such a distance currently do not have a clue. At that point I would not even worry about the noise from the backup generators.

It's the gas turbine generators at the massive DCs causing the big issue. There are dozens of them. Not your typical historical DC/colo or even 5yr ago hyperscaler DC.

These sorts of things done remotely close to residential areas are very rare in the grand scheme. And I agree these specific projects are a major problem.

It’s just not representative of the bigger picture when there are a dozen horrible projects against say 1000 total.

The hyperbole is what gets my mom terrified of moving to a city that might allow a datacenter to be built 8 miles away from the place she was looking at.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#84

Post by austin-cheney »

phil21 wrote: post #76
austin-cheney wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oppose the data centers because they drive up utility costs and contribute to the instability of the local electrical grid. I get pain from them and no benefits. I really don’t want most of the unprofitable AI foolishness that is being forced on us.

What instability has been attributed towards datacenter - or even any - large 24x7 predictable load industrial consumers of electricity in your area? The exact opposite is typically true, so this is surprising to me!

Grid instability, which includes an increasing frequency of brown outs. It’s the primary reason residential owners are heavily investing in solar panels.

If you don’t know where I live how can you know if my claim is true or not?

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#85

Post by phil21 »

mukbangpervert wrote: post #75
annzabelle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up near Ashburn makes every anti data center argument feel like crazy land. From my perspective when I lived there, they were somewhat ugly large boxes that paid county tax and raised land value. I never noticed any kind of noise from them, though they were largely on industrially zoned land right by the airport. Also gave us single digit ping. Electricity rates are below the national average. Now that I'm an…

A few things you might want to consider: 1) your example pays very substantial tax. (property taxes, plus, recently, tax on electricity use) 2) your example primarily used undesirable land. 3) your example grew slowly, allowing the power company to add capacity without a big challenge matching demand. 4) your example is in a heavily connected part of the grid, so it didn't need all of that added power generation to b…

The only reason Loudon county became datacenter alley is due to where the transatlantic cables landed. And Washington DC being next door.

It’s basically the OG networking effect. You put equipment there because everyone else had equipment there.

The rest just grew with it. It had nothing to do with power infrastructure. If anything, datacenters created the power infrastructure in the area.

Agreed on the tax abatement stuff. Those should be outright illegal regardless of industry.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#86

Post by eddyg »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #44
antonymoose wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area (South Carolina) - the opposition seems hyper fixated on “water use” with little or no conversation around electrical usage or even equitable utility rates. AI itself largely absent from the discourse.

Data centers use miniscular amount of water. Data center water use is a fake issue.

This is a great data-backed resource to refute made-up claims about data centers:

https://www.andymasley.com/visuals/ai-prompt-footprint/

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#87

Post by jrowen »

dehrmann wrote: post #36

People are actually angry about inflation and a sense of a stagnant labor market. Data centers and AI play into both those fears.

Sadly if they were smart they would push for UBI rather than jobs or stopping data centers.

Zero-sum scarcity mentality needs to end. Don't push back on prosperity. Push to have those gains distributed more evenly.

Push for a ridiculous tax on data centers that goes directly to the local economy. If they don't buy it then it's the same result as blocking them on vibes.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#88

Post by phil21 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #84
phil21 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What instability has been attributed towards datacenter - or even any - large 24x7 predictable load industrial consumers of electricity in your area? The exact opposite is typically true, so this is surprising to me!

Grid instability, which includes an increasing frequency of brown outs. It’s the primary reason residential owners are heavily investing in solar panels. If you don’t know where I live how can you know if my claim is true or not?

Because I have been monitoring this as a weird interest of mine now for 20 years or more. To the point of absurdity.

I would be very surprised to hear of a location in the US that is experiencing grid instability due to recent increases in industrial scale electric usage.

I 100% refute your claim that grid instability is the primary reason folks in the US are installing solar. You will be still seen as a crazy prepper type if you call a company and tell them you don’t care about the financials penciling out, and only want it for potential blackouts. Assuming you are not in California of course - which I assume not since none of those instability problems have to do with industry so it’s not relevant to this discussion.

Generally speaking - if you want to live in a place with a stable grid, you will seek out a spot that has heavy industry in the region. These energy consumers stabilize the grid for residential folks. Especially datacenters since those tend to come with emergency backup and are the first to fall off the grid on a voluntary basis during peak usage events.

I’m sure somewhere in the US exists where this is true since basically everything is true at a micro scale. I just do not see it as a wide scale issue.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#89

Post by austin-cheney »

phil21 wrote: post #88
austin-cheney wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid instability, which includes an increasing frequency of brown outs. It’s the primary reason residential owners are heavily investing in solar panels. If you don’t know where I live how can you know if my claim is true or not?

Because I have been monitoring this as a weird interest of mine now for 20 years or more. To the point of absurdity. I would be very surprised to hear of a location in the US that is experiencing grid instability due to recent increases in industrial scale electric usage. I 100% refute your claim that grid instability is the primary reason folks in the US are installing solar. You will be still seen as a crazy preppe…

I cannot speak for why everyone in the US buys solar. I can only speak for my local community.

If you want to find locations of grid instability focus on growth, both residential and industrial, that is radically out of scale compared to larger geographic averages. Otherwise, it seems like you are measuring using the wrong trends.

What’s crazy is that the grid instability was there before the explosion of data centers and the primary revenue generator of the much larger geographic region is energy transport/production.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#90

Post by annzabelle »

phil21 wrote: post #85
mukbangpervert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things you might want to consider: 1) your example pays very substantial tax. (property taxes, plus, recently, tax on electricity use) 2) your example primarily used undesirable land. 3) your example grew slowly, allowing the power company to add capacity without a big challenge matching demand. 4) your example is in a heavily connected part of the grid, so it didn't need all of that added power generation to b…

The only reason Loudon county became datacenter alley is due to where the transatlantic cables landed. And Washington DC being next door. It’s basically the OG networking effect. You put equipment there because everyone else had equipment there. The rest just grew with it. It had nothing to do with power infrastructure. If anything, datacenters created the power infrastructure in the area. Agreed on the tax abatement…

It's actually because of DARPANET/ARPANET and other early computer research that was military or intelligence funded. It led to a concentration of networking in the region that led to MAE-East and it's all spiraled from there. The transatlantic cables were an aftereffect of everything else.

I'm pretty sure they actually come ashore in Virginia Beach and New Jersey, both a solid 4 hour drive away.

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