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Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

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Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#161

Post by vel0city »

chasd00 wrote: post #7

No one ever cared about DCs before now. I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. Ironically, There’s enough issues with the DC buildout going on that even with 100% public opinion support it would still be significantly delayed. The behind the meter power generation isn’t going well. There’s only so many gas fired turbines on th…

I made this comment a little bit ago, I'll share it again:

I think the biggest change in public sentiment in datacenters is a reaction to the extreme scale they're being deployed at these days. They're really vastly unlike datacenters of the past. The power densities are so much higher, they're so much larger, and they're getting vastly more environmental waivers and tax subsidies than ever before.

A quiet, average-sized warehouse-like building in an industrial area with a big power substation next to it often didn't bother a lot of people. A giant monster of a building being built in what was previously people's backyards with howling on-site power generation that got installed without any kind of air quality reviews because they're allegedly "temporary" and starts sucking the groudwater dry is a whole different story.

This is a datacenter: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pzSsUHXPaUuLGaDa9 I doubt many people even know its a datacenter. Its pretty much any other office building.

This is also a datacenter. I imagine just about everyone living nearby knows its a datacenter. https://maps.app.goo.gl/wR4NgcWQVhJAy5Gy6

Now, don't get me wrong, I do agree there's a lot of social media frenzy in reaction to all datacenters. There are a lot of datacenters around me, and it seems like roughly nobody cared when they were built. They've been there for years, some have been operational for decades. Suddenly now, lots of people have a problem with all of them.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#162

Post by jmye »

Aurornis wrote: post #68
datakan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were no plans to build data centers in their small town and no reason to consider it at all You have to be fair on this though. The time to ban something is before they start talking about doing it, not after. Being ahead of the game is never a bad thing, especially when small towns are so easily exploited due to income and infrastructure. They just can't afford long legal battles.

The interesting thing about the anecdote wasn't the timing. It was that there was no reason to build a data center there but they felt compelled to make it their top priority. > especially when small towns are so easily exploited due to income and infrastructure. Small, remote towns without electricity or data connections are not easily exploited for data centers.

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Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#164

Post by NohatCoder »

linksnapzz wrote: post #145
maccard wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bakery are you thinking of that pulls the equivalent of a mid sized nuclear power plant? Because you’re off by an order of magnitude I think. (2.2MW maybe)

I suspect the Nabisco plant in Chicago pulls about ~12 million therms worth of natural gas, at 30kwh per therm, that's pretty significant.

You "suspect", but your suspicion comes with a unit of energy, which simply does not make sense in the context. The rest of us are talking about effect.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#165

Post by adamrezich »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #158
adamrezich wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why am I supposed to take a janky-ass web visualization, completely devoid of citations as far as I can tell, and which was, itself, almost certainly vibecoded, at face value, as a valid argument? I love how you went from posting links to articles to make arguments for you, to then editing your comment to link to a $250 book that I should buy and read, so it can make your argument for you.

Refusing to acknowledge sources is pathetic. The information directly refutes your cartoonish take on the problem if you're brave enough to pull yourself into reality.

Trust the Experts who have done Studies and written Papers in Committees their objective view of reality not to mention their morality is superior to yours yadda yadda heard it all before

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#166

Post by everdrive »

neckardt wrote: post #89
ryandrake wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some areas, density is appropriate, and in some areas it's not. I wish we could talk about housing density and "build more housing" as if there was not one universal solution that worked everywhere and for everyone. Dense urban living is not appropriate in a rural or suburban town. Single family homes are not appropriate in a high-demand urban area. Different people want different things, too. No matter how effici…

> I don't want to live in a concrete honeycomb in the middle of a loud city. Yes, this is the crux. Loud, smelly, concrete cities suck. And you’re right that density alone would lead to this. What we’d ideally want is cities that can be dense without being loud, smelly, and dangerous. These cities exist: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich, Utrecht, Freiburg, etc. We can’t do this in the US because we can’t remove the sour…

Can you really think of no other problems in addition to cars?

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#168

Post by jmye »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #110
zardo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hear and understand those, but why isn't it a regulation or requirements issue? It's a waste of time and money for each town and county to come up with those requirements. If your community puts any limits on the datacenter builder they'll just build it somewhere else, so you might as well save the effort and just say they can't do it.

the US is a republic of states. By design it wastes time and money to allow disagreement, variety, and self-determination of states. > they'll just build it somewhere else Why should we have rights to say they cannot do it somewhere else? It's not a moral issue, it's a tragedy of commons issue or unpriced externality issue.

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Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#169

Post by rconti »

redlewel wrote: post #30

I think this is because the demand is so extreme for datacenters now that companies are building them in a manner that disrupts the environment around them. The newer ones are using on-site generators that are insanely loud and require multiples more power than datacenters have historically needed. For a rack with traditional servers with just RAM/CPU/Drives, 5kW is sufficient in most cases. When you have racks that…

I don't think the average person actually knows anything concrete about them.

They're a proxy for peoples' sense of powerlessness about what's going on around them.

Skyrocketing electricity prices, the sense that elected officials aren't looking out for their interests, job losses, etc. They're a convenient proxy for many disparate concerns because they represent all of those things in one way or another.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#170

Post by jancsika »

Aurornis wrote: post #20

I agree that I don’t want a data center in my backyard either. What’s missing from this strange conversation is discussion about how many data center proposals are near residential areas. I tried to look for one in my state and a few surrounding areas and couldn’t find any. There was an amusing story about how data center protestors had to organize expensive bus trips to get the protesters out to the data center site…

> What’s missing from this strange conversation is discussion about how many data center proposals are near residential areas.

What's strange is that you didn't once mention the layperson's fear of data center projects in their county/state potentially raising the cost of consumer electricity. I've never heard a layperson mention data centers without mentioning that fear.

Have you really heard zero occurrences of that fear in your view-from-Mars survey of this issue?

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