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Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

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Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#51

Post by scrumper »

anonymars wrote: post #12
pfdietz wrote: post #8

Are folks still thinking orbital data centers are an impossibility? Because this is a strong part of the motivation for those.

It still doesn't make any sense: if they're not going to use bodies of water to cool them in space, they can not use a body of water to cool them in the middle of nowhere. The same with the solar panels

The water moves the heat from the DC to some near-infinite sink (ocean, river, atmosphere if evaporative, whatever.) In space it's quite (very) hard to move the heat anywhere. So water cooled ocean DC is more realistic than an orbital DC.

If they were talking about putting them on the moon I'd get it; use the moon itself as a giant heat sink. Latency isn't ideal but for applications where that's not a problem (like AI; 3s round trip isn't meaningful in the context of a chat session) then why not.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#52

Post by WarmWash »

vharuck wrote: post #44
WarmWash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the states give the incentives, the local towns usually get their tax revenue doubled or tripled, hence why these boards sprint to approval

States may dangle the tax carrots, but localities could be the ones paying for road and utility improvements. The costs for that could be much less than projected gains in tax revenue, but that's a gamble. Not to mention being left with abandoned buildings. We didn't even need to have a bubble pop to see abandoned facilities. If one company goes out of business (normal in a healthy economy), there's little we can (an…

From the few cases I have looked at, tax revenues for the towns is in the $30-40M/yr range.

I cannot fathom what kind of road improvements a datacenter would need that wouldn't be easily offset. Or what demolition costs for a square box would be that would eclipse that, nevermind the value of the underlying land.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#53

Post by mcphage »

WarmWash wrote: post #31
faitswulff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers would be less contentious in the U.S. if energy was plentiful and clean. As it is, it externalizes costs onto the public and strains profit-optimized electrical grids while contributing to local pollution and global warming.

The question isn't whether that's true, the question is the magnitude of the effect. By all accounts, it's completely blown out of proportion. If people genuinely, actually care about energy costs, they can vocally support when calls for setting your thermostat at 78F in summertime go out.

> If people genuinely, actually care about energy costs, they can vocally support when calls for setting your thermostat at 78F in summertime go out.

Or, we can prefer energy being spent on air conditioning, and not on data centers.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#54

Post by RajT88 »

SirFatty wrote: post #35
yostrovs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Michigan there are large industrial facilities that most locals have no idea what is done inside. There's noise, electric usage, trucks coming in and out, but most people think it's ok. Data centers are seen differently.

"but most people think it's ok." How would you know what "most people" think? Broad generalizations and opinion stated as fact.

If you live in the area, it's easy to say that. There's no protests in the local parks. There's no shouting matches at city council meetings.

I say this as a person living in a town where they are building a bunch of data centers, and nobody cares about the existing industrial areas which include factories and heavy industry. No protests, no shouting matches at city council meetings. None of that. Granted, those were built a long time ago.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#55

Post by SirFatty »

RajT88 wrote: post #54
SirFatty wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but most people think it's ok." How would you know what "most people" think? Broad generalizations and opinion stated as fact.

If you live in the area, it's easy to say that. There's no protests in the local parks. There's no shouting matches at city council meetings. I say this as a person living in a town where they are building a bunch of data centers, and nobody cares about the existing industrial areas which include factories and heavy industry. No protests, no shouting matches at city council meetings. None of that. Granted, those were…

That's a few people, not most people.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#56

Post by [deleted] »

aprentic wrote: post #24
pfdietz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar power in space is potentially very cheap; solar on a ship is not. The heat problem has demonstrable solutions that people who are physics challenged can't seem to get themselves to accept.

What's the solution to the heat problem?

[deleted]

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#57

Post by tzs »

WarmWash wrote: post #23
pfdietz wrote: post #8

Are folks still thinking orbital data centers are an impossibility? Because this is a strong part of the motivation for those.

Anyone reading between the lines understands datacenter deployment has little to do with datacenters and a lot to do with kneecapping AI development. If datacenters in space become a thing, you'll hear your neighbor talking about how rockets poison the air.

It depends on the scale. If space data centers become a thing at the scale Musk and others are talking about (millions of space data centers) then rockets will indeed became a major issue for the atmosphere, as will the space data centers themselves.

The total atmospheric pollution from rockets, even at that scale, will be small compared the total from terrestrial sources but unfortunately atmospheric pollution works like real estate: location matters.

Orbital rockets deposit stuff into the upper stratosphere which is about the worst place you can put. Things there have effects massively disproportionate to the same amount of the same things emitted into the lower atmosphere by terrestrial sources. Some have up to 500x the effect when emitted in the upper stratosphere than when emitted by airplanes or on the ground.

It's been OK so far because in the entire history of rockets there have only been about 7500 orbital launches (which are what matter for the upper stratosphere--see below). With a million space data centers which are expected to each have a useful life of 5 years there would have to be about 2000 Starship launches (@100 data centers per launch) per year just for replacing the ones that have reached EOL. That's after the 10000 launches for initial deployment.

Worse, satellites damage the upper stratosphere on reentry. With a million space data centers that's 200k reentries per year. The cumulative number of reentries so far is around 10k satellites and spent rocket bodies, and around 25k if we count smaller things that we can track like debris.

There have been tens of thousands of suborbital launches that have reached the upper stratosphere but most of them have been sounding rockets which are small enough that the cumulative pollution from all of them is less than a year's worth of current orbital launches. On top of that most of the sounding rockets were for weather monitoring and have been replaced by balloons. Current sounding rocket use is negligible. There have also been ballistic missiles but by the time those are in the upper stratosphere they are ballistic and don't pollute much. Hence it is only orbital launches we have to worry about.

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#58

Post by Bjartr »

pfdietz wrote: post #13
Bjartr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A data center on a ship out in the ocean is orders of magnitude cheaper and orders of magnitude more capable. If we can't demonstrate a solution to the heat problem, in-orbit DCs that contribute meaningful compute are a fantasy and nothing more.

Solar power in space is potentially very cheap; solar on a ship is not. The heat problem has demonstrable solutions that people who are physics challenged can't seem to get themselves to accept.

I've yet to hear of any solution to the heat problem, only vague handwaves that it will be solved. But it's the single largest and most challenging obstacle (amongst a set of large, challenging obstacles)

My searches aren't turning anything up, would you mind sharing what you know about solutions to the heat problem or point me towards a resource if can learn from?

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#59

Post by WarmWash »

mcphage wrote: post #53
WarmWash wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn't whether that's true, the question is the magnitude of the effect. By all accounts, it's completely blown out of proportion. If people genuinely, actually care about energy costs, they can vocally support when calls for setting your thermostat at 78F in summertime go out.

> If people genuinely, actually care about energy costs, they can vocally support when calls for setting your thermostat at 78F in summertime go out. Or, we can prefer energy being spent on air conditioning, and not on data centers.

Then people should stop using AI...

Re: Polling shows a growing political reckoning is coming for data centers

#60

Post by RajT88 »

SirFatty wrote: post #55
RajT88 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in the area, it's easy to say that. There's no protests in the local parks. There's no shouting matches at city council meetings. I say this as a person living in a town where they are building a bunch of data centers, and nobody cares about the existing industrial areas which include factories and heavy industry. No protests, no shouting matches at city council meetings. None of that. Granted, those were…

That's a few people, not most people.

Most people don't show up to the data center protests. Most people probably are probably not aware of planned industrial development in the rural north part of my town. Most people probably don't read enough local news to be aware. My general feeling. I haven't done a count, but gut feeling maybe 1% of homes and businesses in my town have "Say NO to Data Centers" signs.
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