141–150 of 535 posts
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of it's a panic, but I'm leaning towards many of the concerns being true or at least partially true due to the sheer scale of the construction. The figures I've been seeing are something like half of all current private construction projects are data center related these days and it's the biggest single sector of construction in terms of money spent. It's also a lot easier to protest data centers then AI compani…
What I don't understand is why communities want to block the data centers. Just make them pay! Your electricity price shouldn't go up because of them. So just make a rate card for data centers that ensures the burden doesn't fall on residents. That's what Oregon started doing, and residents' electricity prices actually started falling, because the fixed costs of energy production were being spread across more kilowat…
The problem is that the towns generally want to spend the money on new stuff rather than give the money back in tax cuts.
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
One HUGE issue is that datacenters don't have an afterlife in the communities where they're located. They add to the Rust Belt once their lifetimes end, contrast this with old brick warehouses which were eventually repurposed as homes and offices. If they were built with a bit of thought around what happens once they depreciate completely and they're abandoned/sold for residual value they wouldn't be as despised. Cur…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We’re building data centers in the U.S. at an unprecedented and increasing rate [1]. Is it so hard to imagine that something which was fine at one scale may begin to cause issues at some massively higher scale? If I drink one glass of wine per day, it’s probably fine. If I drink three bottles per day, I’m gonna start having problems. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/monthly-spending-data-cen...
Yeah, but when we account for that scale, and look at resource usage, datacenters aren't topping the charts, or even really getting in the top 5, for anything. You have people who eat meat at every meal losing their mind over water usage and people who set their AC to 68 panicking over energy usage.
Can you spot the difference?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of it's a panic, but I'm leaning towards many of the concerns being true or at least partially true due to the sheer scale of the construction. The figures I've been seeing are something like half of all current private construction projects are data center related these days and it's the biggest single sector of construction in terms of money spent. It's also a lot easier to protest data centers then AI compani…
What I don't understand is why communities want to block the data centers. Just make them pay! Your electricity price shouldn't go up because of them. So just make a rate card for data centers that ensures the burden doesn't fall on residents. That's what Oregon started doing, and residents' electricity prices actually started falling, because the fixed costs of energy production were being spread across more kilowat…
What kind of question is that? Communities that don't want them?
You think money can fix and buy everything?
Besides, they pay already.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It kind of feels to me like a big element of this is that the social contract in America has broken down. Why should an individual accept any sacrifice whatsoever if all of the profit is going to go to the billionaires who own it? If they do get built and someone suffers an externality, why would they believe that society will do anything to make things right? Basically, I think that the the capitalist class are find…
> Why should an individual accept any sacrifice whatsoever if all of the profit is going to go to the billionaires who own it? At some point, their 401Ks are going to depend on it.
I imagine that things would be dramatically different if most people believed that the success of data centers would directly lead to their economic success.
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
We've never had datacenters with the power density and size of the ones we've been building for ~5yr now. Each datacenter is like 10x 2010s datacenters.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait… large customers move in and your rate goes up? Forget about it. These AI companies could really help themselves by subsidizing local rates. Imagine if a large AI datacenter moved in AND your rate dropped by $70! Everyone would be singing their praises.
> Wait… large customers move in and your rate goes up? demand goes up + supply remains steady = price goes up.
(And the marginal cost on infrastructure isn't necessarily paid be the people increasing the demand)