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Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

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Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#291

Post by vmchale »

kennywinker wrote: post #146
WarmWash wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eating meat fills my belly. Setting my AC to 68 keeps me cool. A data center costs my community money, damages the environment directly and indirectly, and further enriches a few already rich people. Can you spot the difference?

> A data center costs my community

No one was objecting when pornhub was building out data centers. Anything they like to consume, no matter how frivolous, is accepted as morally better on a metaphysical level.

> further enriches a few already rich people.

Meat eaters damaging the Earth is okay because it's "equal"? 300 million people deciding they're entitled to consume anything they want in ever-increasing quantities is a problem because... there's 300 million of them!

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#292

Post by EdiX »

goatlover wrote: post #198
EdiX wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a big difference between a bunch of servers hosting something people want, like Netflix, and a warehouse full of GPUs running around the clock to make Lobster Jesus or whatever. ChatGPT has been the most downloaded app every month for a year and a half.

That doesn't mean people want LLMs to replace their jobs so they can (hopefully) go on welfare, and to have ever more data enters built with that goal in mind.

They don't want them to replace their job, they want them to replace other peoples jobs.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#293

Post by slowin »

pessimizer wrote: post #238
thegrim33 wrote: post #212

If even on Hacker News a topic like this can't be objectively discussed, what hope do we really have? What is the solution? Even in a place like this, the comments are full of extremist ideology, bickering, people arguing from feelings, people just repeating echo chambers mantras, and a significant portion of the comments are probably from inauthentic/propaganda accounts. We're incapable of just using a place like th…

When you label people who disagree with you ideological extremists, you're part of the problem. They're properly labeled "people who believe things that I don't believe" and they deserve a counterargument rather than a curt dismissal or demand for silencing. If you have the courage of your own beliefs, it should be trivial to offer one. It doesn't even matter if it's AI slop. If AI slop asks a question you can't answ…

Agreed, also with the people claiming foreign influence or fake accounts. I like AI, I use it a lot for work. I do not think people opposed to data centers are under foreign influence. It's pretty obvious why someone wouldn't want a huge building in their neighborhood. It's also pretty obvious to me that we shouldn't be building these heat generating facilitates in places like Phoenix Arizona! There can be discussion for sure, but to accuse people (who are quite frankly taking a pretty obvious and easy to understand position) of being "foreign agents" or "extremists", is just wrong. If anyone is the extremists, it's us, the heavy AI users.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#294

Post by kraquepype »

fourseventy wrote: post #248
kennywinker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating meat fills my belly. Setting my AC to 68 keeps me cool. A data center costs my community money, damages the environment directly and indirectly, and further enriches a few already rich people. Can you spot the difference?

You are posting on a website that is hosted in a data center right now. You use data centers at your job to send email, share documents, run software. When you go home and watch netflix, that video is streamed to you from a data center. All of the internet, your phone, and modern digital entertainment and life is run through data centers. My guess is that you don't seriously want to turn all of that off because 'reas…

We could do all of that before the most recent datacenter build outs.

Existing datacenters at the scale we were used to were just fine for what was expected of them.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#295

Post by Ydarbleoj »

duplessitous wrote: post #110
Groxx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be an issue for the community in the same watershed, as well as being affected by what they do with any waste water. There have been quite a lot of extremely-drawn-out lawsuits about them drawing more than claimed, dumping hot water into streams and damaging the ecosystem, and polluting other water sources by dumping dirty water into drinking water affecting areas. I agree the total usage isn't particularly la…

Agreed, it can. And by reserving that argument for when it is an actual problem, it strengths the overall position > There have been quite a lot of extremely-drawn-out lawsuits about them drawing more than claimed, dumping hot water into streams and damaging the ecosystem, and polluting other water sources by dumping dirty water into drinking water affecting areas. And I support strict EPA guidelines and heavy fees f…

Let's say a DC is being built in my area and I read how in some locations tap water is being polluted by these DCs. Wouldn't it be better to address that before it's built rather than after?

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#296

Post by AnthonyMouse »

everdrive wrote: post #195
mediaman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 I don't understand is why communities want to block the data centers. Noise, pollution, energy costs (which you cover in your comment!) and water usage / contamination. I don't want more of those things. I don't want a bunch of strip malls of golf courses in my community, either.

> Noise, pollution

Both of these are complaints about gas turbines rather than data centers.

Data centers can pretty easily do the opposite by offering to curtail load during energy supply shortfalls, both through region shifting and by temporarily operating backup generators, which allows the grid to add more renewable generation without having intermittency issues, and thereby operate fewer gas turbines.

Obviously you have to actually do it that way, but that's the point -- the focus of noise and pollution concerns should be directed towards how power is being generated.

> water usage / contamination

Do the math on what percentage of any given region's available water is consumed by data centers. Compare this to e.g. agriculture. This one isn't even a plausible concern, it's manufactured outrage.

> energy costs

Energy costs are supply and demand. The econ 101 explanation is generally pretty accurate for supply -- if there isn't enough supply then prices go up. This is why NIMBYs screw everyone (including themselves). If you can't build more of something then you have to pay more for whatever already exists.

Demand is more complicated. Econ 101 usually applies in the immediate term, higher prices don't increase supply instantaneously so an immediate increase in demand tends to create an immediate increase in price. But then you can increase supply, and what does that do?

You now have higher volume, more economies of scale, more units to amortize fixed costs over. The ultimate effect of an increase in demand is usually a reduction in the unit price. The exceptions are the things where supply is highly inelastic, like land (as opposed to housing units), which is not the case with power generation.

Unless NIMBYs or captured regulators are preventing supply from increasing. In which case you should be focused on fixing that.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#297

Post by vmchale »

Ydarbleoj wrote: post #284

These comments are full of the "but you participate in society" fallacy. Data centers can do a thing positively and yet have negative impacts that should be discussed. It's not that hard.

Americans are quite fond of frivolous consumption that damages the environment. People who go apoplectic at the suggestion that they put down the hamburger are part of the problem.

If the our world in data report is correct, "AI" data centers (apparently metaphysically morally inferior to noble pornhub servers) are just a scapegoat: https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-a...

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#298

Post by qzx_pierri »

dwoldrich wrote: post #35

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…

Step 1: Convince the public (voters) that Data Centers are the evil boogeyman

Step 2: Pass laws that will make owning/operating a data center so expensive (regulatory capture…) that only the big players can remain (companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc - who are already in bed with US Intelligence agencies).

General public won’t make a fuss since Data Centers = EVIL. They are destroying the earth. We need more regulations!

Step 3: The big players buy all smaller/independent data centers since they can afford to stick around.

Step 4: Pass laws that ban personal VPN usage.

Step 5: The big players disallow self hosted privacy tools to be run on their infrastructure.

Step 6: CGNAT is made mandatory for all new installations by residential ISPs. The reason?

“Pedophiles are hosting tunneling software from their home! We can’t let them go undetected. Think of the children!”

Step 7: Any hosting will be under the eyes of the big players.

Step 8: The Digital ID system being rolled out on all iPhones (that has a nearly 90% market share for young adults in the USA) will now be required to “Prove you’re not a robot”.

i2p = dead Hyphanet = dead TOR = dead [insert self hosted service] = dead

I’m not saying this will happen overnight. It will take time. This could take years. But I think it can happen. And I’m not happy about it, either.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#299

Post by rpdillon »

Ydarbleoj wrote: post #279
fourseventy wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are posting on a website that is hosted in a data center right now. You use data centers at your job to send email, share documents, run software. When you go home and watch netflix, that video is streamed to you from a data center. All of the internet, your phone, and modern digital entertainment and life is run through data centers. My guess is that you don't seriously want to turn all of that off because 'reas…

You are engaging in the "but you participate in society" fallacy. One can critique systems they are still interacting with, to suggest otherwise is just so incredibly lazy.

Not at all. The post being responded to completely failed to acknowledge any value brought by data centers to the general populous. That's disingenuous. To force the point: run me through the scenario where we turn off all the data centers. Consider how much more water we will have, how much less expensive electricity will be, and what other problems might arise.

Re: Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers

#300

Post by fridder »

dwoldrich wrote: post #35

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…

Amongst other issues, it is a proxy for the angst over AI.
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