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U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

tomshardware.com

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Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#41

Post by consensus1 »

consp wrote: post #8
internet_points wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pecva.org/wp-content/uploads/Health-Impacts-Vant... the report > Based on Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) air permit No. 74242, the facility is authorized to operate eight natural-gas simple-cycle turbines and more than fifty diesel generators, including emergency and black-start units

So it is a low efficiency power station with some servers attached to it.

People complain when you hook them up to the high efficiency generators that power the grid, so this is what they get.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#42

Post by unrented7977 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #33
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the luddites got all their ideas from TikTok aye? At least were not at this point yet: "Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the Luddites were suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddites

"The luddites were right" seems like an odd position to have on HN.

The vast majority of people who think the Luddites were wrong have no idea what they actually stood for

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#43

Post by da_chicken »

docdeek wrote: post #12
vintagedave wrote: post #2

> The latest proposal applies to permits for a "minor source" of air pollution ... [the Vantage data center was estimated to contribute] between $53 million and $99 million in annual health damages, the largest estimate for any single facility ever. 'The largest estimate for any single facility ever.' 'Minor source.' I give you double-speak, gentlefolks of HN. Name it something - anything - and you frame it in those…

FTA: 'The largest estimate for any single facility ever.' From the researcher: 'We estimated between $53 million and $99 million in annual health damages from associated air pollution — among the largest health-damage estimates produced for a single facility to date.' [0] Still enormous, but there is a significant difference between being 'THE X of all time, and being 'among the X of all time'. Regarding 'minor sourc…

> Regarding 'minor source', in this case the expected additional premature deaths in the research range from 3.4 to 6.5 annually. [1] At the same time, air pollution leads to about 100,000 deaths a year in the US. While tragic at an individual level, adding 0.006% to the annual premature death count is fairly minor, just as reducing the deaths to 999,994 would be considered a pretty minor fix to the issue.

I just love the irony of being absurdly callous and dismissive of human life while also getting the basic math wrong.

Nevermind that the 100,000 figure is across the nation of 300 million and includes things like automotive exhaust, while the other number is likely to be borne by that one specific community. Indeed, if you look at the study[0] your article cites -- which is looking at what we should be working on reducing -- industrial deaths are under 30,000, and electrical are around 10,000. So below half of your figure.

[0]: https://pubs.acs.org/estlcu/article/7/9/639/504911/Reducing-...

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#44

Post by vrganj »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #38
vrganj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East, there will be more once rivers start drying up and hydropower becomes unreliable or nuclear power plants can no longer be cooled. > Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plan…

> That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity. The US could scale electricity production at least 100 times without needing to import anything from the Middle East. > there will be more once rivers start drying up Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.

> The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity.

And yet, reserves are at historic lows. Markets are weird, huh?

> Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.

That wasn't the claim made, rivers will be drying up because of climate change (they are already!), which is a threat to energy supply. Data centers will accelerate said climate change, but that's not even relevant to disprove your previous assertion of regulation being the only factor.

I'll also note you still haven't justified your core ideological assertion you tried smuggling in earlier in any way.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#45

Post by Zambyte »

vrganj wrote: post #31
XorNot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you running at home, out of interest? While I cautiously circle the AI programming concept, one thing close to my mind has definitely been whether the ultimately cloud-tied nature of it is what makes me much more stand offish to it.

Not the parent, but I'm enjoying Qwen 3.8 27B on my Strix Halo machine.

Also running Qwen 3.8 27b, on a 7900 XTX. I've been able to comfortably do a large majority of my programming locally since about Qwen 3.5.

I also use pi.dev as my agent harness, and ollama as my inference engine. Though I've been considering switching out the latter for something else, since the main advantage of ollama is the ease of switching models, which I don't really do often anymore.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#46

Post by nonethewiser »

Zambyte wrote: post #24

It seems like there will be a collapse in building data centers, to the point that a large amount of the newly built ones will be reclaimed for other things. There is a very large group of people who are against building new data centers because they hate AI (and any pollution related arguments these people make are in support of their primary concern, being AI). But on the flip side of that, even people that I know…

How is anti pollution argument pro ai?

And even if you do inference at home you are not training the models. Moreover, most people certainly are not doing inference locally.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#47

Post by cindyllm »

alex43578 wrote: post #37
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the luddites got all their ideas from TikTok aye? At least were not at this point yet: "Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the Luddites were suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddites

People have often resisted progress of all sorts, particularly if they feel it threatens their position or erodes their sense of superiority.

[dead]

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#48

Post by consensus1 »

Avicebron wrote: post #10
feverzsj wrote: post #3

It doesn't matter, as long as officials are still elected by locals.

Right? These people approvinf these projects are still living in the communities they are damaging

And this doesn't make you question the narrative that they are really damaging anything?

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#49

Post by ropbear »

docdeek wrote: post #12
vintagedave wrote: post #2

> The latest proposal applies to permits for a "minor source" of air pollution ... [the Vantage data center was estimated to contribute] between $53 million and $99 million in annual health damages, the largest estimate for any single facility ever. 'The largest estimate for any single facility ever.' 'Minor source.' I give you double-speak, gentlefolks of HN. Name it something - anything - and you frame it in those…

FTA: 'The largest estimate for any single facility ever.' From the researcher: 'We estimated between $53 million and $99 million in annual health damages from associated air pollution — among the largest health-damage estimates produced for a single facility to date.' [0] Still enormous, but there is a significant difference between being 'THE X of all time, and being 'among the X of all time'. Regarding 'minor sourc…

And this reasoning is exactly how we got here in the first place.

“It’s not that bad, just a little bad, so it’s okay”

We’re talking about air pollution and death rates, not financial risk.

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