Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 151 posts

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

#71

Post by goda90 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #29
goda90 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part confuses you? The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply? The water, light and noise pollution? The threat to jobs? The threat to truth and transparency? The threat to privacy?

> The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations. The idea that we will from here on just have degrown and decline is insane. I'm not up for that. Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have…

> There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have

There are bounds to the Earth's capacity for our consumption. We won't be prosperous if ecosystems collapse.

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

#72

Post by AnneTrotter »

consensus1 wrote: post #41
consp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Gee, I wonder why people were complaining about that?

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

#73

Post by bewareofscams »

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…

Irony is wasted on the stupid (on @docdeek).

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

#74

Post by budman1 »

digitaltrees wrote: post #63
flanked-evergl wrote: post #4

This degrowth anti-technology mindset just does not make sense to me, and I think it's mostly astroturfed from TikTok.

It’s not degrowth. It’s anti monopoly, anti wealth concentration. Anti tax avoidance. Anti price on water and electricity. Anti raising the ambient temperature of a community. Let’s put the data center in Palo alto or Atherton.

Not being from silicon valley, I am not sure of the communities mentioned.

But may I suggest we put it right next to Zuck's house? How about in SamA's back yard?

They are noisy buildings, designed to turn electricity into heat. And provide a small number of jobs.

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

#75

Post by pjc50 »

Gormo wrote: post #61
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…

I'm seeing a lot of these sorts of articles talking about things like air pollution, but something seems a bit off, given that, to my knowledge, computers do not produce any emissions at all. The article lumps data centers in with landfills, laundromats, and steel mills. But landfills, laundromats, and steel mills all involve physical waste products that can have chemical or biological effects on the surrounding envi…

The specific issue is that because it's a data center, from a company with unlimited money and therefore political power, it's being allowed to skip all the rules about clean generation. The ones in question are building on-side dirty power.

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

#76

Post by budman1 »

goda90 wrote: post #71
flanked-evergl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations. The idea that we will from here on just have degrown and decline is insane. I'm not up for that. Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have…

> There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have There are bounds to the Earth's capacity for our consumption. We won't be prosperous if ecosystems collapse.

Dyson Sphere is the end game. Once you capture and use all of the sunlight hitting the earth, what do you do?

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

#77

Post by AnneTrotter »

Gormo wrote: post #61
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…

I'm seeing a lot of these sorts of articles talking about things like air pollution, but something seems a bit off, given that, to my knowledge, computers do not produce any emissions at all. The article lumps data centers in with landfills, laundromats, and steel mills. But landfills, laundromats, and steel mills all involve physical waste products that can have chemical or biological effects on the surrounding envi…

The data centers described incorporate dedicated power generation into their design. The power generation is fossil fuel based and high-pollution, and is being deployed at scale.

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

#78

Post by bayindirh »

da_chicken wrote: post #43
docdeek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lov…

Apparently when there's value to be extracted, everything else can be dismissed.

Reading these kinds of things make my blood boil, and I'm not someone who gets angry.

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

#80

Post by duskdozer »

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…

Some of these residents will die, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

How many deaths would go from minor to major? How much impact to quality of life that isn't death would there be?

There is already very little to make these projects pay the externality costs; at this point paying enough remediation costs to reduce additional deaths should be the minimum.

Post reply on HN