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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

#81

Post by Sharlin »

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…

If building a data center essentially necessitates building more fossil fuel plants (and/or indeed comes with its own gas and diesel generators because the grid could not handle the extra load, plus generating their own dirty electricity is cheaper for the megacorp because a corrupt govt allows them to externalize costs), the extra emissions are obviously caused by the data center. No matter whether it could maybe in the future run on renewables instead.

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

#82

Post by AnneTrotter »

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.

How is this degrowth? Individuals who had a nice neighborhood now living next to the noise and pollution equivalent of an airport running 24/7 have a point that it sucks. Households complaining that their power flow is getting cut off but the data center isn't have a point. People whose water sources are carefully measured due to drought and loss of replenishment being worried have a point.

Growth can be done carefully and well, or it can be cancer. The current data center boom is not being done carefully and well. How you do things matters a lot.

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

#83

Post by defrost »

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…

There's a surge in data centre building - a massive surge of power hungry hungry hyper scaled hippos.

Many local grids are currently unable to meet that demand, therefore various "solutions" so far include:

* buying up jet engines from COVID era bankrupted / downsized air fleets and running them continuously in banks along side data centres to spin generators.

You'll note these aren't the cleanest solution, are a bit noisy, and not renewable.

* building a data centre AND and onsite LNG gas extraction facility to directly on site gas supply and derived electrical power.

This one is expected to be the single largest CO2 source in mainland USofA (or some similar stat, it was recent news).

So these are fossil fuel polluting sources that are directly attached to specific data centres and not being used for non data centre purposes.

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

#85

Post by fikama »

oefrha wrote: post #11

What I don’t understand is that the vast majority of LLM workloads are pretty damn latency-insensitive. Why can’t they build these data centers where there’s little to no opposition? Sure someone will need to maintain the data centers, but with trillions in investment lined up, surely they can just pay people enough so they’re okay with living in the middle of nowhere. Edit: When I say the middle of nowhere I mean sa…

There is a bunch of relativly big cities even in the arctic circle.

Murmansk (population 295,374) Russia; Norilsk (178,018) in Russia; Tromsø (75,638) in Norway; Vorkuta (58,133) in Russia; Bodø (52,357) Norway; Harstad (24,703) in Norway; Kiruna, Sweden (22,841)

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

#86

Post by ButlerianJihad »

goda90 wrote: post #9
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.

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?

> stable and affordable electricity and water supply

Look, I think you misspelled "demand" there. It's an understandable error; those keys are so close together.

Data centers present a demand on resources. A demand that wasn't there previously. You hook a DC up to the grid, and it will demand more electricity from existing generation capability. The DC proposals, without provision for their own generation, present extra demand.

So yeah, unless the supply of those resources can be commensurately increased in some way, the DCs will present extra demand on what we already have, and that means someone, somewhere, will have less available.

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

#88

Post by bamboozled »

Zambyte wrote: post #59
nonethewiser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> How is anti pollution argument pro ai? What? (Edit: I think you misread "in support of their primary concern, being AI" as "in support of AI"? People who complain about pollution are usually mostly concerned about AI, and they use arguments of pollution to strengthen their argument against AI related things.) > And even if you do inference at home you are not training the models. No, and training does use a large a…

It’s wild to accuse people who are anti pollution of being anti ai, look how fucked the climate is, people don’t want to see it more fucked , is that hard to understand ?

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

#89

Post by justin66 »

budman1 wrote: post #67
ModernMech wrote: post #5

It’s funny as Greg Abbott says the data center industry did this to themselves and people’s complaints are justified; the feds say it’s “paid protestors”, the same way they say any protests are inorganic paid leftist agitators. Meanwhile “real” American patriots know data centers make America great, and can’t wait to have one built down the road.

Data Centers is the only time in my memory that Greg Abbott has even thought about listening to citizen concerns. And of course, when the citizens selling THC beverages were concerned about the legislature making the product illegal. Me thinks the Data Center people have been stingy with the checkbook.

I saw a photo of him sitting down in a very concerned about data centers interview and the thing that struck me was that his wheelchair was visible. This represents a change in his style. (if he thinks it's going to make him more sympathetic to the average person I'd cynically say that's probably true, since he's starting from zero...)

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

#90

Post by inglor_cz »

NishanStepak wrote: post #51

Many data centers will move north into the Nordic countries where the climate is colder and there is a lot of hydroelectric and wind power. Canada and the Nordic countries will end up building a lot of data centers in remote areas where they are less visible. At the same time, the more the US government acts to support data centers, the greater the reaction will be against them. It is the classic situation where the…

The question is who will service massive data centers in northern Québec or Norwegian mountains in winter.

They will have to be robotized to a large degree. And the few humans necessary will have to be very well paid. The social cost is real.

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