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'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

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Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#171

Post by bothers »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #109
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the good old "outside agitators" canard. > These new AI data centers are now built with their own power generation capacity And now you've got all the noise and pollution from that to deal with.

Some of the data centers build out solar, most are natural gas turbines. The outside agitators are in the news. The U.S. just happens to be a little more vulnerable to "straight to the people" propaganda campaigns.

Propaganda, which the largest corporations on earth, including news media behemoths, would never, ever stoop to. Right?

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#172

Post by bothers »

gruez wrote: post #128
bothers wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of those can be addressed by proper regulation. No it can't. Regulation is already being flouted. > Banning them outright is the equivalent of banning all immigration Please be less obvious, this is just insulting.

>No it can't. Regulation is already being flouted. So regulations to ban datacenters work, but for some reason regulations to ban gas turbines or whatever doesn't work? >Please be less obvious, this is just insulting. Please be less obvious. You failing to rebut my argument and resorting to calling it "just insulting" is insulting.

> So regulations to ban datacenters work

Yes, as we see here.

> regulations to ban gas turbines or whatever doesn't work?

Yes, as we've seen elsewhere.

Anything else you're not clear on?

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#173

Post by bothers »

simondotau wrote: post #110
doublepg23 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Data centres are hardly new A commenter below quotes a 73% annual growth rate vs. 23% over the prior decade. You don't think that'd have an effect on people's perception?

Perception, absolutely yes.

Damn their lying eyes!

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#174

Post by autoexec »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #164
autoexec wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of one amazon data center the town already had nitrates in their water due to agricultural runoff, but at levels that weren't a problem. Amazon took in hundreds of millions of gallons of that water for cooling, which evaporated away some of the water, but left the nitrates. Then amazon dumped the concentrated nitrate 'waste water' at such high volumes that it was pushed so deep into ground that it reached…

This doesn't even make any sense. "deeper in the ground" is mostly wishful thinking. Why wouldn't the contamination spread? How can anyone be sure there is even potable water deeper?

With regular rainfall/usage the nitrates don't get far enough down to reach the aquifer. The nitrates get filtered naturally and remain in upper layers of the soil. Amazon concentrated the contamination and drove it far enough down that it reached and contaminated the aquifer, but below that the father down you dig and pull up water the less contaminated it will be. Part of the settlement is a fund for digging new private wells deep enough that the water contamination is under legal limits. I guess if there's no clean water below the contamination they'll have to stop using wells entirely and depend on treated water from the contaminated source.

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#175

Post by insane_dreamer »

inferniac wrote: post #74
doublepg23 wrote: post #73

Many things divide us here: Wawa or Sheetz; cheesesteaks or pierogi; Eagles or Steelers; but I very glad we could come together on this.

why? data center opposition is just morons who don't know what they're talking about 99% of the time

I oppose AI data centers the way they are being rolled out (which is not the same as I'm against data centers as a concept). Just like I'm anti "AI as it is being pushed", not against AI as a technology.

I'm not a moron. I do know what I'm talking about most of the time.

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#176

Post by leonidasrup »

triceratops wrote: post #142
leonidasrup wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many places the contraty is true, peak electricity prices are after sunset, during night.

> peak electricity prices are after sunset The famous evening duck curve, when people go home and cook and turn on heating/cooling appliances. California is able to flatten that out with batteries alone. https://eticaag.com/battery-storage-and-the-duck-curve-march... > during night When everyone's asleep? Serious doubt, please show your sources.

> When everyone's asleep? Serious doubt, please show your sources.

Lot of industry, especialy heavy industry, chemical plants are running 24/7.

For expensive night prices see electricity prices in Europe, expensive natural gas, coal power production with carbom tax.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#177

Post by unknownfuture »

estearum wrote: post #150
shepherdjerred wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you get to choose what is and isn’t legitimate?

Well "you" don't "get to", but this is precisely why we made the concept "states" and use "state power" to counteract other natural modalities of power. Which is being demonstrated by the use of state power to kill data center development.

Yeah but it's all Chinese propaganda so it doesn't count this time. /s

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#178

Post by unknownfuture »

semiquaver wrote: post #78
MatekCopatek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are you getting at? Datacenters do use potable water from municipal sources for evaporative cooling. Are you claiming that's not true? Here's a recent source: https://pacinst.org/publication/how-much-water-do-data-cente...

golf courses use much more. But you don’t see massive resistance against new golf courses being planned. Farms use an order of magnitude more than either. You don’t see any demands whatsoever on agriculture to reduce water usage.

Sure. Those should be addressed, too.

The difference is they already exist while the datacenters don't. And its a lot easier, in a democracy, to stop a thing from being built in the first place than to tear it down after the fact, what with pesky laws about private property and so forth.

Or are you really saying that if we can't solve all water usage problems then we shouldn't solve or prevent any? Is that what you're suggesting?

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#179

Post by convolvatron »

muddi900 wrote: post #158
convolvatron wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we can probably generalize and say that anything that's a culture war issue has become disconnected with useful actionable reality.

This is not a culture war issue. And there are people posting real data ITT.

it certainly seems to be. if it were just a matter of noise, or discharging contaminated water, or waste gasses we're supposed to have rules for these things. any facility that does these things is supposed to adhere to them.

so the issue isn't about data centers at all, but the fact that we've decided to stop enforcing even minimal environmental standards.

water consumption is another one, we just haven't done a very good of realizing that its a limited resource and trying to manage it.

the other is raising electrical rates. it should just be a real problem to raise rates to pay for Capex for other non-residential customers.

those are all real issues. 'people are going to get screwed' is a culture war thing, particularly if their opinion seems to be against environmental regulation as a matter of course. if a data center isn't noisy and polluting, and doesn't impact water or electrical consumption, then there is no sane reason to be against it. there are data centers that use close loop cooling. there are those that don't effect your rates. there are ones that are not really close to residences.

Re: 'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

#180

Post by ratelimitsteve »

lordgilman wrote: post #123
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>your evidence for increasing energy prices it's my power bill, dude. and everyone else's around me. your paper stops measuring that data right at the time when everyone's bills started increasing sharply.

There's a global market for energy. What you see at the pump translates into electricity prices in a slow and grinding process. Remember that most of our electricity is not generated from renewable sources! Three years ago Russia invaded Ukraine, that pushed up fuel prices and electricity prices have followed. Now, we have the Iran war and that will push up electricity prices even more. The issue here is that you do…

I was asked for evidence that energy prices have increased. I provided that. Now you're shifting the goalposts to ask for evidence that the increase in energy prices is solely due to data center demand, pretending you've proven that an increase in demand somehow didn't lead to an increase in prices, then retreating to "you don't understand markets" as a vague defense of your idea that increased demand doesn't drive prices up.
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