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The moral panic over data centres is foolish

economist.com

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Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#91

Post by andsoitis »

Kodiack wrote: post #19
jpgvm wrote: post #6

NIMBYs are the enemy of all that is good in the world. No datacenters isn't about AI or even resources like water or power, it's mostly about real-estate and housing prices as usual. If we listened to NIMBYs we would have no new infrastructure, no high density housing, no public transport.... oh wait.

Noise and air pollution are valid concerns with a lot of these datacentres being built as well. Some of these recent datacentres have been built close to residential areas, and the health harms are far more worrying than the property valuations IMO.

Don't build them next to homes. But don't NOT build them.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#92

Post by milkshakes »

ok123456 wrote: post #86
bloaf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people really cared about water usage, they'd be trying to shut down golf courses instead of data centers.

People have. That's a common objection to golf courses. The difference here is that data centers are both economically and environmentally extractive. People in the community, or at least in the surrounding area, will play golf there. Data centers are purely extractive, and that's why they have become so galvanizing. It's transferring probably the only real asset these communities have left, their open spaces, direct…

> data centers are purely extractive

please, tell me more

> people in the community, or at least in the surrounding area, will play golf there

going to go out on a limb here and guess that net-net, a datacenter provides more benefits to a broader spectrum of society than a golf course does.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#93

Post by bloaf »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #76
bloaf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people really cared about water usage, they'd be trying to shut down golf courses instead of data centers.

There has been tons of reported frustration with golf courses in the past. So, yes, people have, and it's pretty consistent here as well.

I've not seen a single politician calling for statewide bans on golf courses.

Its pretty obvious here that people decided datacenters were bad first, then went looking for justifications second.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#94

Post by tolerance »

hypfer wrote: post #83
tolerance wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this your first time reading The Economist?

Not that, but the first time paying attention to these details, as previously, I saw no need to do so based on what I've read.

That's not good.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#95

Post by frustratedlazy »

goldenarm wrote: post #65

The article dismisses everything without sourcing anything. US electricity is 40% more expensive since 2022 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 Some AI datacenters can indeed be heard a mile away https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/28/datacenters-... Amazon's new Texas AI data center could become the biggest CO2 polluter in the US https://www.techradar.com/pro/amazons-new-texas-ai-data-cent...

FYI - EIA has analysis on the energy increase - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284

Relative to data center growth, the correlation doesn't match - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/monthly-spending-data-cen...

More analysis here - https://www.wri.org/insights/whats-driving-us-electricity-pr...

But TL;DR - sounds like in the northeast / PJM it's load increases, in North Dakota increased load is causing drops in prices, California it's mostly from wildfire mitigation + insurance, natural gas oscillating across the US is causing price changes as well.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#96

Post by measurablefunc »

Sharlin wrote: post #36
measurablefunc wrote: post #9

The banks will continue financing their construction so it doesn't matter how much people morally panic about it unless it becomes illegal to sell corporate bonds to banks they (Microsoft, Google, Oracle, etc) will continue building data centers.

There's this thing called zoning.

What about it? Data centers are not built in residential zones.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#97

Post by lbriner »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #51
bloaf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the anti-data-center rhetoric is "windmills kill birds" or "dihydrogen monoxide" style fearmongering, not an actual debate.

No, it’s everyone watched the More Perfect Union video, saw sludge coming out of their faucets and low decibel hums ruining sleep, and decided to fight when peasants aren’t allowed to fight. Between this and Flock Cameras, tech isn’t making themselves the noble savior on a white horse and being a good neighbor when moving in.

Clearly, it's both. Surely tech has a bad image and Flock does whatever they've done, but just because "one data center caused sludge" nowhere near equals "all data centres cause sludge", which is the implication from a lot of the anti-tech influencers. It's like saying, "data centers consume vast amounts of water" which, of course, is sometimes true but also sometimes not true at all. Data centres don't create many ongoing jobs, true but so what? Don't build anything that doesn't provide jobs?

People like my dad with no technical knowledge at all read an article in some rage-bait newspaper and it must be true (like foreigners took all your jobs, and the left-wing government wants to tax all your money and give it to scroungers).

If people are not taught how to ask "how often is this true" or "how much is this true" or "will this always be true", then they will fear whatever they are told to fear.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#98

Post by bayindirh »

jedberg wrote: post #75
shadedtriangle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep trying to educate them how? By your own admission data centers: * use a lot of water to build one * the power is a problem * the noise is an issue * the power is coming from non-green sources * the government could “easily” fix all this with regulations

Trying to educate them that water and power usage are the less problematic parts and not as bad as everyone thinks. It's the noise and lack of green power that are the problems.

Can you please provide us the details how much water an open-air, evaporative cooling system loses due to evaporation and other system-wide losses?

Also can you tell us which chemicals need to be added to the outer and inner loops of the systems, and do the inner loop has the same losses or it is different.

If there's water loss into the ground, and if the water is treated with chemicals, is it required or is it in fact treated to remove these chemicals so the used water can be reused for livestock, agriculture, or non-consumable use in the cities like for watering greenery or other processes which needs water but can accept non-potable variety.

I also heard that there's a closed loop version for outer loop. Is it used widely in US, if yes, what percentage of the large datacenters use it? Because as I heard it, it's more expensive, but doesn't lose water as much.

Adding some references if possible is greatly appreciated so we can dive deeper, as the community.

Same is also valid for power usage metrics. I'm especially interested in how a datacenter full of 800VDC systems (aka Megawatt Rack) can be fed without any difficulty with our current power generation and transfer infra.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#99

Post by goldenarm »

frustratedlazy wrote: post #95
goldenarm wrote: post #65

The article dismisses everything without sourcing anything. US electricity is 40% more expensive since 2022 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 Some AI datacenters can indeed be heard a mile away https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/28/datacenters-... Amazon's new Texas AI data center could become the biggest CO2 polluter in the US https://www.techradar.com/pro/amazons-new-texas-ai-data-cent...

FYI - EIA has analysis on the energy increase - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 Relative to data center growth, the correlation doesn't match - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/monthly-spending-data-cen... More analysis here - https://www.wri.org/insights/whats-driving-us-electricity-pr... But TL;DR - sounds like in the northeast / PJM it's load increases, in North Dakota increased load is cau…

Thank you, your comment was more informative than the economist article

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#100

Post by milkshakes »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #78

I think the hatred towards the data centers stems from the anger and frustration that has been caused by the white collar job replacement done by AI. We have an entire generation of young people that went to college and got a degree hoping that they would be able to get a good job and live a comfortable life. However, that's not the case anymore and the fact that almost all entry level jobs are replaced by AI has cre…

> The problem is not that AI is evil, but most of the people would have to learn new skills and adapt because the profession or job they trained at college doesn't exists anymore.

isn't the problem then capitalism? the promise of AI is to deliver efficiencies, leverage, and consequent surplus. AI does not itself allocate the surplus.

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