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Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

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Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#151

Post by petre »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #89
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

Unfortunately the entire situation is quite confusing because in addition to spanning a wide range of geographies and local utility situations there's also a wide variance in the care taken by the different players. For example I was surprised to learn of a recent ~300 MW buildout with entirely closed loop cooling (I had erroneously believed all cooling at that scale to be evaporative). Meanwhile we've got whatever x…

The heat has to go somewhere and that is the environment. 300 MWh is enough energy to boil over 3k metric tons of water. That's 107 medium fuel trucks for perspective.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#152

Post by cootsnuck »

cratermoon wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

[flagged]

It seems fairly likely that a comically gargantuan data center like Stratos would endanger the surrounding ecosystem, at a minimum.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/utahs-dat...

But I also think there's very little chance that they even get 1 GW up and running anytime soon, and less than 3 GW before the whole thing gets scrapped (just like plenty of the other hyperscale data center projects that keep getting shouted about).

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#153

Post by bdangubic »

taybin wrote: post #148
no-name-here wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. That seems very untrue - multiple areas have already banned data centers, and senators like Bernie Sanders have proposed stopping data centers nationwide. This is just the next phase of NIMBY-ism. Alternatively, source that the "data centers the industry wants are all going to get built"? > I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building t…

Bernie Sanders proposes a lot of things that are never implemented. I’m not sure his support is actually a useful signal of greater support.

it is (unfortunately) quite the opposite, if you see what he supports there is a high likelyhood of that not happening.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#154

Post by cootsnuck »

smegma2 wrote: post #147
cratermoon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What ecosystem is it endangering? Is using the land a problem? Utah has 10.5 million acres of farmland that I would think has some impact on the ecosystem too, should we stop doing that too?

Heat. 9 GW puts off a staggering amount of heat. In an already arid environment. What's the worst that can happen?

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/utahs-dat...

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#155

Post by hunterpayne »

petre wrote: post #151
fc417fc802 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the entire situation is quite confusing because in addition to spanning a wide range of geographies and local utility situations there's also a wide variance in the care taken by the different players. For example I was surprised to learn of a recent ~300 MW buildout with entirely closed loop cooling (I had erroneously believed all cooling at that scale to be evaporative). Meanwhile we've got whatever x…

The heat has to go somewhere and that is the environment. 300 MWh is enough energy to boil over 3k metric tons of water. That's 107 medium fuel trucks for perspective.

Luckily AI data centers produce nowhere near that amount of heat. Remember the heat is waste and 300 MWh is the total draw. Some of that energy becomes heat. That ratio is somewhere like 100:1 though. Also, the waste water is only like 10F hotter than the intake. We build GW sized PP all the time and they will leak far more heat (as like on the order of 100x) than a 300 MWh AI data center. Thought there were supposed to be engineers on this site.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#156

Post by defrost »

bblb wrote: post #150
testfoobar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any individual layoff is truly awful. But at the macro level, it is not really a big number so far. From ~2.48 million in 2023 to ~2.37million now. Or a 5% drop in employment in 3 years. Fred: All Employees, Computer Systems Design and Related Services (CES6054150001) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001

Interesting stats to look at. Is "Telecommunications" the only tech that's actually been steadily automating it's workforce since 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051700001 edit: or is "Telecommunications" the old school landlines and such, and this is just the effect of the Internet

"Telecommunications" would have to, by any reasonable standard, include Telephonic Communications and the vast switching networks for voice.

Clearly that's a domain that has been automating at the very least since the human operated plug and board switching centres with human operators that answered phones and hand routed calls left the network centres.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#157

Post by tptacek »

cratermoon wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

[flagged]

I really think advocating against building data centers in Box Elder County Utah kind of gives away the whole game here. The impact logic is so clearly motivated.

Have you ever been there? Or even near there? Like, driven from San Francisco to the East Coast at one point? It's a literal wasteland. It is like being on the moon.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#158

Post by mmmeff »

cootsnuck wrote: post #154
smegma2 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ecosystem is it endangering? Is using the land a problem? Utah has 10.5 million acres of farmland that I would think has some impact on the ecosystem too, should we stop doing that too?

Heat. 9 GW puts off a staggering amount of heat. In an already arid environment. What's the worst that can happen? https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/utahs-dat...

You're right, we should build it in a third world country instead!

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#159

Post by tptacek »

no-name-here wrote: post #127
tptacek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it that way at all, but then I'm a housing activist, and I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building than to some of these data centers. People just like opposing development. It's very satisfying! When I see a protest over a golf course opening, I'll take data center water use concerns seriously. The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. People are being hypnotized…

> The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. That seems very untrue - multiple areas have already banned data centers, and senators like Bernie Sanders have proposed stopping data centers nationwide. This is just the next phase of NIMBY-ism. Alternatively, source that the "data centers the industry wants are all going to get built"? > I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building t…

Of course multiple areas have already banned data centers. So what? The United States is absolutely enormous. Data center buildout --- especially for AI training --- has a much easier problem than housing does. Housing needs to be built near centers of economic activity, which means that every marginal unit of housing is likely to be infill and has to pass muster with relatively dense neighborhoods of people who hate development. Data centers tend to be sited in underutilized industrial tracts. There are lots of those around the country.

I feel like what's obviously happening here is that people have a rooting interest against AI, and highly-publicized pushes against "AI data centers" in specific areas are simply sparking joy for people.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#160

Post by tptacek »

kennywinker wrote: post #133
cryptoegorophy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If water is the problem then why are we ignoring how much water beef needs? If we measure per person use it is hundreds times more than data center usage in comparison if we measure in per person consumption

Beef uses water, but you can eat beef. Ai uses water, but you can’t eat ai. Can you see the difference?

No, that logic does not make any sense whatsoever.
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