If they invested a token of the budget into making data centers look beautiful that'd probably reduce the push back by like half.
Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
171–180 of 212 posts
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#172Italian here: as the first reading, I thought it was an usual decision against progress and technology.
But reading the article it seems a good sense rule: Lombardy was one of the most industrialized zones of Europe and now is migrating to a post industrial model. This law should force reusing the old and unused industrial spaces instead that wasting space in agricultural areas.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah agriculture is bad for the environment, but at least it feeds us to keep us alive, so we can say it's worth it. Datacenters don't. They don't even create that many jobs like a factory for instance so we can say the mass employment offsets the environmental damage.
Please at least pretend to read the article before posting something like that.
What does the article have to do with the comment I was replying to? I wasn't replying to something from the article, I was replying to something the parent said.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#174if we can tolerate latency for AI data centers why not build them in the middle of nowhere with solar panels, huge battery banks, and fiber connections? What am I missing? It is truly doable now though with sodium batteries. It is more expensive sure but it is doable. We need to not subsidize these data centers first though. These things need to pay their full cost including environmental cost.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea that they raise outdoor temps over a wide area is a myth spread on facebook. The physics doesn't work out.
Just adding a square kilometre of parking lots raises the surrounding temperatures measurably, so I don't see how building a datacenter that size is going to have less impact
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Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#176Datacenters need cheap energy, something no region in Europe is having in abundance (except maybe Norway, Sweden, and Finland). I don't think Lombardy was seeing too much DC construction. It's just typical green politics. Forever backwards. Sure, people feel somewhat AI-fatigued, but blocking the future won't play out nicely for Italy or Europe in general.
As an Italian, I second that this is clearly a populist manoeuvre. Nobody in their sound mind would ever build a big datacentre in Northern Italy, the energy costs are way too expensive. There is no untapped hydro power available, fossil fuel is obviously always going to be more expensive than elsewhere, no nuclear power and you can't roll in a massive solar array with batteries due to how cramped the Po Valley alrea…
The European Data Centre Assocation is expecting the highest growth rate in Europe to be in Milan and Madrid.
"The selection of tier-2 metropolitan areas shows that overall, they are growing faster than market average. Madrid and Milan are clearly taking the lead and are both able to attract the biggest additional investments. It can safely be said that they are on their way to becoming additional tier-1 locations."
https://www.eudca.org/documents/content/ZlZXb4bRSRefaEVqya2I... (downloads a pdf)
> Trust in me
No, because being Italian doesn't mean you know anything about this. Most Italians think the primary Italian exports are mozzarella and tomatoes.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Try Claude Code for a weekend. Maybe that clears up the confusion about how amazing AI can be. You can also take a look at North Korea as an example of a nation that decided the industrial revolution was one to sit out.
I use Claude Code regularly. It's... fine. It makes some things faster. Other things, it needs more manual cleanup or intervention than it's worth.
It's neat, for sure. But not exactly the steam machine.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
You speak of the future as if it were some certain inevitable thing. The future is what we as humans decide it to be. Many humans don't like this vision of the future, where we burn our planet so as to concentrate even more power in the hands of the super wealthy. This is them shaping their own future.
The future doesn't always care about what the majority wishes since not everything is up for debate, like for instance the creation and deployment of nuclear weapons, or whether your neighbor or allies suddenly decide to invade you.
Sure. But what's that got to do with data centers?
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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OOC, which past exactly do you want to go back to (and presumably stay at)?
I don’t want to go back to the past, I want to go toward a future that looks good and fair for regular people. Technology doesn’t provide some divine mandate to build whatever will make the owners more money with no regard for people or the planet.
Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The future doesn't always care about what the majority wishes since not everything is up for debate, like for instance the creation and deployment of nuclear weapons, or whether your neighbor or allies suddenly decide to invade you.
Sure. But what's that got to do with data centers?
Was your comment on "will of the people" only about data centers or in general?