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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

#181

Post by dantillberg »

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...

> 9 GW puts off a staggering amount of heat.

For comparison, that 40,000 acres receives somewhere on the order of 40 GW solar radiation (averaging over night/day and winter/summer). Box Elder County overall receives something like 3600 GW average. There's a lot of power in that sunshine.

I remember I was surprised to learn that the heat released from burning all these fossil fuels doesn't really impact the temperature of the environment all that much. There's always just so much more radiative energy always going in and out all the time, the heat from the combustion is insignificant (or more specifically: it's quickly balanced out by increased radiative output).

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

#182

Post by hunterpayne »

runtime_terror wrote: post #119
aschla wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a zoning issue the local residents should take up with their town/city.

But isn't the parent post implying objections to datacenters is just "populist brainrot"?

The stated reasons are "populist brainrot". They aren't scientific or based on reality at all. What has happened is the AI folks have made themselves very very disliked. Saying you are going to take everyone's jobs will do that. So whatever they try to do, people will oppose it. It doesn't matter if the reasons are based in reality or not.

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

#183

Post by davkan »

umeshunni wrote: post #136
AuthAuth wrote: post #43

This datacenter stuff is such populist brainrot.

There's a class of people who'll run with it - the same people who were protesting 5G towers 5 years ago.

What? The people against datacenter construction are absolutely not the same as the people freaking out about 5g towers. The latter share circle on the venn diagram with horse paste connoisseurs.

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

#184

Post by ETH_start »

btbuildem wrote: post #31
ETH_start wrote: post #24

AI compute is a major emerging export industry that the U.S. could become the global leader in. Strong First Amendment protections, due process, and limits on arbitrary government control also make the U.S. uniquely well-suited for AI, unlike, let's say, manufacturing, where authoritarian states seem to have an advantage.

> First Amendment protections, due process, and limits on arbitrary government control In what fairytale land does this describe the US today?

The U.S. has much stronger free speech protections than any peer. Have you seen the speech (chat) control laws being instituted in Europe in the last few years?

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

#186

Post by no-name-here »

tptacek wrote: post #159
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…

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…

Is the argument that opposition to, and proposed bans of, data centers are only occurring on sites near dense population centers, as opposed to even covering incredibly low density sites? I'd say data center opposition goes beyond housing opposition as state-wide or even national bans have been proposed.

Many people similarly have a 'rooting interest' against public housing, public transit, even new housing in general in their area, and similarly celebrate when housing, transit, etc. get stopped.

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

#187

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #157
cratermoon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

[deleted]

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

#188

Post by Tanoc »

rcpt wrote: post #112
pesus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem most of the pro-AI people aren't actually affected by any of the negative aspects of it. It's a lot easier to be in favor of something that doesn't actually affect you or anyone you care about.

Most everybody isn't affected by data center build outs.

It appears to be not so much about the datacenters themselves as it is limiting the growth capabilities for the LLMs. From their understanding fewer datacenters means more congestion which means less possibility LLMs can be shoved into more places where the public thinks they are intrusive. Which seems to be everywhere.

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

#190

Post by hunterpayne »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #80
dyauspitr wrote: post #56

Opposition data center is stupid. We need as many data centers as possible. If you actually want to make a difference how about you mandate that they all come with their own solar and battery power packs. When the hell did the left become so regressive?

No one is stopping them from building out their own renewables and if they were doing that while also _fully_ accounting for water usage and any other externalities I don't think there would be much (if any) opposition to them. But that's really expensive so they (by and large) aren't doing that so there's opposition. Seems normal and expected to me.

Then it will be nuclear or natural gas then. Probably natural gas. We price it as a waste product in the US anyway. Should be nuclear but the same type of ill-informed people will be protesting the NPP too.
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