OpenAI:
Commit to 117% of your datacenter power demand to be supplied by nuclear, wind, and solar, so it arrives the same day (or sooner) than your demand starts.
This isn't that hard.
Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
191–200 of 235 posts
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has no one heard of the concept of industrial zoning? When you live next to an industrial zone you get all the consequences. I love how literally all these projects are on shuttered sites of various plants that were presumably louder and more polluting than these new data centers.
Visit Loudoun County VA and get back to me. Virginia mostly used by-right zoning, which treated data centers like just another office block. The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center. Loudoun recently changed the zoning laws to end by-right development of data centers, but it's a bit too little, too late. Yes, some of those homes predate the data centers. Yes…
Unzoned means industrial. A slaughterhouse is MUCH worse than living next to a data center. If you want it zoned residential only do that.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#193This is a collection of "OpenAI will boldly act in the abstract to provide air coverage for Texas leadership." With data centers under construction one would think they would have examples of successes or projects in progress available for reference. They'd claim credit if they had it so the silence is telling. Big tech has consistently valued profit and growth above good stewardship; the onus is entirely on OpenAI t…
Building stuff is good stewardship. We complain about NIMBYs. But with a few relatively modest regulations data centers can be quite friendly. They don’t generate traffic, congestion, etc. They don’t strain school or police infrastructure. Basically need some noise regulations. But the NIMBYs will kill it.
Data centers would be a benefit if my power bill and property taxes didn’t jump to subsidize the tax breaks my city gave them. I don’t want to pay for infrastructure multi-billion dollar companies should be funding.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#194OpenAI: Commit to 117% of your datacenter power demand to be supplied by nuclear, wind, and solar, so it arrives the same day (or sooner) than your demand starts. This isn't that hard.
Because all these things require a grid, unlike on-site generators. Most grid equipment (specially high voltage transformers) are backordered and all companies have empty inventories. Unlike traditional companies these AI companies are deathly afraid of not getting to AGI first, so they can't wait.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#195Zero commitment to clean power.
I feel your concern/doom, but... It's a letter to texas... Know your audience and all that...
I know it’s cool with the kids to talk down Texas and its folks, but you might be surprised that Texas…
- produces more electricity from wind generation than any other US state.
- consumes more electricity from wind generation than any other US state (3x the next biggest, Iowa).
- has more installed wind generation capacity than any other state.
- energy usage leads all other US states by being comprised of 22% wind generation sources.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#196This letter clearly wasn’t written by AI.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#197OpenAI: Commit to 117% of your datacenter power demand to be supplied by nuclear, wind, and solar, so it arrives the same day (or sooner) than your demand starts. This isn't that hard.
it is not only "that hard", it is impossible
1/ deploying solar takes years to go through multiple layers of environmental review at municipal, state and federal levels
2/ the generator interconnection queue takes 5+ years just to permit new grid connections
3/ building new HVDC has been blocked by permits and right of way laws, which is another barrier to effective solar deployment
4/ there are only two commercial nuclear reactors built in America since 1978, and they each took 10+ years to build
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#198Gotta love how all the companies' platitudes about sustainability become ludicrous as they begin burning natural gas at prodigious scales. But don't worry, "AI will solve climate change" so we can just pump extra CO2 now, right guys? I am deeply, deeply cynical and honestly angry about these companies and their self-righteous protestations of being ethical, or public benefit corporations or whatever. Anthropic is ben…
I think your anger would be better placed with the institutional barriers to building clean energy in America that prevent these infrastructure companies from doing the right thing
transmission via HVDC is extremely difficult to build due to land permitting and right of way laws
grid interconnections take 5+ years just to get approved, let alone built
only 2 nuclear power plants have been built since 1978, each taking over 10 years
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#199If Virginia or Louisiana should profit by this then so be it. Californian land-use laws will have a net effect of -8 house seats against Texas. That is good. It should happen. If Texans will be poorer so Virginians will be richer, that is also good. May the American federal system reign forever. Allowing for states as experiments and letting them suffer their consequences is good. It is a machine for us to iterate on…
Virginia has more power infrastructure in place but said infrastructure is already seeing significant DC build out; I know little about power distribution in Louisiana but would be surprised if there was extensive spare capacity in the transmission lines and generation facilities. I'm surprised that the rust belt hasn't seen more uptake since they had all that manufacturing capacity but the backing power generation/d…
Some of the largest proposed data centers in the US are in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. The electricity infrastructure is important so is cheap natural gas from the Marcellus shale, natural gas pipeline infrastructure and relaxed regulations.
Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is opposing data center construction bad? People need housing, if there isn't enough affordable housing around, then opposing it can be bad. But also people who live there should have a say in what gets built near them, since they have to live with it.
People need infrastructure. Data centers are infrastructure.
The world and its people would continue to thrive if AI data centers magically vanished tomorrow. They are not necessary infrastructure. They're only necessary for wall street right now.