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Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

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Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#241

Post by packetlost »

dguest wrote: post #39

I'd like to hear the argument for why this is needed. I can imagine a number of reasons, but this is all I found in the article: > If I’m a company considering making strategic investments... I don’t want my competition to know where I’m going, what I’m doing, what pace I’m doing it at... You want to make sure everything is buttoned up and bow tied before that type of information is put into the public realm. I'm hav…

This stuff is happening like 10 miles away from where I live and there's absolutely a ton of local pushback, mostly justified, but there's also a lot of propaganda. The pushback in DeForest, in particular, got a ton of attention on local subreddits and facebook groups and had a ton of drama at city counsel meetings. People do not want these datacenters here.

I'd be willing to bet it's largely driven by NIMBY concerns as this type of stuff can end small-time political careers.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#242

Post by buellerbueller »

bell-cot wrote: post #227
buellerbueller wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough shit, Mickey D's, that's the cost of doing business.

Smallville is entitled to a no-exceptions policy. OTOH, if Smallville seems too unfriendly to developers, the latter may decide to build outside the city limits. Which might become a problem over time, by holding down Smallville's commercial tax base. Forcing the voting citizen to make unhappy choices between high taxes on their own homes, and Smallville having too little money to afford nice things that they want.

If McD builds outside of Smallville, they don't get any of the services that Smallville taxes subsidize. Smallville taxes serve Smallvillians, not corporate villains.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#243

Post by parpfish »

infecto wrote: post #22
parpfish wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do data centers create that many jobs? Especially if you break it down by jobs per sqft, I can’t imagine it compares well to any other type of industrial development

They bring in temporary construction jobs but once running they provide no meaningful jobs.

If we just want to front load a bunch of construction jobs, I vote for some megalithic stone structures.

Let’s give something to the archeologists 5,000 years in the future.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#244

Post by coryrc »

triceratops wrote: post #170
Throaway1982 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? It's my understanding that cooling an AI data centre takes massive amounts of water. Agriculture may be worse but no one is saying they want that either.

Agriculture ships water away in the form of crops. It loses water from evaporation. I think data centers use closed-loop cooling. They use water but they don't lose it.

They use evaporative cooling towers because you need far fewer of them. The evaporating water can be separate from the main cooling loop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower#Heat_transfer_me...

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#245

Post by kakacik »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #149
croes wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as they are currently implemented

As they are currently implemented, I get daily value from them.

At what cost? See discussion here. And who bears the burden of that cost?

Sure you can look away from child labor providing you the latest iphones or lithium mines for the same or electric cars destroying pristine tropical jungles and entire ecosystems, many folks do so very comfortably. Then some others don't.

Different moral values and such.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#246

Post by buellerbueller »

petcat wrote: post #95
buellerbueller wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Municipalities should not be bidding on corporate benefaction; this is exactly the opposite of how the relationship between the public and private sector should be.

> the municipality could just say that they don't want the project and they won't submit a bid. That's fine too.

The submitting of corporate largess to multiple government entities for bids is (imo) a de facto hostile act, and should be treated as such.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#247

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

dguest wrote: post #215
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is that the sellers can ratchet up their asking price if a deep pocketed buyer is known. Walt Disney used a bunch of shell companies to buy up land in Florida. If property owners knew he was buying, they'd ask for much more.

I think it's equal parts "who" and "how much". If Walt Disney wants to buy a bunch of random houses in Florida I think most people would sell them for market price. But if they all know that their specific house is an essential part of a multi-billion dollar plan, you're liable to have holdouts.

> you're liable to have holdouts

That's what happened after his shell companies were exposed.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#248

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

PTOB wrote: post #239

Things like this have had me scratching my head for decades. Why would local governments annex property, upgrade utilities, and build new roads without moving that burden to the entities driving those things? They routinely do this for new residential developments in many jurisdictions, refusing to annex subdivisions until the residents have paid for the utilities and roads. There seems to be no reason that the curre…

because these entities have lots of money to pay people to convince local government that they should let them build their misery factories within their jurisdictions for "muh tax revenue" (that is paltry because corporate taxes end up being cut in the race to attract these vampires) and "muh jobs" (that usually dry up once the current thing in {industry} dies and the communities get left with the refuse. see also: the fracking and natural gas boom from ~20 years ago in the rust belt and the midwest).

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#249

Post by leptons »

cobolcomesback wrote: post #79
phkahler wrote: post #24

There is an obvious question I don't see anyone asking. Why do these data centers have to be built in every state? I guarantee it's not to run LLMs.

It’s to run LLMs. In the before-AI world, it mattered a lot where data centers were geographically located. They needed to be in the same general location as population centers for latency reasons, and they needed to be in an area that was near major fiber hubs (with multiple connections and providers) for connectivity and failover. They also needed cheap power. This means there’s only a few ideal locations in the US…

>Oregon for example also has cheap power and water.

Cheap for who? For the companies having billions upon billions of dollars shoved into their pockets while still managing to lose all that money?

Power won't be cheap after the datacenters move in. Then the price of power goes up for everyone, including the residents who lived there before the datacenter was built. The "AI" companies won't care, they'll just do another round of funding.

https://www.axios.com/2025/08/29/electric-power-bill-costs-a...

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#250

Post by tart-lemonade »

xborns wrote: post #132

I live near one of these projects by chance. It seemed like back door deals for land which some happened to be sold by a former Oracle exec then magically the tax district approved unanimously by For extra fun today the WI Realtors Association and other groups are suing the city to stop an upcoming vote from an accepted petition that forced approving projects over tax financed projects $10 million dollars get voter a…

A $500m TIF district for a city that takes in $10m annually and holds <$100m in assets? I've seen some really dumb uses for TIFs before but this might just take the cake.
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