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Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

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Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#271

Post by deepsun »

eagleinparadise wrote: post #153
throwaway2037 wrote: post #107

If anyone is curious, from the photograph in the article, I have geolocated the existing business park property here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kYyHuEWcAZkrypWa7 The whole area is (1) office parks (including large parking lots), (2) warehouses/light manuf'ing/"big box" stores, (3) enormous(!) rail yard (freight trains), (4) the Nashville Zoo. I don't have any skin in this fight, but I think it is a missed opportunity.…

I work in commercial real and even I'm going to go NIMBY mode on this lol. This property shares a large boundary to the zoo and I have a very hard time believing you won't cause an impact (noise pollution eg) to the animals next door. Is there any evidence anywhere of a totally sound proof, unintrusive mega data center? I have not seen anything.

IMO noise pollution is the easiest one to solve: just put all the AC fans on the far side of the datacenter. If not enough, surround with noise absorbing panels. If not enough, just get a different fan design, more coolers, and run them at half speed. They can even afford Noctua :)

I bet nearby rail yard produces way more loud noises.

Datacenter is like the cleanest and most ecofriendly business you can imagine.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#272

Post by vidarh »

mixdup wrote: post #24

I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've been superdense GPUs with a jet engine as electrical generator causing all kinds of noise, but it's also just as likely this would've been a project that 5 years ago no one would've batted an eye over, and wouldn't cause any issues in the local neighborhood That…

We've "imported" this concern to the UK too, largely driven by the same issues seemingly whipped up by US lack of regulation much more than local examples (that's not to say there have been no cases of bad buildouts here).

Many of the people now extremely opposed to data centres seem to believe the UK didn't have any data centres recently, never mind that you can pass by data centres in e.g. London Docklands and mistake it for an office building. In some cases they are in a subset of floors of office buildings.

I'm all for regulating them so they need to account for externalities, but the blind opposition to them is frustrating, not least because it means there's no pressure to deal with the actual regulatory gaps since the focus ends up being on trying to block projects.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#273

Post by creato »

scheme271 wrote: post #257
tptacek wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infrastructure thing I get! The water thing is, I think, baloney, but depending on where you are there's energy generation concerns. Seems totally reasonable to me for local political bodies to demand that new data center projects account for what they'll do to the local power grid, and, obviously, running jet turbine gas generators is not a reasonable answer to those concerns. What frustrates me about the new po…

It doesn't help that at least one datacenter operator and possibly more promised municipalities in Arizona that they wouldn't use their water and then secretly used millions of gallons. This in the middle of water shortages.

I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here, but 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. It's really not that much water.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#274

Post by selfhoster1312 »

vidarh wrote: post #272
mixdup wrote: post #24

I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've been superdense GPUs with a jet engine as electrical generator causing all kinds of noise, but it's also just as likely this would've been a project that 5 years ago no one would've batted an eye over, and wouldn't cause any issues in the local neighborhood That…

We've "imported" this concern to the UK too, largely driven by the same issues seemingly whipped up by US lack of regulation much more than local examples (that's not to say there have been no cases of bad buildouts here). Many of the people now extremely opposed to data centres seem to believe the UK didn't have any data centres recently, never mind that you can pass by data centres in e.g. London Docklands and mist…

> deal with the actual regulatory gaps since the focus ends up being on trying to block projects

Two counterpoints:

- the problem is not in "regulatory" gaps, but in how regulations are actually applied; regulation is usually good for protecting the environment and the neighbors... the question is more why regulations never apply to billionaires? to politicians' friends?

- for any "gap" that you'd like addressed, how do you see yourself tilting the balance of power if not with a strong opposition? do you think people in power care at all about a mildly-displeased middle class citizen who'd like to amend a text? no, they only care about an angry mob and then might try to make concessions

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#275

Post by dividedbyzero »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #263
joe_the_user wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers have the potential for fire and so local fire departments must spend resources being prepared for such a thing. Edit: water (and sometimes electricity) are local services also and data centers use quite a bit of these.

Not a data centre expert, but don't they quite famously pump CO2 into the server rooms automatically if the fire alarms go off, even if there are people in the room?

That's not always a thing and doesn't help with fires in the rest of the complex. Backup generators, fuel depots, power distribution, large-scale cooling infrastructure all pose fire hazards even when facilities are built with actual regulation. The current AI buildout in the US happens pretty much without any meaningful regulation and gives the impression they'd build unshielded nuclear reactors serviced by children while running if they felt they could get it running cheaper and faster.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#276

Post by selfhoster1312 »

no-name-here wrote: post #129
ElevenLathe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this will incentivize pushing compute back toward the user instead of in big centralized facilities, sonething like a repeat of the PC revolution. Or will it just incentivize harsher treatment of noncompliant parts of the population? Or just pushing these things far from urban areas where they probably should have been already? Probably a bit of each, and some more I'm not thinking of.

> the user instead of in big centralized facilities Although that would be exponentially worse in terms of electricity and resource use, etc. - instead 1 TPU handling x,000 customers per month, now you need to build and power n,000 separate devices, where the vast majority of them are idle the vast majority of the time, and even then without all of the more efficient power, batching, etc that DCs offer. > urban areas…

That's working under the (imo wrong) assumption that LLMs are what we need/want. First, because pushing toward the user can happen as shared hosting in your municipality and doesn't have to be in every home. Second, because if you take slop, adtech, and surveillance out of the equation, the material impact is several orders of magnitude less than what's being built today. Or for what it's worth, several orders of magnitude less than what's already built in terms of DC capacity.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#277

Post by selfhoster1312 »

esikich wrote: post #178
mixdup wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can advocate for changes to a system while living and existing within the system. In fact, that's probably required to actually make any changes. No one is going to listen to some crazy kook in a cabin in Montana

You can't without making an effort to reduce your dependence on it. The most anti DC people I see are chronically online blasting their shit all over social media. Typically influencers, who make a living using said DCs, all day long. Social media directly supports what they are against. There are other ways to spread your message and when they choose the one method that directly goes against the message they are try…

The most anti DC people are not chronically online, if at all. Just because Youtube influencers exist doesn't mean they're anything close to the average concerned citizen.

See also, how many people here in France were jailed for sabotaging 5G antennas during their buildout.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#278

Post by selfhoster1312 »

Aurornis wrote: post #196
mixdup wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can advocate for changes to a system while living and existing within the system. In fact, that's probably required to actually make any changes. No one is going to listen to some crazy kook in a cabin in Montana

> You can advocate for changes to a system while living and existing within the system. I see very little advocating for change and a whole lot of knee-jerk reactions to shut it down. The data center protests near me tried to complain about noise as one of their points, even though the DC was in the middle of nowhere

So what? It's good to have people question the status quo. Shut the stupid AI craze down before it finishes destroying whatever's left of our planet.

Or are you not concerned that AI companies are now the n°1 fossil fuel lobbyists in EU/USA? That they are consuming insane amounts of concrete and electricity for 0 gains for citizens (but enormous gains for the elites)?

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#279

Post by Terr_ »

creato wrote: post #273
scheme271 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help that at least one datacenter operator and possibly more promised municipalities in Arizona that they wouldn't use their water and then secretly used millions of gallons. This in the middle of water shortages.

I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here, but 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. It's really not that much water.

> 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year.

For a moment I was worried that this might be an average that includes indirect usage through industry and agriculture, but AFAICT no, it's in line with just residential usage, so good-on-ya for that.

> I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here

The utility claims it was 30m gallons over 4 months [0], and 90mgal/yr would be like ~3k individuals. This seems pretty significant given that Fayetteville is only about ~20k residents. [1]

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-center...

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fayettevillecit...

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#280

Post by techpression »

namdnay wrote: post #225
tommica wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that enough to rethink the construction - it takes a while to build a data center, and I would not be happy that I have to suffer with shitty water because a data center is being built for years.

What I mean is that it’s got nothing to do with data centers. Saying “data centers pollute water” is misleading, in these situations 1) we’re talking about people pulling unfiltered untreated well water 2) any building would have had exactly the same effect.

What? How is a data center that runs insane amounts of water through it every single day the same as a warehouse with a tap and bathroom?

And sure, a rocket launch pad would also cause issues, but now it’s a data center that is doing it, let’s not argue fictional realities.

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