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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

#321

Post by scarab92 »

blackoil wrote: post #100
tiffanyh wrote: post #21

Why go through the effort when such work has already been done? https://www.datacentermap.com/datacenters/ Not being negative. But isn’t there existing highly reliable data that already exists for this?

Erin Brockovich is popular enough that it justifies duplicacy of efforts, amount of visibility her name will brings in much more value than cost of building it.

People opposed to data centres remind me of people opposed to mask wearing.

Both are attempting to dismiss something useful and important, over trivial and manageable issues, mostly for culture war reasons rather than rational reasons.

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

#322

Post by culi »

tptacek wrote: post #320
culi wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers are massive consumers of water. There are closed loop designs that technically use less water but they: A) Make up less than 10% of data centers; B) Cost much more upfront; C) Require massive investment in waste water treatment. These designs still need to "bleed the lines" once a month and get rid of sludge that is now full of anti-freeze, anti-fungals, and PFAS It is not at all inaccurate to say data c…

We know how much water all data centers put together consume, and it's not even close to what we spend on golf courses.

Yes golf courses use an absurd amount of water. About 2.5b/day. Data centers are about 450m/day so about a fifth of that.

But golf courses are about 2.1 to 2.2 million acres while data centers are between between 340,000 and 840,000.

But I agree with your point. We should be closing both down. They are both water guzzlers and polluting our environment

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

#323

Post by tptacek »

culi wrote: post #322
tptacek wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know how much water all data centers put together consume, and it's not even close to what we spend on golf courses.

Yes golf courses use an absurd amount of water. About 2.5b/day. Data centers are about 450m/day so about a fifth of that. But golf courses are about 2.1 to 2.2 million acres while data centers are between between 340,000 and 840,000. But I agree with your point. We should be closing both down. They are both water guzzlers and polluting our environment

Wait, are you thinking this through carefully? Because your mitigating issue for golf courses, that they also use way more land, makes them worse, not better.

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

#324

Post by ranger_danger »

nixass wrote: post #194
tiffanyh wrote: post #21

Why go through the effort when such work has already been done? https://www.datacentermap.com/datacenters/ Not being negative. But isn’t there existing highly reliable data that already exists for this?

This map is inaccurate, for at least one major FAANG player. General metro area seems to be good but actual physical location is way wrong, not even the campus is right

Yeah even the very large DC I worked at 20 years ago still isn't listed, and it's still operating.

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

#325

Post by andyreagan »

valbaca wrote: post #277
andyreagan wrote: post #275

I'm not sure why but my reaction to this is pretty negative. This page must be hosted from a data center as well...they could add a star to the map for their own hosting? How much electricity does their site use, etc? I've seen counters like this before, I think, about the electricity a site uses based on the weight of the page, etc.

"Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent" "...you said on an iPhone. Heh. Gotcha."

Fair enough, not a rational response on my part

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

#326

Post by andyreagan »

scarab92 wrote: post #286
andyreagan wrote: post #275

I'm not sure why but my reaction to this is pretty negative. This page must be hosted from a data center as well...they could add a star to the map for their own hosting? How much electricity does their site use, etc? I've seen counters like this before, I think, about the electricity a site uses based on the weight of the page, etc.

I don’t care about the hypocrisy as much as the entire anti-datacenter Luddite movement being based on anti-intellectualism to begin with. Datacenters provide very high utility with very low per capita externalities. There’s really no reason to care this much about them.

Perhaps comparing the anti-datacenter sentiment with the Luddite movement is being unfair to the Luddites (the more I read about the actual movement).

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

#327

Post by peddling-brink »

scarab92 wrote: post #321
blackoil wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erin Brockovich is popular enough that it justifies duplicacy of efforts, amount of visibility her name will brings in much more value than cost of building it.

People opposed to data centres remind me of people opposed to mask wearing. Both are attempting to dismiss something useful and important, over trivial and manageable issues, mostly for culture war reasons rather than rational reasons.

Haha, what?

Data centers are loud, raise energy prices for everyone around them, and use drinking water in tremendous quantities.

This isn’t a culture war, this is a class war.

Edit: you might be a bot. No comments in the last 47 days, then a string of hard-pro data center comments in the last week.

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

#328

Post by culi »

tptacek wrote: post #323
culi wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes golf courses use an absurd amount of water. About 2.5b/day. Data centers are about 450m/day so about a fifth of that. But golf courses are about 2.1 to 2.2 million acres while data centers are between between 340,000 and 840,000. But I agree with your point. We should be closing both down. They are both water guzzlers and polluting our environment

Wait, are you thinking this through carefully? Because your mitigating issue for golf courses, that they also use way more land, makes them worse, not better .

Agreed, golf courses and data centers need to be regulated and limited. Though data centers seem to use much more water per acre than golf courses. The number I pulled in the original post was global golf course water consumption not just the US. Golf courses also use 7x more pesticides than agricultural land. On the other hand data centers that try to do "closed loop" systems rely on heavy use of anti-freeze, anti-fungals, and anti-corrosives which eventually leads to a toxic sludge that is a massive problem to deal with. Especially since they build up with PFAS as well.

Both are massive environmental problems and the economic externalities have not been accounted for.

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

#329

Post by jml7c5 »

SilverElfin wrote: post #317
jml7c5 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Florida a data center drew water in an unauthorized way and the surrounding community had issues with brown water and had to go into water rationing. Can you cite a source for this? I can't find it anywhere.

The other comment is correct. I meant QTS in Georgia

I thought that might be what you were referring to. As far as I know the issues there were construction causing turbidity, and water used for construction accidentally going metered. Neither are really relevant to it being a datacenter. Apparently it'll use closed-loop cooling, so it's not going to draw much water in operation either.

It does seem like a canard.

https://dustinrhone.substack.com/p/on-fayetteville-georgia

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

#330

Post by cratermoon »

october8140 wrote: post #48
AuthAuth wrote: post #43

This datacenter stuff is such populist brainrot.

I take it you don't live next to a data center.

When they aren't located out in remote areas, data centers, like most undesirable industry, get located near communities of poor minorities.
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