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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

#331

Post by lossolo »

simianwords wrote: post #299
lossolo wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know why I mentioned hydrogen energy earlier? There was a Financial Times article last month titled "Hydrogen dreams meet reality as oil and gas groups abandon projects", which notes that "Almost 60 major low carbon hydrogen projects—including ones backed by BP and ExxonMobil—have been cancelled" because they weren't economically feasible. Space data centers are in the same place today. It's physics. And none of…

ok so you are smarter than all of them? and if they had put you in charge instead of the phd's, they might have been better off?

You're using an uninteresting appeal to authority argument again.

So let's talk physics. Are you familiar with the radiative heat-balance problem? You can use the Stefan–Boltzmann law to calculate how many radiators you'd need.

Required area: A = P / (eps * sigma * eta * (Tr^4 - Tsink^4))

Where:

A = radiator area [m^2]

P = waste heat to dump [W]

eps = emissivity (0..1)

sigma = 5.670374419e-8 W/m^2/K^4

eta = non ideal factor for view/blockage/etc (0..1)

Tr = radiator temperature [K]

Tsink = effective sink temperature [K] (deep space ~3 K, ~0 for Tr sizing)

Assuming best conditions so deep space, eps~0.9, eta~1:

At Tr=300K: ~413 W/m^2

At Tr=350K: ~766 W/m^2

At Tr=400K: ~1307 W/m^2

So for 10 MW at 350K (basically around 77°C): A ~ 1e7 / 766 ≈ 13,006 m^2 (best case).

And even in the best case scenario it's only 10 MW and we're not counting radiation from the sun or IR from the moon/earth etc. so in real life, it will be even higher.

You can build 10 MW nuclear power plant (microreactor) with the datacenter included on Earth for the same price.

Show me your numbers or lay out a plan for how to make it economically feasible in space.

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

#332

Post by buttercraft »

dylan604 wrote: post #323
buttercraft wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. Cities are supposed to approve or deny applications based on whether they comply with zoning, codes, parking, water availability etc. They can't deny based on who or what the business is alone. A city near me is dealing with a lawsuit for exactly that. It probably varies from state to state, I don't know.

> They can't deny based on who or what the business is alone They absolutely can and do this. Ask to put an adult entertainment store next to a school/church. Ask to put a liquor store next to a school/church. The city will say no.

Right, because zoning and state laws forbid those things.

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

#333

Post by wasmainiac »

wasmainiac wrote: post #265
GorbachevyChase wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scourge? I get some kind of valuable use from it almost every day. This criticism sounds completely out of touch.

It’s no more useful than when google and stack overflow was at its peak! All I want is to find docs. The coding performance is lackluster, oversold and under delivered. Everything else gen AI is dystopian.

Why not debate me rather than downvotes? Eh hallucinations break my workflow and end up costing me more time debugging then it’s worth.

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

#334

Post by barbazoo »

gosub100 wrote: post #184
timmg wrote: post #47

I find it strange how data centers are getting (sorta) vilified. I keep hearing stories on NPR that are kinda subtle fear-mongering. Like data centers are probably the least bad thing to build nearby. They take in power and produce computer. No pollution, no traffic, no chemicals or potential explosions. They do take power. But, like, we know how to generate electricity. And solar is getting really cheap.

I find it strange that when there is a housing crisis, they can't seem to build enough, frequently because of building permit refusals. But when a data centers get secrecy and fast tracked before anyone can oppose them.

Is there evidence of "fast tracking"? I'm imagining permitting a green field data center build is different from densification of an already populated urban place.

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

#335

Post by hn_acc1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #323
buttercraft wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. Cities are supposed to approve or deny applications based on whether they comply with zoning, codes, parking, water availability etc. They can't deny based on who or what the business is alone. A city near me is dealing with a lawsuit for exactly that. It probably varies from state to state, I don't know.

> They can't deny based on who or what the business is alone They absolutely can and do this. Ask to put an adult entertainment store next to a school/church. Ask to put a liquor store next to a school/church. The city will say no.

That's probably a zoning issue, though..

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

#336

Post by OGEnthusiast »

upboundspiral wrote: post #269
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…

What I've come to realize is that the rust belt states have been in huge trouble for decades. They were living in "benevolent feudalism" when GM, Ford, etc all had factories there. The problem is that these companies effectively owned the cities in which they operated. And then they left. Since the Reagan years we decided to export everything that built our economy so the landlords in power could have even more profi…

IMO it's just regression to the mean. The Rust Belt cities benefitted from being in the right place at the right time (post-WWII US during industrialization) for a few decades, but post-globalization they are just one of infinity undifferentiated land masses competing on cost of land and power (vs e.g. SF or NYC which compete largely on access to social networks and institutions).

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

#337

Post by manIliketea »

phil21 wrote: post #292
cyanydeez wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They primary concern is these centers will force water and energy expansions and those will be equally split. Like, you go with friends to a bar, do you want your check equally split or based on drinks had? The infrastructure when exponentially above the norm should be paid by the heavy user. Currently, most utilities dont do that.

Power is metered. If a facility is somehow getting subsidized by the rest of the ratepayers then it’s a pricing problem that needs fixing. The issue is that we collectively decided to stop investing in energy infrastructure for 50 years or so, and now all that capital investment needs to happen at once. You can’t even build a transmission line in a reasonable timeframe due to the insane NIMBY veto we have given every…

> Power is metered.

Yes, a portion of power is metered costs. Often times (though I am not certain about this case), there are fixed costs that everyone pays a chunk of. If these sorts of projects aren't handled well, the fixed cost that a massive data-center pays may be disproportionate to he cost they incur on the system.

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

#338

Post by ahi »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #290
upboundspiral wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've come to realize is that the rust belt states have been in huge trouble for decades. They were living in "benevolent feudalism" when GM, Ford, etc all had factories there. The problem is that these companies effectively owned the cities in which they operated. And then they left. Since the Reagan years we decided to export everything that built our economy so the landlords in power could have even more profi…

What is surprising is that to me where you see datacenter build out hand over fist isn’t really in the midwest where one might assume due to low land costs. Surprisingly, the heart of the datacenter buildout seems to be northern virginia. Not exactly a cheap land sort of former one horse town.

Considering the capital costs in fitting out these datacenters, the land being 10x more expensive doesn't move the needle much on total cost.

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

#339

Post by simianwords »

lossolo wrote: post #331
simianwords wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok so you are smarter than all of them? and if they had put you in charge instead of the phd's, they might have been better off?

You're using an uninteresting appeal to authority argument again. So let's talk physics. Are you familiar with the radiative heat-balance problem? You can use the Stefan–Boltzmann law to calculate how many radiators you'd need. Required area: A = P / (eps * sigma * eta * (Tr^4 - Tsink^4)) Where: A = radiator area [m^2] P = waste heat to dump [W] eps = emissivity (0..1) sigma = 5.670374419e-8 W/m^2/K^4 eta = non ideal…

you are saying you can stop an entire division in google, nvidia, blue origin with this bit of theory?

like all the employees had to do with read this and be like: wow i never saw it that way.

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

#340

Post by michaelt »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #290
upboundspiral wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've come to realize is that the rust belt states have been in huge trouble for decades. They were living in "benevolent feudalism" when GM, Ford, etc all had factories there. The problem is that these companies effectively owned the cities in which they operated. And then they left. Since the Reagan years we decided to export everything that built our economy so the landlords in power could have even more profi…

What is surprising is that to me where you see datacenter build out hand over fist isn’t really in the midwest where one might assume due to low land costs. Surprisingly, the heart of the datacenter buildout seems to be northern virginia. Not exactly a cheap land sort of former one horse town.

Cheap land is nice, but it's not the only concern. Data centres make a lot more money per square foot than things like farming, after all.

You also want cheap, reliable power. Ideally eco-friendly. And you want backbone connectivity, of course. Local suppliers who know the construction and maintenance needs of a data centre. No earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, or tornadoes. A local government that won't tax you too much, and that won't get upset when you employ very few people.

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