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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

#351

Post by buttercraft »

mbreese wrote: post #341
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.

Cities can largely do what they want. They can deny applications for whatever reason they want. Citizen concerns are very important here (they need to keep voters happy to keep their jobs). But their main mandate is to protect the public good. If a project isn’t in the interest of their community, they ca deny it. Whether or not it’s legal is another question. And NIMBY and… and… there are lots of potential concerns.…

This is in the context of not knowing the entity behind the application, and evaluating it on its merits alone. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. Kindof like evaluating a resume without knowing the name or gender of the applicant.

Cities are bound by laws, and not complying opens them up to lawsuits which the taxpayers pay for. Sure, maybe that's in the best interest of the community in some cases. However, I think it usually happens because people have feelings and biases rather than as a calculated move.

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

#352

Post by grayhatter »

simianwords wrote: post #305
cowpig wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are capable of considering effects of systems outside of your immediate, moment-to-moment needs?

are _you_ capable of consdering the advantages that AI can bring instead of simply focusing on the easy parts like pollution and energy?

> instead of simply focusing on the easy parts like pollution and energy?

Yeah, I completely agree AI is fantastic with no downsides; as long as you ignore all of it's down sides.

Do you think it's a good thing to ignore the downsides when advocating for something?

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

#353

Post by grayhatter »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #309
kakacik wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you using a phone and computer or bank or website that doesn’t have mined materials? Surely you use things with negative externalities because you get value from them.

You participate in $the_thing so surely you must support $the_thing, right?

I would get value from stealing, I don't steal from people. The argument or question isn't about if it has value to some people, the question is, does the value to some people outweigh the costs that are imposed on others.

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

#354

Post by cyanydeez »

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…

Bootstraping is the point. Theres also bulk cost being cheaper, but the analogy is how most utilities work.

To install thd infrastducture everyones bill goes up.

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

#355

Post by kiddico »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #156

I live near one of these in Ohio. The municipality entered into an NDA with the buyer and the local community is having a hell of a time getting answers to questions. The buyer bought all the farms and homesteads in an 160 acre parcel (a quarter section, in surveying terms) and paid well above market rate for a lot of it. This year is a re-valuation for property tax in my county and we've seen massive valuation incre…

Just curious where you are in ohio and want to do more research. I'm in the Mansfield area.

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

#356

Post by pseudohadamard »

scoofy wrote: post #329
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…

I want to step in here and point to Strong Towns. It’s easy to say THAT the cities have owners, but not why. The why is the American development pattern that creates suburbia that can’t generate enough taxes to pay to maintain the town. That’s the problem. Suburban infrastructure is wildly expensive. A return to dense walkable villages would, in large part, fix the problem. https://www.strongtowns.org/

However the conspiracy-theory nutters have done a really good job convincing people in the US that 15-minute cities, or as they're known in Europe, "cities", are some plot by George Soros to... actually I have no idea what sort of crazy is being invoked this time, but it seems to have worked, generating enough opposition to liveable cities to make it a real uphill battle to implement them.

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

#357

Post by pseudohadamard »

wat10000 wrote: post #342
expedition32 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency I guess? I'm seeing this in my own country were everyone wants to be close to AMSIX. Which as you may have guessed also happens to be the most expensive and densely populated part of the country...

Yep, Northern Virginia gets you close to the BosWash megalopolis and pretty close to better than half of the US population. It also gives you access to a highly educated workforce and pretty much no natural disasters of note. There's also network (pun intended) effects. Northern Virginia has been a major internet hub for a long time, with the first non-government peering point and a bunch of telecom companies, includ…

I was thinking of a slightly different incentiviser, you're right next to the county's largest collection of bought-and-paid-for politicians, if you need the rules bent a little, or a lot, you can point to your data centre off in the distance and remind them what you're paying them for.

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

#358

Post by tfehring »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #271

Wisconsin runs mostly on coal power plants. It's a terrible place to build data centers. My guess is that the locals have proven themselves easily dazzled by the contract dollar amounts and arent thinking about the future. Remember the FoxConn debacle? That was WI.

Natural gas, not coal. From Wikipedia [0], "The electrical energy generation mix in 2024 was 40.7% natural gas, 31.8% coal, 15.5% nuclear, 4.5% solar, 3% wind, 2.9% hydroelectric, 1.4% biomass (including refuse-derived fuel), and 0.2% other." The new generation capacity being added is 1.4 GW natural gas and 1.1 GW solar [1]. New coal plants aren't economical under any reasonable market assumptions anywhere in the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Wisc...

[1] https://www.wpr.org/news/we-energies-add-3gw-electric-grid-d...

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

#359

Post by antonvs »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #356
scoofy wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to step in here and point to Strong Towns. It’s easy to say THAT the cities have owners, but not why. The why is the American development pattern that creates suburbia that can’t generate enough taxes to pay to maintain the town. That’s the problem. Suburban infrastructure is wildly expensive. A return to dense walkable villages would, in large part, fix the problem. https://www.strongtowns.org/

However the conspiracy-theory nutters have done a really good job convincing people in the US that 15-minute cities, or as they're known in Europe, "cities", are some plot by George Soros to... actually I have no idea what sort of crazy is being invoked this time, but it seems to have worked, generating enough opposition to liveable cities to make it a real uphill battle to implement them.

A big part of the problem here is that this conspiracy theory plays right into what its followers want to believe anyway: their idea of an ideal city is one where you can easily get anywhere by car, and there are lots of highways, strips, other roads, and plenty of parking.

It's what they're familiar with, and any suggestion that it could be improved by catering less strongly to individual vehicles and with a stronger emphasis on public transport, bicycles, walking etc. is automatically resisted. The conspiracy theory fits this bias perfectly.

It's not so much that they have "opposition to livable cities," it's that they have different beliefs about what's livable.

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

#360

Post by antonvs »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #253
horsawlarway wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think "reputation" is absolutely critical to functional societies, and this feels a lot like putting a mask on and hiding critical information. If Facebook got rejected because people hate Facebook, even when the economics are good... that's valuable to society as a feedback mechanism to force Facebook to be, well - not so hated. Letting them put a legal mask on and continue busi…

> I think "reputation" is absolutely critical to functional societies, See the popular vote results of Nov 2024 US presidential election. Reputations were on full display.

> Reputations were on full display.

The problem is that many people liked what they saw. Reputation was still important, but there were different beliefs about what reputations were desirable.

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