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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

#361

Post by antonvs »

infecto wrote: post #157
state_less wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously data center bidders would prefer their activity to be kept in the dark, but does that make for good outcomes for anyone else except the bidders. First, the community would like to weigh in on whether they want a data center or not, often they don't. Then if they do, they'd rather have a bidding war than some NDA backroom deal with a single entity. All this does is serve Big Tech and Big Capital, and they do…

You make this sound like a conspiracy. This is normal practice in economic development, check off boxes until announcing to the public. The public rarely has much power in voicing their opinion but data centers are the current evil entity.

> data centers are the current evil entity.

There's a reason for that: they compete for resources but contribute relatively little back to the local economy. In that sense they're quite different from previous large corporate investments in a local area.

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

#362

Post by lucketone »

buttercraft wrote: post #351
mbreese wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

> evaluating it on its merits alone

It’s evaluating proposal by the words of the applicant alone.

In addition to exaggeration on resumes, people tend to not include inconvenient stuff. Reputation is definitely part of the merit.

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

#363

Post by EvanAnderson »

kiddico wrote: post #355
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.

Miami County. There are datacenter projects outside Piqua and in Shelby County near Sidney.

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

#364

Post by ben_w »

michaelt wrote: post #340
kjkjadksj wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know why I, personally, consider eco-friendly power to be ideal; but why would the builder of a DC care?

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

#365

Post by mbesto »

simianwords wrote: post #300
mbesto wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but you're claiming "if they all are investing X amount then these bets obviously must pan out". If you follow that rationale then it means that all bets that these company's make in the same space must all pan out. So if they don't all pan out then the fact that they're all making bets isn't a sound rationale for it being true. As others have pointed out, investors notoriously have FOMO, so rationale actors (CEOs…

No, i don't claim that all bets must pan out - simply that most bets are made intelligently with serious intent. that's the way i see this bet as well. your take on investors is naive and largely incorrect - its the musical chairs theory of markets.

> simply that most bets are made intelligently with serious intent.

That is NOT what you said. You said this:

> Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?

In other words: "if these companies are putting all of this money to work then it's obvious it will work"

So, no you didn't simply say "their bets are made intelligently with serious intent". No one is saying these companies aren't serious about it, they are saying there are legitimate physics limitations involved here that are either being ignored or the companies are betting on a novel scientific breakthrough.

> your take on investors is naive and largely incorrect - its the musical chairs theory of markets.

Then you clearly have never worked with investors before.

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

#366

Post by pseudohadamard »

antonvs wrote: post #359
pseudohadamard wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stronge…

Yeah, good point. I was astounded when I lived in the US that it was impossible to get from my temporary accommodation to the place I worked, about 300m away, without driving. I eventually found a place to rent on the one single bus route that served the area. The rental agent treated me with the same level of patience that you use with slightly crazy people.

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

#367

Post by simianwords »

mbesto wrote: post #365
simianwords wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, i don't claim that all bets must pan out - simply that most bets are made intelligently with serious intent. that's the way i see this bet as well. your take on investors is naive and largely incorrect - its the musical chairs theory of markets.

> simply that most bets are made intelligently with serious intent. That is NOT what you said. You said this: > Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work? In other words: "if these companies are putting all of this money to work then it's obvious it will work" So, no you didn't simply say "their bets are made intelligently with serious intent". No one is say…

Here’s our point of disagreement: I think smart people have made a bet in this with serious intent after considering all the pitfalls. You think they are either deliberately ignoring it (so ridiculous) or they are betting on a scientific breakthrough.

It’s too comical to even address the “they are ignoring it part” so I’ll ignore it.

I would agree with you that part of their bet might involve hoping for breakthroughs and the investment analysis probably factored it in.

Lots of earlier investments have banked on breakthroughs like this.

Also your opinion on how markets work is naive and unscientific.

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

#368

Post by kiddico »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #363
kiddico wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Miami County. There are datacenter projects outside Piqua and in Shelby County near Sidney.

Thank you!

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

#369

Post by michaelt »

ben_w wrote: post #364
michaelt wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know why I, personally, consider eco-friendly power to be ideal; but why would the builder of a DC care?

So they can put it on a page like [1] and [2]

Most large companies impose certain costs on society, and have to manage their reputation. Often it's cheaper to improve public opinion in a peripheral area than to address deep-seated problems.

Putting a data centre close to a hydroelectric dam helps offset your product's impact on users' mental health, your disregard for competition law, etc.

[1] https://datacenters.google/operating-sustainably/ [2] https://sustainability.atmeta.com/data-centers/

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

#370

Post by salawat »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #165
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…

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.

Reputation working as designed?
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