Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

gadgetreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 464 posts

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#401

Post by ikr678 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #305
bombcar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the water go afterwards? Is it evaporated? Sewer?

I believe evaporative cooling is the norm (thus my "possibly many times that" remark doesn't apply) however theoretically they could provide hot water as a utility or (as you say) just dump it into the sewer. If located next to a river or the ocean they could conceivably dissipate it that way but I'm not aware of any examples. It's the sort of externality that could be solved with a well placed megaproject. A related…

Waste heat is a problem in waterways, even assuming no other pollutants as it can cause algal blooms on its own and mess with fish biology.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#402

Post by dpe82 »

_2d30 wrote: post #333
jsnell wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that number could possibly be realistic. A H100 cost 30k when new, and uses 500W of power. 500W for a year is about 4500kWh, which at $0.10/kWh is $450/year if run at full utilization (unrealistic). TCO of an AI data center should be entirely dominated by capex depreciation.

In fairness your calculation looks at the most expensive element of the DC but ignores all of the associated parts required to utilize the H100: CPU, memory, cooling, etc. No to say that that flips the calculation (I don't have the answer), but it does leave a lot of power out.

Let's be generous and pretend the rest of the hardware is free but double the energy budget of the H100 to account for all of it along with cooling. You're still at only $1k/yr; $10k over 10 years, or 25% of the TCO (ignoring all other costs).

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#403

Post by toast0 »

xphos wrote: post #227
cheriot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes come to mind.

Local municipalities collect this and often get tricked into not collecting it via agreements to host it in or near their town for multiple year agreements. Also the assessed value of the property may not come anywhere near the costs of increased electricity demand, water usage and noise pollution problems. For locals Their is typically high paying jobs in factories but these places dont employ a large staff beyond c…

Property tax is often assessed on capital equipment owned by a business as well as real estate. So while the real estate may be of limited value, the hosted machines could drive significant tax revenue as AI machines are spendy.

You're right though, that municipalities often waive taxes to woo big projects.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#404

Post by thinkloop »

pj_mukh wrote: post #396
throwaway-11-1 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Yimby’s actually believe in democracy or that markets should basically make every decision? Honestly starting to get a little suspicious.

If the whole voting population came together and said we’d like to pay ourselves $100,000 in straight cash today by borrowing it from future generations. Should they be able to do it in the name of direct democracy? Blocking all future growth due to aesthetic reasons is 10x worse, atleast the $100,000 could be meaningfully spent now.

Who decides things if not the entire voting population? There's nothing inherently wrong with your suggestion, if it's what everyone wants. We've been doing it for a century, see the national debt. But people like their kids, so we restrain it. People don't want a society full of desperation, so we restrain it. People want a strong nation, so we restrain it. It's not a crazy hypothetical, it's how the system works. Humans just aren't basic consumption machines.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#405

Post by alex43578 »

culi wrote: post #381
alex43578 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's reasonable to believe that a blanket ban on data centers constitutes a regulatory taking, and therefore run afoul of people's property rights. A data center doesn't pose some unreasonable risk to the public interest to justify this degree of action.

This is far from a blanket ban.

It’s a ban on any DC over 20 megawatts, regardless of site or situation - that’s a blanket ban because there’s no exceptions or justifications for the ban to apply to every large DC, regardless of location.

From what I can tell, case law on takings via this kind of regulation is “case by case”, without a clear test for when it crosses over the line into an unreasonable imposition on property rights.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#406

Post by exe34 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #307
piker wrote: post #3

Such a law illustrates the beauty of federalism. Texas and other states can have them if they want them! Maine has not nearly as much space and much more natural beauty to protect [per square mile], so it can and maybe should have a different set of rules. That's cool.

This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial . Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3]. Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this w…

build the power source next door and charge them extra.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#407

Post by leptons »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #347
leptons wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and green in color Okay, we'll give Nevada a participation award for "green in color". Maine wins the "green in color" category by a lot. It's orders of magnitude greener. "Green" isn't everything though. Nevada has a lot of brown going for it! Oh, Maine also has a tidal coastline of 3478 miles, but Nevada is landlocked. Nevada does have a couple of big lakes though.

Wallace Stegner said that to appreciate the arid west, “You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns…”

I've spent at least a hundred weekends camping in the Mojave desert over the last 30 years. There is beauty there, but a lot of the beauty is more about what's not there than what is there. And what's green really stands out. The creosote is amazing and some of it has been there thousands of years. The King Clone circle has been there 11,000 years and is still going.

That said, if I had to choose between Nevada and Maine for a getaway, I'd choose Maine.

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#408

Post by [deleted] »

piker wrote: post #3

Such a law illustrates the beauty of federalism. Texas and other states can have them if they want them! Maine has not nearly as much space and much more natural beauty to protect [per square mile], so it can and maybe should have a different set of rules. That's cool.

[deleted]

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#409

Post by JR1427 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #307
piker wrote: post #3

Such a law illustrates the beauty of federalism. Texas and other states can have them if they want them! Maine has not nearly as much space and much more natural beauty to protect [per square mile], so it can and maybe should have a different set of rules. That's cool.

This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial . Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3]. Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this w…

> It's basically rabid conservation and tragedy of the commons writ large

How is this like "tragedy of the commons"?

Re: Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers

#410

Post by physhster »

BlueRock-Jake wrote: post #84

I feel like this is always the case with new technology. People had the same reaction to the invention of the printing press. New is scary. It doesn't mean there aren't valid concerns, but unfortunately this feels a bit like an inevitability. The focus shouldn't be on stopping it, but how to maximize the gains and minimize the losses to the local communities where these are being built.

Data centers are hardly new technology... For the longest time, people had no idea where the cloud was because the footprint was pretty small. It's another golden goose moment where everyone is going to build DCs and we might end up like in the dotcom bubble where way too much fiber was deployed for what was necessary at the time.
Post reply on HN