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

Life next to 199 data centres

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–66 of 66 posts

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#61

Post by sagarm »

zug_zug wrote: post #60
dingnuts wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? It's about Loudoun County, the wealthiest county in the US. The people "affected" both are the ones making the decision about where to put the data centers and the ones profiting off them. Don't lose sleep. Also, those same people have the most ability to live wherever they want, and can leave. This isn't mountaintop removal in coal country. This is wealthy DC lobbyists being a little annoye…

Current and long-time loudoun county resident here. We mostly don't like them, we mostly do feel disenfranchised, and people are trying to mobilize more political awareness of which politicians are cozying up to data-centers. One of the biggest complaints isn't the data-centers themselves, but that they use so much electricity that these heinously ugly power-lines have to get put up in what is one of the most beautif…

You're only taxed on capital gains. For it to be a six figure "loss" implies a minimum of $1M in gains alone. It really is ludicrous how entitled property owners act about their unearned windfalls.

Requiring data centers to be built underground would dramatically increase the cost. Imagine if we made the same requirement for roads, which are much louder and more dangerous!

On second thought, this negative externality thing really should be applied to roads, especially in cities. Guess I'm on board.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#62

Post by quickthrowman »

gowld wrote: post #31
chinathrow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> generators Ahem. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

Why don't they use Tesla solar panels and batteries?

They don’t have room for another building the size of the data center to store batteries in and thousands of acres of land for solar panels (wild ass guesses on battery building footprint and solar field footprint)

Critical loads require generators, batteries don’t cut it. Data centers want the most reliable backup power they can with the longest runtime. Battery storage density is not high enough to back up a 500MW+ data center for any length of time without a comical amount of batteries.

When the NEC allows critical, equipment, and life safety branch at hospitals to be backed up with batteries and solar panels, battery storage will be at a point where battery backup of data centers is feasible. Right now it isn’t.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#63

Post by NoiseBert69 »

bigwheels wrote: post #48
NoiseBert69 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live close to a hospital and they make a generator test run once a month. That's an ultra deep sinus (~30Hz) that's humming along - you can hear it everywhere within the city. It's was super easy to measure using a Sensirion Differential Pressure sensor. They have a few extremely sensitive models that have a 100Hz sampling rate (50Hz useable after Nyquist) - also: you can sense washing machines (from vibrating buil…

What is the sensor attached to? And how can you pinpoint the source direction of sounds with it? The product listing says something about a manifold, it looks like a raw component with 4 pins or so. https://sensirion.com/products/catalog/SDP510

Sensirion SDP600-25Pa

SDP600-25Pa --- I2C ---> ESP32 --- UDP over Wifi --> Linux Host with simple Python recording script

Very rough pin-pointing is possible: plastic kitchen funnel which is attached to the sensor using a short hose.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#64

Post by lemonlime227 »

opengrass wrote: post #43
lemonlime227 wrote: post #17

Ashburn/Loudoun resident here, lived right next to us-east-1 for 10+ years. No, the noise is not impactful. The data centers are very quiet on the outside. More noise comes from Dulles Airport nearby. Main problem is 1. visuals. They are horrendous blobs to look at. 2. land/electricity values. Gone up a lot in the past few years. Happy to answer any questions.

How's the power bill?

Not great. Gone up a bit recently, but it's just another bill that I've budgeted for.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#65

Post by lemonlime227 »

chinathrow wrote: post #21
lemonlime227 wrote: post #17

Ashburn/Loudoun resident here, lived right next to us-east-1 for 10+ years. No, the noise is not impactful. The data centers are very quiet on the outside. More noise comes from Dulles Airport nearby. Main problem is 1. visuals. They are horrendous blobs to look at. 2. land/electricity values. Gone up a lot in the past few years. Happy to answer any questions.

Your noise statement is one datapoint, there are others in the article. Who's right regarding the noise?

I agree, my experience is anecdotal. Generally never heard much from Loudoun residents about noise (Loudoun is where most of the N. VA data centers are), it's more of a complaint you hear online from people in other parts of the country that are having data centers built near them. Again, anecdotal.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#66

Post by zug_zug »

sagarm wrote: post #61
zug_zug wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current and long-time loudoun county resident here. We mostly don't like them, we mostly do feel disenfranchised, and people are trying to mobilize more political awareness of which politicians are cozying up to data-centers. One of the biggest complaints isn't the data-centers themselves, but that they use so much electricity that these heinously ugly power-lines have to get put up in what is one of the most beautif…

You're only taxed on capital gains. For it to be a six figure "loss" implies a minimum of $1M in gains alone. It really is ludicrous how entitled property owners act about their unearned windfalls. Requiring data centers to be built underground would dramatically increase the cost. Imagine if we made the same requirement for roads, which are much louder and more dangerous! On second thought, this negative externality…

Fair. But the agent still takes 5%. Plus these days your mortgage would be so much worse if you moved that it would cost you potentially double.
Post reply on HN