Rural America is resisting the surge in data center construction

Many rural communities are viscerally opposed to AI infrastructure.

See full article...

 

[quamquam quid loquor]

All of this fear mongering about datacenters is mostly pointless. There aren't enough turbines or transformers to fulfill anywhere near the current demand for datacenters. These are 3-5 year waitlists, so the realities of factory building will ensure they don't get built everywhere anyway.

 

[oldArsReader]

Duplicate post

 

[pete.d]

New York Times just published an op-ed that makes a compelling argument for embracing datacenters, but only on the condition of regulations that balance the negatives.

The article mainly is looking at power consumption, arguing that datacenters should be required to fund investments in the electrical grids to modernize them so that they can handle power distribution not just for datacenters, but EVs, and other anticipated needs as we move toward a more electrified future. The piece credibly claims that by far the main cost in electrical rates isn't the overhead to generate power, but rather the cost to construct and maintain infrastructure to deliver the power, i.e. "the grid".

Additional regulations would include requirements that datacenters not generate their own power independent of the grid, nor to use non-renewable power sources, except possibly for short-term backup purposes. And given the concern about water usage, to require only closed-loop systems for cooling.

Personally, I think that in the long term the problem solves itself as the AI bubble bursts. What we are calling "AI" is really anything but, and while it will definitely become a powerful tool in many areas of industry, not to mention yet another example of technology largely benefitting the oligarchs with capital to control the technology, I don't think it lives up to the hype nor justifies the crazy arms race currently going on.

IMHO the final quote in the article is the most important and prescient:

“Technology companies talk about a sense of urgency. This is only the case because they’re in an arms race,” says Jonathan Koomey, a former project scientist at Berkeley Lab. “Is there a social urgency? I’m not sure there is one.”

But I could be wrong, and we shouldn't be willing to just let these datacenters be built in ways that blindly extract local resources in the name of profit. Every locale contemplating approving a datacenter has the opportunity to allow it, but only on that locale's terms, in ways that ensure the datacenter really is a net positive for all involved.

 

[Gandoron]

The amount of water datacenters use directly is actually pretty small compared to the amount of water they consume indirectly via the water needed for power generation.

The direct water use is a weak argument, since the power generation is where the majority of the water use is.

In the article, there is a quote that claims that closed loop decreases energy usage, which is obviously false. Closed loop reduces water locally and increases energy usage. However as you point out there is increased energy generation which has it's own water usage. So it allows for water usage and aquifer impacts to be geo shifted, but hard to know if it's a net gain. Clearly it's a carbon output increase with energy mix.

However, closed loop likely gets the locals residents to approve. Power plants still have their uphill battle for approvals. Tokamaks and fusion for the win...or maybe just in EU. Fission cooling towers cannot be anymore efficient than direct evaporation at the data center.

 

[oldArsReader]

IDK if there's any kind of ag activity where you do a similar thing under a solar field.

Agrivoltaics is a term coined from “agriculture” and “photovoltaics.”

It refers to solar panels installed above or alongside crops, where energy and food production share the same land footprint.

 

[Gandoron]

New York Times just published an op-ed that makes a compelling argument for embracing datacenters, but only on the condition of regulations that balance the negatives.

The article mainly is looking at power consumption, arguing that datacenters should be required to fund investments in the electrical grids to modernize them so that they can handle power distribution not just for datacenters, but EVs, and other anticipated needs as we move toward a more electrified future. The piece credibly claims that by far the main cost in electrical rates isn't the overhead to generate power, but rather the cost to construct and maintain infrastructure to deliver the power, i.e. "the grid".

Additional regulations would include requirements that datacenters not generate their own power independent of the grid, nor to use non-renewable power sources, except possibly for short-term backup purposes. And given the concern about water usage, to require only closed-loop systems for cooling.

Personally, I think that in the long term the problem solves itself as the AI bubble bursts. What we are calling "AI" is really anything but, and while it will definitely become a powerful tool in many areas of industry, not to mention yet another example of technology largely benefitting the oligarchs with capital to control the technology, I don't think it lives up to the hype nor justifies the crazy arms race currently going on.

IMHO the final quote in the article is the most important and prescient:

But I could be wrong, and we shouldn't be willing to just let these datacenters be built in ways that blindly extract local resources in the name of profit. Every locale contemplating approving a datacenter has the opportunity to allow it, but only on that locale's terms, in ways that ensure the datacenter really is a net positive for all involved.

Don't farms, factories or any industrial facility do the same thing?

 

[NC Now]

Preface: What they are doing with data centers in many places is plan nuts. Drive around Dulles airport and south of it for a bit to see the bad side of this.

This morning a thought came to me. Why are they not building some of these in Paducah, Ky. On existing federal land. So I did some checking. They are.

Now to why. Paducah is where one of the three US based gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plants was located. It has been "turned off" for a bit over 10 years. And is gradually being dismantled.

It has (had) 3 grid connections and at its peak could draw up to 3 GW (my memory) of power from them. It has a 30+ million gallon per day water plant on the Ohio river. And while the enrichment plant turned most of its water draw to clouds, a closed loop water cooled data center would not need near that much.

Plus the old plant only occupies about 1/4 of the what I remember as 700 acres of federal land. The rest is near wilderness. Lots of munitions storage bunkers from WWII were there at one time. Maybe still. Concrete boxes with dirt piled up on the sides to the roof line.

And it would be nice if they would replace the coal steam power plant there with solar and batteries.

The middle of the country grid has a surplus of capacity.

And it would likely bring decent Internet connections to a somewhat middle of nowhere area.

FYI - I grew up there and my father retired from there in the 80s as one of the production managers.

 

[quamquam quid loquor]

New York Times just published an op-ed that makes a compelling argument for embracing datacenters, but only on the condition of regulations that balance the negatives.

The article mainly is looking at power consumption, arguing that datacenters should be required to fund investments in the electrical grids to modernize them so that they can handle power distribution not just for datacenters, but EVs, and other anticipated needs as we move toward a more electrified future. The piece credibly claims that by far the main cost in electrical rates isn't the overhead to generate power, but rather the cost to construct and maintain infrastructure to deliver the power, i.e. "the grid".

Additional regulations would include requirements that datacenters not generate their own power independent of the grid, nor to use non-renewable power sources, except possibly for short-term backup purposes. And given the concern about water usage, to require only closed-loop systems for cooling.

Personally, I think that in the long term the problem solves itself as the AI bubble bursts. What we are calling "AI" is really anything but, and while it will definitely become a powerful tool in many areas of industry, not to mention yet another example of technology largely benefitting the oligarchs with capital to control the technology, I don't think it lives up to the hype nor justifies the crazy arms race currently going on.

IMHO the final quote in the article is the most important and prescient:

But I could be wrong, and we shouldn't be willing to just let these datacenters be built in ways that blindly extract local resources in the name of profit. Every locale contemplating approving a datacenter has the opportunity to allow it, but only on that locale's terms, in ways that ensure the datacenter really is a net positive for all involved.

The problem is our current ratemaking structure doesn't really allow for this. Investor Owned Utilities can't single out a datacenter customer for unrelated grid improvements with respect to their service. Public Power Utilities have a lot more flexibility.

Datacenters are by their nature consolidated and don't need the expensive grid investments that EVs would require.

 

[windbourne]

Datacenters are ~4% of total electricity use in the US (AI Datacenters is about 2%).
If half of all cars were EVs, it would be about 15% of total electricity use (only 2% of cars are EVs).

It is sad that simple logic is no longer applied, even to simple postings.
Transportation uses 1/3 of the ENERGY in America. Electricity is ~ 1/3 of our energy. Yes, the 2 use ~ equal amounts. Cars, SUV, light pickups, etc basically passenger vehicles, use 50-60% of the transportation or 1/6. half of that would be 1/12 or 8%.

And what everybody misses is that EVs charge mostly at nighttime, while data centers are mostly daytime, but AI are 24x7. AI centers are one of the best things for a power plant since they take a constant load. THis would enable lots of new power plants to be built quickly if the west was working right.

 

[voline]

Yea, you'd have to eminent domain the Big AG producers to get that to happen. Here in Nebraska, the sandhills got loaded with wind turbines (great windage out there for them)....but that is because the land owners could farm and ranch around them. IDK if there's any kind of ag activity where you do a similar thing under a solar field.

Depending on the crop solar panels and agriculture can cooperate well. It even has a name "agrivoltaics"

"With experiments from all over the world we now know agrivoltaics can benefit crop yields for broccoli, celery, corn, grapes, kale, lettuce, pasture grass, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes and more."

"The reason this works and farmers enjoy yield increases is because of the microclimate created underneath the solar panels. As you might suspect in the shade it is cooler, this helps conserve water and protects plants from excess sun, wind, hail and soil erosion. In the end farmers enjoy more food per acre."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshpe...-are-shielding-their-crops-with-solar-panels/

 

[pete.d]

My first thought after seeing the image about closed loop systems for cooling was about those big red arrows pointing out of the building. We've already got climate issues and their "more efficient" system is just spewing all that hot air out into the environment.

To be fair, as far as I'm aware, heat output isn't really the major issue when it comes to climate change. It's CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gasses and effects.

If we had 100% renewable power generation, data centers dumping heat into the environment could have a local impact (e.g. heat island effect), but is not going to be a problem climate-wise.

For that matter, while I'm far from an expert on the topic, I would think that simple physics would demonstrate that if all power generation was 100% renewable, it'd have exactly zero effect on global temperatures. I.e. the only energy in that scenario being sent along the power grid would energy extracted from the energy the planet is already receiving from the sun. All that we humans would be doing is moving it around, not adding heat to the system.

So...yeah, I think that regulating data centers and mandating only closed-loop systems, would definitely be a step in the right direction. To whatever extent that would be seen as detrimental to the climate change issue, it'd only be to the extent that the data centers are using non-renewable energy sources, which is a separate problem we should also be concerned with.

 

[pete.d]

The problem is our current ratemaking structure doesn't really allow for this. Investor Owned Utilities can't single out a datacenter customer for unrelated grid improvements with respect to their service. Public Power Utilities have a lot more flexibility.

Datacenters are by their nature consolidated and don't need the expensive grid investments that EVs would require.

I don't know anything about "current ratemaking structure", but that seems like a solvable problem. I'm already talking about writing new laws, so if we need new laws that change "ratemaking structure" to allow datacenters to contribute funding to electrical infrastructure, so be it.

Just because datacenters are more centralized than EVs, doesn't mean that there's no path forward to making datacenters help pay for the infrastructure that EVs would need.

 

[Ecnhoffer]

Well, it is a source of tension. Raising taxes is political suicide. But people want and demand schools and roads and police and fire and EMS and sewer/water and power infra that incur lasting and growing maintenance obligations--that you need taxes to pay for, that people invariably don't want to pay. But they want the services.

And so counties and municipalities are stuck using "growth" any "growth" no matter how toxic to fill in the budget gap to pay the bills citizens don't want to pay for the things they want. SO when a data center offers a quick infusion of property taxes and economic activity--it is very hard to resist the siren-call. Hence that town in MO that took the deal--and half the city council who signed it was removed from office in return.

How much of this rural rejection of data centers is NIMBYism and how much of it is actually the data centers themselves IDK. I suspect it is a lot of the former.

Republicans always want to reduce taxes; this results in fewer services. In MO, the legislature wants to eliminate the state income tax. The result will be a shift towards new revenue from other sources that the average resident of MO will need to pay, not the big businesses and the really rich who benefit from no income tax. Democrats like to offer services that need a funding mechanism. The details really matter!
I've posted previously a question about the business model for AI and data centers. Do they actually produce a product or service over the long haul that enriches the state, city, county, average resident of areas with these data centers?

 

[scrimbul]

Aside from the obvious matter of AI executives with a vested interest being prone to just lying; I'm highly skeptical of the 'nah, we fixed water use, bro' argument just on basic theoretical grounds.

There's obviously some fiddly engineering to be done around the edges of 'closed loop' to drive down the number of leaks and how often you have to swap out coolant that is just too full of random ions probably galvanically corroding something or either the biocides or the biofilms, whichever is winning at the moment; but that's not where the big use is.

If you have heat and wish to be rid of it you face a fairly fundamental tradeoff: because water has a decently high enthalpy of vaporization for such a common and well-behaved material you can use evaporative cooling to good effect if you want to reduce electricity costs and space/volume requirements.

If you want to conserve water you can blow air over heat sinks connected to your closed loop; and face the mixture of energy costs and volume requirements for all those fin stacks.

It's (mostly) true that you can run a low-water data center if you wish; in the worst case you can fill the closed loop with some other working fluid; but when everyone is talking about the eleventy-zillion gigawatts they can't source for their precious chatbots; do we really think that people are using the electricity-heavy cooling option rather than the 'get water for basically zero at agricultural rates or because well drilling isn't regulated there' option that uses less electricity?

To the latter point, utility companies don't have to be any more ethical than the data center companies. In fact, they'll probably make more money faster gouging the data centers, so it's win-win for a county that knows the data center won't employ enough bodies with salaries to justify the acreage and water usage.

And the areas the data centers want to set up shop in have the utility companies most willing to do this.

I'm sure on top of the capitalization woes of staring down having to do per-token billing to recover the outsized annual revenue they need to stay capitalized, utility companies forced by their legislatures and punitive legislation to salivate like vampires as sucking these data center companies dry is a consideration for cancelling some of these sites (which is exactly what some of these cancellations pissing off developers means after they prematurely announce the tax revenue gains)

If the above wasn't already true, it will be as public sentiment turns against these companies further for overbuilding data center capacity for a grift product and mis-used tech.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Yea, you'd have to eminent domain the Big AG producers to get that to happen. Here in Nebraska, the sandhills got loaded with wind turbines (great windage out there for them)....but that is because the land owners could farm and ranch around them. IDK if there's any kind of ag activity where you do a similar thing under a solar field.

Yeah, its called farming, more specifically agrivoltaics. Raised solar panels providing some shade for the plants. Given current temperature trends, it helps. Also on top of water ways/reservoirs to help with evaporation.

https://www.agritecture.com/blog/20...-to-be-a-bumper-crop-for-agrivoltaic-land-use

 

[quamquam quid loquor]

I don't know anything about "current ratemaking structure", but that seems like a solvable problem. I'm already talking about writing new laws, so if we need new laws that change "ratemaking structure" to allow datacenters to contribute funding to electrical infrastructure, so be it.

Just because datacenters are more centralized than EVs, doesn't mean that there's no path forward to making datacenters help pay for the infrastructure that EVs would need.

The laws haven't fundamentally changed since the late 1800s. It's a $2 trillion industry that is almost entirely valued based on the regulated return on rate base assumption. It's one of the most entrenched and difficult to change systems in the entire world.

 

[Frobbotzim]

There is also the argument in my community of "Completed data centers don't employ enough people. It's better if we had a traditional factory that employed hundreds or thousands instead, or just leave that 1200 acres as farm land."

Yet what they won't acknowledge is that it only takes 1-2 farmers to effectively farm that 1200 acres.........

You missed the project pitch that was delivered to the rest of your community in which hundreds of high-paying jobs were all but guaranteed for perpetuity, and which your neighbors decided to check out before reasonably concluding that since mature datacenters very rarely have more than two vehicles in their parking lot at any given hour of the day, little else that the developers claimed was worth trusting, and yeah let's keep that field for soybeans.

If the developers had been honest with your community in the first place.........

 

[Keef]

Anyone remember the story a while ago on the front page about my town of Joliet getting Lake Michigan water? Well, I guess that project will be done just in time to feed this Central Park-sized data center CAMPUS that's coming to town. I'd almost swear the two are connected. Well at least we won't be completely dried out now.

 

[markgo]

Doug Adams of NTT Global Data Centers, the world’s third-largest data center operator, says closed-loop systems can reduce overall energy demand. “It’s more costly to build up front, but in the long run it’s more efficient to use [coolant] to evacuate heat,” he says.

Hard to imagine a more perfect demonstration of socializing the cost of negative externalities. The only reason it’s more “efficient” is because they’re charged very little for water, while the cost of depleted aquifers and water treatment is paid by the whole region. Rather than pay more for electricity, they make everyone else pay more for water.

 

[CEMaine]

"the tech giant’s consumption is lower than nearby Northern Illinois University’s student housing complex."
Jeebus what a idiotic argument! I think a university will return significantly more than a DC ever will.

IMO, if these DCs are important to the high-tech industry, then build them in Silicon Valley or Houston. Put them where you ARE. Not where you AREN'T. These are super 'important' right now but for how long? The high-tech industry is littered with 'important' things that were no longer important when the next big/shiny thing came along.

 

[Lorentz of Suburbia]

Deppert, who is also the president of the local farm bureau lobby group, says locals were also “nervous” ... launched a fierce opposition campaign ...

“You just can’t lay down and let everybody do whatever they wish,” Deppert says.

I am sure the article pointed out the extreme irony of such a statement, coming from what is surely Trump-heartland electorate.

If it's something they don't understand (beep-boop computer stuff) they they're easy to mobilize. Probably a good overlap of electromagnetic "sensitives" here.

They understand good old oil and coal, and certainly know that "hippies" and "libtards" are against it, so ... in that case, you must (as a patriotic American) in fact lay down and let "everybody" do whatever they wish to disturb the ground and the greater environment for coal and oil.

Some good overlap, I'm sure with "you can't just let women do whatever they wish" (with their bodies.)

 

[norton_I]

I am sure the article pointed out the extreme irony of such a statement, coming from what is surely Trump-heartland electorate.

I used to drive through the area on I-74 a lot, and I can confirm. Many of the farms had signs on the highway in the "burma shave" style with the theme "guns save lives" offering such insightful wisdom as "ban the criminals, not the guns"

So yeah. Trump country, and people who are really upset at the thought of the gorvernment suggesting they can't go around shooting people saying "You just can’t lay down and let everybody do whatever they wish,” is basically BS.

 

[Lorentz of Suburbia]

"the tech giant’s consumption is lower than nearby Northern Illinois University’s student housing complex."
Jeebus what a idiotic argument! I think a university will return significantly more than a DC ever will.

IMO, if these DCs are important to the high-tech industry, then build them in Silicon Valley or Houston. Put them where you ARE. Not where you AREN'T. These are super 'important' right now but for how long? The high-tech industry is littered with 'important' things that were no longer important when the next big/shiny thing came along.

You are aware that one of the biggest costs of running a DC is electricity right?

Have you ever seen any news in the last decade or so about the cost of electricity in urban centres, particularly high-tech urban centres in California?

No?

Also, there's this thing called the Internet ... it means you can build a DC anywhere the electricity (or taxes, or land, or) is cheap and the latency penalty that it's not right beside your Valley megacorp is immaterial.

Also, you don't need much labour to tend to a server farm. Some higher paid engineer-geeks fly out every so often, but otherwise, it's local rental-cop labour to keep out mischief.

 

[MagiBLacK]

Amazon was forced to abandon a proposed data center project in Tucson, Arizona, after residents raised concerns over water and energy use

For the record, this data center is being built right now just outside the city limit. Local opposition only manager to blow up a proposed partnership between the city of Tucson and the development company. It felt like a victory at the time, but ultimately, it just means that we won't get a say in how the data center operates. =(

 

[p-chapman]

If I put my naive thinking cap on, I'm kind of surprised that data centres are even allowed to pull water out of the ground. That's drinking water, crop growing water. Doesn't anyone have regulations? You know, for some sort of negotiated common good. [Billionaire's dismissive laugh heard faintly in background.]

Heck in some places there used to be an uproar if some bottled water company came to town and planned to take X million gallons from the springs / aquifers a year.

And compare to nuclear plants -- they need a lot of cooling water, and I don't recall them being plunked down in farmland or aquifer-under-desert territory. They were situated by rivers with plentiful cooling water going by.
(Not that that's a perfect solution either, there are some consequences to releasing a lot of warmer water back into the river. But it seems more benign.)

 

[clewis]

Republican strategists are increasingly wary that the administration’s support for AI could trigger a backlash among key voter blocs, including farming communities, ahead of November’s midterm elections.

I expect this backlash to be less than the backlash generated by any one of:

• high gas prices
• high fertilizer prices
• starting a new foreign war
• killing the export market

i.e., nothing.

I gotta wonder just how hard you have to fuck these people over before they realize it.

 

[JudgeMental]

This article is about a data center project in Central Illinois near Peoria It's not water stressed.

Sure, but the comment chain appeared to be discussing the general context of datacenter water consumption, not with this project specifically. Perhaps I misinterpreted that scope, but I've seen enough commentary making exactly the same statement outside of the context of this article that I'm disinclined to let it go uncommented.

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

If holding back data centers means the spread of AI into our lives has to slow down...well, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Although electricity prices are not too bad where I live thanks to hydroelectric sources, other areas are not so lucky and for them, electricity is already too expensive. If more data centers will lead to higher electricity prices (and higher water usage where rights over fresh water are already fought over), I am in favor of slowing the growth of data centers to assign higher priority to maintaining affordable electricity to support homes and the growth of electric vehicles, and to maintain our fresh water supply.

Maybe it's time to wear our wooden shoes (sabots) when fighting the data centers.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabotage

Etymology

The English word derives from the French word saboter, meaning to "bungle, botch, wreck or sabotage"; it was originally used to refer to labour disputes, in which workers wearing wooden shoes called sabots interrupted production through different means. A popular but incorrect account of the origin of the term's present meaning is the story that poor workers in the Belgian city of Liège would throw a wooden sabot into the machines to disrupt production."

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

I don't think I care too much as long as the data center builds enough renewable power generation to cover its needs (net-metering is acceptable) and doesn't get any tax breaks.

I assume you forgot the /S

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

Jerion said:
Rural America mainly cares about living decently, making reasonable money, and going about it without being too crunched in. A datacenter can potentially offer that, same as a factory, a mine, or a warehouse or a hospital. But if you don’t hire and train locally you won’t get local support.

Hire and train for what? Data centers famously don't need many people once they're built. Security to keep the locals out and a few people to replace the occasional failed part. Anything and everything that can be done remotely will be. The only benefit to the local community these things bring is the property taxes, and those can be waived as an "incentive" by local politicians.

Republicans like to accuse Democrats of abandoning rural America, but it turns out as soon as the billionaires came knocking, Republicans turned their back on rural America. Maybe rural America needs to stop being beholden to a single party.

Here in Texas, local politicians get all excited about all the jobs a pipeline coming through will bring. Trouble is, they are just a few temporary jobs with the remaining skilled nomad workers move on with pipeline down the line. Once the pipeline is finished, nobody has a job from it. At least they're not as bad as an F*cking ugly eyesore like the high voltage power lines they're planning to power the data centers (aka crypto miners) in west Texas. Texas has the best politicians money can buy (but that's probably true everywhere).

 

[rainynight65]

Back in the good old days, datacenters were where cool kids hung out on Friday nights trying to figure out why their RAID array was going offline randomly. (At least, when I used to own a small VPS company) I just hate how a boring, nerdy space like this has been turned into a dumpster fire and political issue.



Is the hideous solar farm in the room with us right now?

Anyone who calls solar farms or wind farms hideous has never laid eyes on an open-cut coal mine.

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

If people want to live in the decaying, capital starved backwaters of America, I’m fine with that. Cherish the last picture show when it ends. But don’t get pissed off about it when it comes to election time and elect populist idiots who promise to fix things by making prices higher for everyone and generally making things more unpleasant for the American consumer.

So where do you live, Mr. Elitist ?
Please let us know so we can send you some poop packages.
Are people living near our national parks in "... decaying, capital starved backwaters of America ..." just dumb fucks?

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

quamquam quid loquor said:
The amount of water datacenters use directly is actually pretty small compared to the amount of water they consume indirectly via the water needed for power generation.

The direct water use is a weak argument, since the power generation is where the majority of the water use is.

Especially in Illinois which has among the highest percentage of nuclear power which is the most water intensive power source.

Direct water usage is only really a concern if you are using portable water in a desert. But tapping an aquafir in illinois for data center cooling is just not a big deal compared to the agricultural uses or the electricity demand of the datacenter.

And a lot of the water in Illinois is used for irrigating corn which is possibly the only thing dumber and more destructive than AI datacenters.

It's a tossup that growing corn is dumber and more destructive than Ai data centers. At least you can eat some of the corn but the excess corn is responsible for burning it in gasoline as ethanol, fattening cattle and the zillion of corn based other products which powers our misguided economy.
Don't get me started on milk and cheese (I like a little cheese but I'm lactose intolerant).

 

[Soothsayer786]

I live in Tazewell County, IL and I am also quite opposed to the proposed data center that the article references. I'm no farmer but I am pissed off about the price of energy, and the increasing fees for water and sewage. There is no way this data center does not further drive up the costs.

There isn't a single person I've spoken to who is in favor of it. Everyone living around here doesn't care about possible jobs it may add, they are worried about what it will end up costing us.

I wouldn't be opposed to them building if they would put up a solar farm or something to offset the energy usage, but the water issue is also a concern. For most people around here though they are mainly concerned about the price of powering their homes.

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

Forgive me for not feeling overly sympathetic towards farmers and water use. Tucson might have blocked a data center, but a quick breakdown of water use in Arizona has 22% of water going to residents, 6% to industry- and 72% to agriculture, a lot of it being used to grow alfalfa which is exported for animal feed to places like Saudi Arabia. Golf courses in Phoenix can be the next to go if we want to curb stupid water use

/Radical idea- replace all of them with solar panels beautiful clean coal fired power plants and solve the energy issue at the same time.

Actually, the golf courses are to use up the partially treated waste water here and I suspect elsewhere. Not that I consider that a reasonable use when further treatment can make it potable. Problem is the ICK ! Factor which San Diego "overcomes" by pumping absolutely pure RO treated waste water into wells and pumping the water back up a little distance away. Pure madness.

I wonder what people that live in cities near rivers and get their drinking water from think where that water came from? Especially when there's another large city upstream dumping their waste water in to the river. And bother to think that fishes and wild animals probably pee and poop in that water. Even rainwater collection's water fell though whatever air pollution is local. One has to really consider the ick factor.

 

[goretsky]

Hello,

I do not understand why Montana isn't trying to get all of these data center build outs.

Montana Governor (and occasional wrestler of reporters) Greg Gianforte is a big proponent of AI: Having signed both the EO 5-5025 (406 Jobs Initiative) and the SB 211 (Montana Right to Compute Act) into law, and AI guidance announced for primary (K-12) school grades, it seems a no-brainer that Montana that all sorts of hyperscalers should be opening up shop there.

Combined with Montana's abundant coal reserves (the largest in the nation) they should have ample electricity to power them.

It won't necessarily be very pretty, safe, or healthy to have all those coal-fired power plants and data centers around, but with Montana's low population density surely some of its populace would survive.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[pete.d]

The laws haven't fundamentally changed since the late 1800s. It's a $2 trillion industry that is almost entirely valued based on the regulated return on rate base assumption. It's one of the most entrenched and difficult to change systems in the entire world.

Oh! Well, then, clearly it's settled. We should definitely just not try.

Anyway...

Frankly, while I get that large industries tend to be wary and even resistant to change, I don't see why they'd be particularly concerned by a proposal to make certain customers fund infrastructure improvements that the power industry is going to have to make eventually anyway. The laws could even include changes to simplify/streamline the permitting process, and other changes that the industry would have no reason to object to, if not actively lobby in favor of.

 

[norton_I]

It's a tossup that growing corn is dumber and more destructive than Ai data centers. At least you can eat some of the corn but the excess corn is responsible for burning it in gasoline as ethanol, fattening cattle and the zillion of corn based other products which powers our misguided economy.

It's not even close. Half of the corn grown in the US is for bio-ethanol, which provides less than 10% of our gasoline, while consuming massive quantities of diesel and fertlilzer. And it takes up about 50 million acres and consumes 17 trillion gallons of water a year. King Corn is the biggest ecological catastrophe in the United states by a country mile.

 

[THT]

Yeah, its called farming, more specifically agrivoltaics. Raised solar panels providing some shade for the plants. Given current temperature trends, it helps. Also on top of water ways/reservoirs to help with evaporation.

https://www.agritecture.com/blog/20...-to-be-a-bumper-crop-for-agrivoltaic-land-use

As has been said before, something like 40% of corn production goes to ethanol production. This is a net negative for GHGe and decreases ICE vehicle efficiency.

Putting solar+storage on farm land used for corn for ethanol will generate more energy than USA electrical energy demand. Not just EV demand, but the entire electrical energy demand of the USA.

Only about what, 25% of farming products in the USA is actually used for food in the USA. Most of it is used for exports and ethanol production.

No need for agrivoltaics, even though it is useful. Just converting farmland used for ethanol production to solar+storage is enough. You don’t even need to use all of it. Half of it will be a gigantic dent into the USA.

 

[Thinker_in_TX]

"the tech giant’s consumption is lower than nearby Northern Illinois University’s student housing complex."
Jeebus what a idiotic argument! I think a university will return significantly more than a DC ever will.

IMO, if these DCs are important to the high-tech industry, then build them in Silicon Valley or Houston. Put them where you ARE. Not where you AREN'T. These are super 'important' right now but for how long? The high-tech industry is littered with 'important' things that were no longer important when the next big/shiny thing came along.

Hey! Did you pull Houston out of your ass?

I was born and grew up there but don't live there anymore but I have family there and still have a soft spot for Houston. Despite being the Texas center for the oil industry, it has diversified into other industries. I don't think Houston is one of biggest data center users anymore than any large city. It does have the advantage of not generally having a water shortage but then many Gulf of Mexico (intentional) coastal areas have lots of ground water.