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Meta is spending $10B in rural Louisiana to build its largest data center
- guest__user 1y agoLouisiana is so historically corrupt : meta chose Louisiana because they can pretty much do what they want and the parishes (counties) like Richland where this is being built are so poor they couldnt care less about any environmental or quality of life setbacks. as a reminder , Louisiana is home to the cancer alley.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
- mritterhoff 1y agoWhile Meta has a non-binding promise to build more renewable energy, the Louisiana Legislature passed a new law that adds natural gas to the definition of green energy, allowing Zuckerberg and others to count Entergy’s gas turbines as “green.” As much as I prefer burning gas over coal, conflating it with zero(-ish) emission energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear is bad.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoWho is this non-binding promise being made to, and why make one?
- JKCalhoun 1y ago"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today…" Seems to be pretty common these days when corporate make deals with cities/counties/states.
- juujian 1y ago[flagged]
- blitzar 1y ago[flagged]
- dr-detroit 1y ago[dead]
- juujian 1y agoDue to all the methane leaks, gas isn't even as much cleaner than coal as it was purported to be... But hey monitoring programs got cut so I guess that solves the problem...
- chris_va 1y agoAs an aside, methane leaks from coal mines can be worse than upstream leaks from O&G.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mritterhoff 1y agoI agree methane leaks (and monitoring programs cuts) are a problem. But even with them, methane burns much more cleanly than coal. The former primarily emits CO2 and H2O, while the latter emits SO2, NOx, heavy metals and more.
- chaos_emergent 1y agoI think the problem is that methane is 20x more powerful a GHG than CO2
- dpkirchner 1y agoLaugh in the face of anyone suggesting CO2 capture technology. We won't even capture the more-valuable methane.
- hippo22 1y ago[dead]
- mikeyouse 1y agoThese definitions always get muddled when flipping between CO2 emissions or pollution... coal is definitely worse from a pollution standpoint, is likely worse from a carbon standpoint, but much of the methane produced from natural gas production is just released into the atmosphere and has a dramatically higher warming effect compared to CO2 -- on the order of 80x more warming potential over 20 years and at least 20x over 100 years. So only looking at the byproducts of methane combustion is also misleading since nat. gas plants largely aren't burning methane - and blanket statements for all natural gas are also misleading since e.g. the gas from Canada is extremely 'Sour' and releases a ton of sulfur compounds when burned, often with fewer scrubbers than coal plants.
- h1fra 1y agoburning fossil fuel and depleting the local water aquifer, I'm starting to miss the greenwashing era
- estearum 1y agoBehaving a certain way to pretend being virtuous, it turns out, is almost as good as actually being virtuous.
- gosub100 1y agoRedefining words to fit their narrative and premise...hmm where have I seen that before?
- jandrese 1y agoIs there really a concern that the datacenter is going to drink up all the water in Louisiana? I was much more concerned that it will be expensive to cool because it's situated in a state with a lot of hot and humid days.
- maxehmookau 1y agoAdding natural gas to the definition of green energy is absolutely wild. How on earth did that pass?
- jjice 1y agoI have to imagine it's just a complete lack of care and classifying it as "green" helps push through something that they're being lobbied to push. I can't imagine this is anything but nonsense.
- dublinben 1y agoLouisiana has a long history of political corruption, and the petrochemical industry is a major part of their economy.
- jgalt212 1y agoLA has the resource curse.
- yoyohello13 1y agoWe all know how it passed. Legislators have lots of money in natural gas I’m sure.
- babypuncher 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- m101 1y agoNone of those energy source is zero-ish. They all require upfront releases of CO2 to create, and end of life release to recycle. Nuclear for base load and gas for peak/flexible demand is the most climate friendly solution available.
- digdugdirk 1y agoLook, I love to be pedantic as much as the next person on this site, but let's not miss the forest for the trees. State level legislature relabeling fossil fuels so they count as "green" is not the path to a better future.
- timeon 1y ago> They all require upfront releases of CO2 to create, and end of life release to recycle. All of them require that; but not all of them require it during the production. Some, like natural gas, do.
- m101 1y agoYes, but that's not the point is it. The point is: what are total emissions?
- barbazoo 1y ago> Meta has a non-binding promise to build more renewable energy Also the people working for that company. Unimaginable wealth, both at the corporate and personal level, everyone aware at this point that the climate is breaking down and yet, they just can't do the right thing because they are just too damn greedy.
- digdugdirk 1y agoLooks like Louisiana is all aboard the "internal colonialism" that seems to be all the rage at the state level lately. In this case, flouting national/international renewable energy policy so the good people of Louisiana can get the long term benefit of... Having to deal with the fallout of another datacentre project? Come on Louisiana legislature, at least make them pay for resurfacing a highway or something.
- lupusreal 1y ago> Having to deal with the fallout of another datacentre project? I don't understand. What are the specific risks facing the people of Louisiana?
- JKCalhoun 1y ago> The project entails more than 2 gigawatts of computing capacity—Zuckerberg said it could eventually expand to 5 gigawatts—programmed to train open-source large language models. Given that the human brain takes much longer to "train", I wonder how the energy efficiency pans out — comparing the two.
- idiotsecant 1y agoBiological systems are wildly energy efficient, that's kind of their whole thing. The average human will consume approximately 75kwh worth of calories in their lifetime. There are electric cars with bigger batteries. [Edit] ok, yes, please. I get that i missed the k in kcal. The point stands. Biological training is massively more efficient, even when you forget to multiply by 1000
- positr0n 1y ago> The average human will consume approximately 75kwh worth of calories in their lifetime. There are electric cars with bigger batteries. Doesn't pass the smell test. I think I could push an electric car at least a mile a day if that's what I spent most my extra calories on. If I did that I'd surpass its range in well under 2 years, much less than my lifetime.
- ctoth 1y agoYou're off by about three orders of magnitude. A human consuming 2000 kcal/day (conservative estimate) uses about 2.32 kWh per day. Over 75 years, that's roughly 64,000 kWh.
- idiotsecant 1y agoOh, right i did a conversion wrong. Woops. In any case, a rounding error when talking about gigawatts of generation capacity
- trylist 1y agoWe're efficient once we have the energy, sure. How much energy does it take to go from raw sunlight to a calorie your body is actually able to use, and finally to your dinner table?
- idiotsecant 1y agoThe major tech companies are all scrambling to snap up cheap energy right now. The result is that we are dumping a whole lot of additional carbon in red states and adding a while lot of additional extremely expensive per MWh sources in blue states. In both cases, the winners will be tech company shareholders and the losers will be the people who actually live in these communities who will end up with dirtier, more expensive power.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoThe losers are going to be the energy companies who think they’re getting long-term energy sales but probably won’t be, since these techniques will get more efficient.
- idiotsecant 1y agoThe techniques will get more efficient, but the quantity of training will increase monotonically. We aren't going to use less energy overall. The ratepayers are absolutely the ones who will lose out on this.
- dorkypunk 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- nitwit005 1y agoPeople using consumer generative AIs are already using it for free, or very cheaply. It may be hard for falling costs to drive more demand.
- ericmcer 1y agoThe demand for energy will never go down, the more we can produce the more we will use.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
- lxm 1y agoInteresting that they bring up water consumption https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o
- jimt1234 1y agoI'm not super-familiar with Louisiana, but my general impression is there's a lot of climate/weather events that are gonna impact power reliability. Hmmm.
- dardeaup 1y agoIf you're thinking of hurricanes (and you may not be), the location is far enough away from the coast that they wouldn't be a significant problem.
- hnuser123456 1y agoLooks like it's surrounded by ponds to contain potential flooding. And it's apparently getting 3 new power plants.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago> While Meta has a non-binding promise to build more renewable energy, the Louisiana Legislature passed a new law that adds natural gas to the definition of green energy, allowing Zuckerberg and others to count Entergy’s gas turbines as “green.” This means it isn't securities fraud when Meta tries to meet "climate commitments" due to the greenwashing of fossil gas generation by the state of Louisiana. Louisiana is a low regulation jurisdiction that doesn't care if most of the state ends up a Superfund site, so it is ideal to colocate data centers that are going to burn up a bunch of fossil gas there over their lifetime (when they are unwelcome elsewhere). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air https://www.propublica.org/article/cancer-alley-louisiana-epa-environmental-racism https://www.propublica.org/article/cancer-alley-louisiana-ep... https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-where-toxic-air-is-about-to-get-worse https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-w...
- mlinhares 1y agoAnd people say blood sacrifices have ended in the modern world.
- codelikeawolf 1y agoI'll never understand why tech companies choose some of the locations for their data centers. Considering a big thing with data centers is "keeping stuff cool", you would think they would build them in the northern states, closer to Canada versus the hot sticky swamp.
- gen3 1y agoThe speed of light is incredibly slow and data through a wire is even slower. Proximity is worth something
- gowld 1y agoSo why put a datacenter in Louisiana, far from the vast majority of people in the Americas?
- gen3 1y agoYou’re pretty close to Texas tech hubs, plus Meta was able to convince them to pass Louisiana Act No 730 so they save a ton on capex
- coolspot 1y agoDoesn’t matter for training, as all GPUs are colocated in the same DC.
- aeve890 1y ago>The speed of light is incredibly slow I get where you're coming from but still I find funny in so many levels that the literal speed limit of the universe is too slow for our mundane (or even banal in FB case) needs. the universe isn't good enough to our need to move bullshit across the globe. surreal. In the same vein it would be awesome if this _need for speed_ would materialize in infinite funding of neutrino based communication research.
- lostmsu 1y agoAs a side note, if you liked the above comment, but haven't yet read "A Fire Upon the Deep", you will probably enjoy it.
- giancarlostoro 1y agoI always told myself if I ever became a "tech billionaire" I'd buy out a random abandoned town somewhere, setup high speed internet, and turn a ghost town into a high tech town, cause why not? You could easily become mayor and approve some reasonable projects. Sell extremely affordable housing for the buck (close to actual cost). I do often wonder if it might be worthwhile to shove a bunch of server farms into a few abandoned mines, if you setup the appropriate infrastructure in said mines to protect your data centers.
- thepryz 1y agoI always thought Detroit would have been the ideal location for Amazon to build HQ2 for that reason.
- paxys 1y agoYou can build it, sure, but why would anyone want to live there?
- giancarlostoro 1y agoDisconnected from a major city, fiber internet, affordable, why would anyone want to move to Orlando it's all swamp lands? I remember that being Walt Disneys response when a reporter (who was correct) accused him of buying up all the land in Florida.
- danlugo92 1y ago> affordable You'd get Waco'ed or Ruby Ridge'ed.
- paxys 1y ago97% of the USA is already disconnected from a major city and affordable. And now with Starlink broadband internet is accessible as well. Yet there is no rush to migrate to rural areas - quite the opposite. People want to live in cities and suburbs.
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- hyability 1y agoReliability is king. Why not just buy 50 sq mi of ranch land in Arizona for a data center complex, install a solar and battery storage system and eliminate electricity concerns for the next 20 years? Using LFP or sodium-ion batteries for storage effectively eliminates fire risk. Have there been any formal studies looking at OpEx ROI for offgrid carbon free generation + storage for data centers? Exiting the grid and vertically integrating on site generation eliminates a lot of risk when dealing with an external utility. FAANG has the market cap to drive down costs for reliable carbon-free generation and storage, like Alphabet is doing[1]. Microsoft is demonstrating water-free cooling solutions[2]. As long as there's a fiber backbone nearby, FAANG can slash energy OpEx and not worry about the rest of the grid. Or natural gas prices. [1]https://dataconomy.com/2024/12/11/why-googles-800m-bet-on-clean-energy-has-everyone-talking/ https://dataconomy.com/2024/12/11/why-googles-800m-bet-on-cl... [2]https://datacentremagazine.com/news/how-are-companies-pioneering-data-centre-zero-water-cooling https://datacentremagazine.com/news/how-are-companies-pionee...
- hnburnsy 1y agoI am amazed that it appears that Meta did not ask for tax breaks for a $10B project. Seems like they absolutely could have 'bid' this out among competing locales.
- codemac 1y agoThere is a big matrix of risk/reward for any DC location. You bet Meta asked for incentives, but sometimes a guarantee of future power capacity, fast permitting, or ideal locations are worth more than the incentives the state could afford.
- lesuorac 1y agoSure, but you don't have to build your DC at the place that has the cheapest bid. You just need to make them think you might not build somewhere else unless they sweeten the deal. Hopefully this just means that governments have wisened up to the fact that a gazillion DCs are going to be built so if you pass on Meta you can just pickup Google's.
- tomByrer 1y agoThey didn't have to ask for special new breaks; the breaks were already passed: https://www.opportunitylouisiana.gov/news/meta-selects-northeast-louisiana-as-site-of-10-billion-artificial-intelligence-optimized-data-center-governor-jeff-landry-calls-investment-a-new-chapter-for-state https://www.opportunitylouisiana.gov/news/meta-selects-north...
- hnburnsy 1y agoThank you looks like they did get millions a year in no sales or use tax on data center equipment. Nothing compared to what NFL teams con out of cities for stadiums.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoLocation is in Holly Ridge, LA. It is bounded by Fortenberry Rd on the N, LA183 on the E, US80 on the S and Jaggers Ln on the W. It overlays Burn, Wade and Smalling roads. https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/blank-5 https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/blank-5 It has 6 reviews and a 3.7 rating on Google. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pxXR5zxfiiBDDNrB7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/pxXR5zxfiiBDDNrB7 construction website: https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/ https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/
- anon6362 1y agoIt's a Zone X flood zone bounded by Zone AE that runs through the parcel. 22083C0260D It's a pretty piss poor location to invest a boat load of money without putting servers in actual boats.
- neves 1y agoThe ecological and societal costs of data centers are hidden from the FAANG companies. It's very important to be well informed about it so society can regulate it. This podcast series, "Data Vampires" is really informative about the subject: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm-sqZXTqq9oIG_d0P7aTMQHhoBiVroBa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm-sqZXTqq9oIG_d0P7aT... You can find it in your favorite podcast player. Everybody should listen to it.
- azemetre 1y agoGreat podcast, highly recommend it. Paris Marx is writing a book now on data centers. Between him and This Machine Kills it feels great to finally find some high quality tech journalism.
- __loam 1y ago404, wired, and the verge have been doing good work recently too.
- groby_b 1y agoOr you could give the key points instead of asking people to consume 2 hours of content.
- bob1029 1y agoAccess to very cheap power in the MISO region is likely one of the top driving factors for this location. It extends partially into Texas and I've found that my rates are sometimes as little as half of what ERCOT customers are paying. The #1 thing that makes MISO so cheap is the fact that it has the heaviest coal generation mix (>40%) out of all US regional grid operators. Any talk about natural gas or renewables pales in comparison.
- AJayWalker 1y agoNot that it changes your point that much, but doesn’t MISO have more like a 20-30% Coal mix?[0] It looks like natural gas is usually the biggest source of electricity. [0] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO/72h/hourly/2025-08-25T22:00:00.000Z https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO/72h/hourly...
- kitten_mittens_ 1y agoIf you look at the all years view on electricity maps (https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO/all/yearly https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO/all/yearly), 25% is share of generation from coal in MISO. I'd be curious to test the GP's point. Since electricity maps doesn't have cost data for most US balancing authorities, you maybe could try figuring out power costs per balancing authority to end customers by using something like the https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/ "Sales to Customers Customer Sited" data. Revenue over Megawatthours for Industrial service.
- bob1029 1y agoYou can look on the real time map: https://miso.singularity.energy/realtime https://miso.singularity.energy/realtime I am seeing 39.1% right now
- tomByrer 1y agoI would guess the 20 year 'tax break' (AKA the other taxpayers are footing the bill) is the real reason for the building. shell game Meta built a data center in North Kansas City. I'm not sure details of their break (Mayor loves to hand out money), but power is likely cheaper, & def much greener (1/3 from wind farms in Western Kansas state last I checked). "take advantage of a new Louisiana incentive program, established by Act 730, that offers qualifying projects a state and local sales and use tax rebate on the purchase or lease of data center equipment" https://www.opportunitylouisiana.gov/news/meta-selects-northeast-louisiana-as-site-of-10-billion-artificial-intelligence-optimized-data-center-governor-jeff-landry-calls-investment-a-new-chapter-for-state https://www.opportunitylouisiana.gov/news/meta-selects-north...
- PicassoCTs 1y agoWhat could these data-centers used for post-bubble?
- ypeterholmes 1y agoThese things destroy local communities. But none of the locals have access to the fuhr
- bena 1y agoNo. Meta is spending $10B to build its largest data center in rural Louisiana. I guarantee you that a lot of that $10B will be spent out of state. This is yet another corporate handout with the thin veil of "technology investment" Louisiana loves. Myth: It has computers, therefore we are investing in technology and hi-tech jobs. Fact: This will be built by out of state contractors, staffed by mostly out of state workers, and far less than anyone expects or claims. And will essentially transfer local resources out of the state while making those resources more scarce for residents. Louisiana let EA run their QA from here to severely underpay people and pay fewer taxes. They courted IBM to do the same with Salesforce jobs. And now Meta gets to exploit the state to enrich another out-of-state corporation.
- ath3nd 1y agoTranslation: Meta is wasting their money and destroying an already struggling community and the environment to be participating at something at which they are both hopelessly late to and hopelessly behind in. Can't wait for their stock to crash and Zuck to be out.
- plasticsoprano 1y agoWith zuck’s dual class stock he will never be removed. He will either leave on his own or the company will no longer exist.
- ath3nd 1y agoI am fine with any of these options. I have my fingers crossed for an Adam Neumann kind of exit.