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A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine
- notyourwork 8mo agoThis is where zoning rules make sense.
- bilekas 8mo ago> Stephenson said the data center’s operations team had not seen any “abnormalities” on the day in question. > “However, we take any reports of issues at the site seriously,” Stephenson wrote Absolutely no abnormalities because this is by design, but nobody wanted to pay attention when approving the building and zoning. Amazing what some money to politicians will get you. I can't even imaging living within ear shot of these things. Horrific quality of life. I can't sleep when my water pump is active. > Turner said county officials didn’t understand in 2022 and 2023 exactly what it meant to have gas turbines at a data center, nor did they have zoning rules to address it. Well then why were they allowed to vote on it ? It's incompetance ? Or just straight up corruption.
- ryandrake 8mo agoIt's getting difficult to tell the difference between incompetence and corruption, as widespread as both of them are, and how their consequences always overlap.
- PaulKeeble 8mo agoOne of the ways corruption hides its intentions is lying to make it look like incompetence. It takes a very long time for the truth to come out and it rarely does but corruption depends on people buying the lies and assuming its just incompetence.
- matheusmoreira 8mo agoIncompetence should carry liability as well. If some politician signs his name to random documents without understanding what he's doing and causes harm to people, he should simply pay the price to make the other party whole, whatever damage was caused should be undone to the fullest possible extent and he should be removed from office for good measure because he's clearly too dumb to exercise it responsibly. That's the benign case. If it turns out he wasn't actually incompetent but was signing things in exchange for money or favors he should go to literal death row. Proven corruption should result in the death penalty for all involved.
- progbits 8mo agoYou had me in the first half, the last paragraph is going way too far.
- matheusmoreira 8mo agoIf anything it's not going far enough. Corruption should be considered high treason and lead to public executions. As a common citizen, very few things in this world are more demoralizing than witnessing corrupt politicians get filthy rich while trading favors, embezzling money, creating loopholes for corporations to exploit while pretending to regulate them or whatever else it is that they do, there are so many scams it's impossible to enumerate them all. It breaks one's spirit to realize that it's the honest and the just who get punished on a daily basis while the corrupt get constantly rewarded. That is an incalculable crime against society and should absolutely be severely punished. If they don't like it, they can just not be a politician. Nobody asked them to seek power, they fought to be there. Normal citizens get to go to jail, not them. > But he that knew not and committed things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. > For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required > and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
- notarget137 8mo agoThen blame shifts to the little guy being the scape goat. I mean it already happens in corrupt countries.
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo agoWhat do you mean, "allowed" to vote on it? The county officials are the decisionmakers, who should have allowed or not allowed them? It also seems worth noting that these gas turbine generators are meant to be the solution to another big complaint people have about datacenters, that they might drive up local power prices if they plug into the grid. Like you and the people in the article, I'm personally very sensitive to noise pollution. so to me this sounds like another argument that datacenters should connect to the grid after all. But I'm sure some people disagree and think it's worth it to save on electricity, and others disagree and think there shouldn't be datacenters near them at all. The local government has to resolve the disagreement somehow and no solution is going to make everyone happy.
- ToucanLoucan 8mo agoI mean, I'm fine with datacenters plugging into the grid, if they pay for it. I don't understand (and I mean feel free to explain it) this weird shit where a datacenter goes up and everybody's power bills start increasing. I have assumed that it's because the grid's facilities require upgrades to meet the new demand, but in the case of the "new demand" being "one structure consuming an assload of power" it feels incredibly shitty to lay that burden on the taxpayers.
- hunter2_ 8mo agoIdeally, the revenue from the new customer would be enough to cover the upgrades, so long as the new customer makes an up-front committment (from which loans can be written) that makes their risk (of having to pay for the upgrades even if they shut down much sooner than expected) about equal to if they build out their own off-grid system. And then they could sell to existing customers for slightly less than before, due to scale and an overall reduction of peak-to-baseline ratio. But I guess this isn't how the world works.
- fwip 8mo agoThere's also the supply/demand aspect of it. Some electricity is cheaper to provide than others - the cheapest is the renewable or nuclear that's already built in the area, but when demand is high, the grid provider will source electricity from more expensive sources - coal, natural gas, or importing it from neighboring utilities. So, using some made-up numbers, if your existing cost for 100MW is $0.10/Wh, getting the next 100MW might cost $0.50/Wh, bumping the cost for everyone up to $0.30/Wh.
- tren_hard 8mo ago[flagged]
- citrin_ru 8mo ago> Point is, if you ban anything that makes noise you’ll be left with nothing, it’s pure selfish nimbyism The US is large enough country and it should be possible to build DC far away from homes. That’s a rare case where I support NIMBY. I lived in 1km from a gas fired power station and did bot notice any noise at all. If a DC can be heard it is either too close or too loud.
- dionidium 8mo ago> That’s a rare case where I support NIMBY. It's kind of darkly funny that NIMBY ever came to refer to housing in the first place. The term was originally meant to apply to stuff exactly like this -- i.e. genuinely noxious uses that most people nevertheless agree are necessary somewhere. Almost everybody is a NIMBY in this sense.
- brador 8mo agoNIMBY is an acronym: No In My back Yard.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- JuniperMesos 8mo agoIncumbent homeowners (and sometimes renters in rent-control situations) voting for policies that prevent new housing from being built near them is a huge reason why housing costs so much where I live; and reducing local housing costs is probably the single biggest way that policy changes could directly improve my quality of life. Also, housing itself is often a genuinely noxious use of land for incumbent homeowners. In part because construction creates noise and dust and requires upgrading other local physical infrastructure - but also because more housing implies more new people living in an existing neighborhood, and additional people living somewhere can themselves cause problems for the incumbent residents.
- saltyoldman 8mo agoMy wife and I travel in our RV a lot and used to full time. Some RV parks - even when full - are often totally quiet and peaceful at least enough to not notice a slight background noise of cars driving around here and there. Then a family will arrive that seems like they're at a Disney theme park and you just hear screaming kids non-stop. It's like a tornado is hitting for days. We always joke if you ask a tornado if it's quiet it will answer of course- I don't hear anything. Because there is NOTHING louder than the tornado and that's all it knows.
- scottLobster 8mo agoOr they don't see the problem. Someone's paying 600-900k to live in a townhouse 1000 ft from the runways at Dulles Airport https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/?category=SEMANTIC&searchQueryState={%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A{%22north%22%3A38.949183022471225%2C%22south%22%3A38.93483013609877%2C%22east%22%3A-77.41640292238642%2C%22west%22%3A-77.44150839876582}%2C%22filterState%22%3A{%22sort%22%3A{%22value%22%3A%22globalrelevanceex%22}%2C%22att%22%3A{%22value%22%3A%22airport%22}}%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A16} https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/?category=SEMANTIC&sea...
- thepryz 8mo agoReminds me of former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s suggestion that deaf people buy homes near the airport. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19941105/1939991/ohio-mayor-under-fire-for-saying-deaf-might-like-homes-near-noisy-airport https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19941105/1939991/oh...
- sophrosyne42 8mo agoA consequence on our focus on legislation rather than the more natural legal apths of addressing these problems, e.g. easements and tort law.
- anakaine 8mo agoTowards the end of the article: > "It was only after the data center was operating, following a tour he took of the facility, that Turner said county officials realized the data center was “running in island mode.” > “It was very impressive, but it was obvious that this is not what we thought was allowed,” Turner said." Youve stated its corruption by officials. Its rather clear, however, that when the company were told that a grid connection would take 3 years that they found a way around it that didnt require further approvals. Conspiracy theories are fun, but this isnt one.
- JuniperMesos 8mo agoMaybe there's corruption by officials at the local electric power company and that's why it takes 3 years to get an industrial grid connection. Or maybe there isn't actually any corruption happening and the local electric power company is just building out infrastructure slower or less efficiently than it could in principle be, for the ordinary sorts of reasons why things in this world are not perfect.
- JuniperMesos 8mo agoWhy wouldn't they be allowed to vote on it? How does a zoning rule about gas turbines get enacted at all, except by some body noticing that it's a problem and then voting to create such an ordinance? (Or by voting not to do so, if they think it isn't actually that much of a problem or if there's a way to mitigate it or if the benefits outweigh the costs, just like with any other issue that's within the purview of the county officials?)
- ianschmitz 8mo agoGreat video from Benn Jordan on data center noise causing illness to nearby residents: https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuo https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuo
- SayThatSh 8mo agoI've seen a few videos with the audible whine heard from people's houses even super far away from these datacenters. Guess we'll see in a few years whether they were worth building in the first place or whether they end up abandoned once the bubble bursts.
- iamtheworstdev 8mo agoI assume once the bubble bursts they'll be turned into power supplies for bitcoin miners
- catlikesshrimp 8mo agoHopefully not, but they expect that scenario. For those as ignorant as me, I started reading this https://cointelegraph.com/features/the-last-bitcoin-btc-mine https://cointelegraph.com/features/the-last-bitcoin-btc-mine They expect transaction fees will overtake minting earnings.
- thepryz 8mo agoI saw more than one video about datacenter noise that were clearly crypto mining. There are some questionable designs leveraging shipping containers and what sound like a lot of 120mm fans.
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo agoThese AI datacenters generally have invested quite a lot in Nvidia Chips and completely high end hardware by having DDR5 Chips etc. And even more than that, the largest things for these things is how to supply enough water properly and water-cooling systems which aren't required in traditional systems. They also are very conditional and spike the grid up and down with their use cases slowing the grid. If the bubble bursts, which it will, It's hard to justify the billions of dollars spent on AI specific datacenters for essentially the bricks and mortars. I don't think that its very sound decision that they were worth building, it might make some compensation but not enough, in my opinion.
- jmugan 8mo agoI feel like the world needs more sound engineers. There's a constant humming of the machines and we all suffer for it. We also need more vigilance about preventing noise pollution. The beep, beep, beep may make a company feel like it is doing something for safety, but there is no counterforce that they have to answer to about what they are doing to everyone else not involved. (I know there is a better sound to replace beep beep beep but it hasn't made it to my neighborhood yet)
- hunter2_ 8mo agoWe would need to figure out a quantifiable metric for annoyance level. Municipal sound ordinances do tend to correctly utilize SPL(A) and SPL(C), with A-weighting being relevant for safety against ear injury (low frequencies have less influence) and C-weighting being relevant for annoyance level (low frequencies have more influence), but this isn't nearly enough. For example, ordinances carve out additional tolerance for burstiness, which makes sense for rare events like jackhammering but not for common events like routine plant operations. Sound with lots of harmonic content (think distortion) is more annoying than without. High frequencies can be worse if they reach you, but they're less likely to reach you (approaching a need for line-of-sight). It's complicated. Here's a free idea for someone to run with: just as Zillow has a neighborhood "walkability" score prospective buyers might look at, there could be various pollution scores, including sound and light, sourced from some kind of Flock-like (ew) network of capture devices. Some folks are into mounting things like personal weather stations on their property, so maybe a new generation of devices capturing this type of data (with local signature-based identification of sources, and triangulation when the same thing is heard in multiple places, etc.) wouldn't be too far-fetched.
- jeffbee 8mo agoThe constant humming that causes the overwhelming population-weighted noise pollution comes from cars and airplanes, due to the fact that in America it is currently not legal to build an apartment except within 100ft of a freeway or at the ends of airports.
- saltyoldman 8mo ago
- _2d30 8mo agoThe aerial photo in the article makes the whole thing a little funny to me.
- quickthrowman 8mo agoSane municipalities, counties, and states have noise restrictions for power generation equipment, most of the AHJs in my metro area require no more than 60dB of noise from 100’ away for a generator, that would easily prevent gas turbines from operating. It’s common enough that generator manufacturers make different levels of enclosures to comply with noise regulations. It’s likely impossible to use gas turbines to generate power in my state unless they’re very far away from anyone, rules linked below. The only type of land with no noise restrictions is undeveloped land, so you can operate forestry equipment but not gas turbines. States that allow gas turbines anywhere near their residents homes does not give a shit about them, probably it’s a perfect circle venn diagram with states that reject expanded Medicare funding. https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/p-gen6-01.pdf https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/p-gen6-01.pd...
- rayiner 8mo ago> States that allow gas turbines anywhere near their residents homes does not give a shit about them, probably it’s a perfect circle venn diagram with states that reject expanded Medicare funding. That’s a weird thing to say given the story is about Virginia.
- hoppyhoppy2 8mo ago*Medicaid
- clcaev 8mo agoThere are all kinds of externalities that we fail to accommodate in our market pricing.
- jeffbee 8mo agoThe article very very carefully avoids contextualizing this site, so as a service, here you go: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sully+Rd,+Centreville,+VA/@38.9914605,-77.426631,5219a,35y,258.89h,0.18t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b6471a86c6b983:0x97a9e008031b497e!8m2!3d38.8568832!4d-77.43437!16s%2Fg%2F1tjfhr2m?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sully+Rd,+Centreville,+VA/...
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo agoGenuine question but is the problem datacenters or more specifically AI specific datacenters? Because all these talks of data-center disrupting everyday's life from all the videos I have watched somehow now involve the AI/GPU aspect which have definitely made things more energy intensive and more water intensive But more specifically compute focused datacenters actually feel somewhat good/neutral to the region and you still need remote hands etc. so net employment. Although one of the ideas I have with that is it would be better if the owner of the said datacenter either belonged to the community/cared about it and wasn't a massive corporation for example too. It's the AI bubble which is the issue which has caused a Datacenter frenzy as nameless corporations take massive debts to build them and scramble to do so and cause issues in the process.
- squibonpig 8mo agoVast majority of the new ones are for AI
- downrightmike 8mo agoThe only thing Microslop's CEO cares about is that he can't get enough buildings to fill with machines
- catlikesshrimp 8mo agoIn this case it is mostly the gas plants. They could have installed them far away, keeping the datacenter in place, or even better, use solar power. Or they could have built infrastructure in the middle of nowhere for datacenters to reside. In the end the problem is that maximum profit doesn't care about humans.
- hettygreen 8mo agoCan anyone provide a breakdown for what all these new data centers are used for? Is this storage? If so, storing what? Is this for AI/processing? If so, doing what?
- gib444 8mo agoLow-frequency noise is insidious and an assault on your sanity. Wind turbines are bad for it. And hea_t pump$ to a lesser extent. Blocking low-frequency noise requires very heavy, well-designed construction, and retrofitting a typical dwelling to achieve large reductions is difficult and expensive. This means all the blame goes onto the perpetrators – the developers, the politicians – because for all intents and purposes, residents can't do anything to stop it.
- fudged71 8mo agoThis just happened up north, apparently the largest proposed AI data center in Canada (Synapse's $10B 1GW campus in Olds, Alberta) was just put on pause after the Utilities Commission rejected its power application on March 6, 2026 due to noise pollution concerns from 20 gas turbines, 10 steam generators, and up to 600 diesel backups near 800 homes (just 200m away). The assessments failed to model cumulative worst-case noise. The proposal will be revised and resubmitted of course but the concern isn't going to go away.
- lostmsu 8mo agoSeriously, why do they have to build a DC 200m from homes? Is Alberta out of space?
- bravetraveler 8mo agoI offer you a chatbot in this troubling time
- krunck 8mo agoPerson who probably has never lived next to an industrial site disappointed to find they don't like living next to an industrial site. This is why we have zoning laws.
- seven0444494 8mo ago[dead]
- renewiltord 8mo agoHaha this is because of the on site gas turbines because we’ve decided that any power infrastructure is evil. You gotta love the NDFA that is the market finding the gaps in law to reach utility. I live near a datacenter myself in San Francisco. No problems here.
- ratg13 8mo agoGas turbines emit an array of pollutants including nitrogen oxides, methane, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, and formaldehyde that you should not be breathing. You might not feel it right away, but the closer you are to these things, the more your health is going to suffer over time.
- phil21 8mo agoThe point OP was making is that due to off-site power generation like it should be - there are no gas turbines built co-located with the datacenter they live near. As such, a datacenter is roughly as obnoxious (likely less so due to less traffic) as an office building or warehouse. Until recently most folks living near such a facility likely had no idea. It's when we decide building any power infrastructure anywhere is evil we get absurdities like standing up jet engines in datacenter parking lots as insane workarounds. It's basically impossible to build anything at scale when it comes to power. Solar, wind, transmission lines, nuclear, you name it. There will be a group of folks vehemently against it that ties most projects up so they don't even get proposed to begin with.
- downrightmike 8mo agoPerson in sacrifice zone, sees no problems.
- bluepuma77 8mo agoThe US seems like a pretty huge area for the number of people living there. Why do they need to build a data center 100m from a house, why not build it 1000m away?
- downrightmike 8mo agoutilities cost more to run further
- _DeadFred_ 8mo agoI think you mean 'the utility hike due to the datacenter wouldn't be able to be shared split with the house then'.
- davidliu847386 8mo ago[flagged]
- crypto6chives58 8mo ago[dead]