4 ms·

Some of us would like to keep our “infinite” water resources which actually aren’t infinite. I live beneath two transmission lines (overlapping, I guess, but n

Some of us would like to keep our “infinite” water resources which actually aren’t infinite. I live beneath two transmission lines (overlapping, I guess, but not intersecting) and would prefer no data centre built here. Why? Because it will provide me no benefit whatsoever, reduce my property value, and worsen my quality of life due to things like light pollution and noise. If data centre operators would fix these things perhaps people would feel differently. For example - provide multi gigabit fibre Internet to everyone nearby.

jeffbee 5mo ago
I support in principle the rights of towns to set their own land use rules, but on the larger societal picture I don't support people benefiting from things like intermodal shipping, goods distribution, and information services that they refuse to host. So I perceive a certain hypocrisy in this story.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo ago
  Surely I benefit from a host of things for which I want nowhere near me. Strip mining, petroleum refining, chemical processing, coal fired electricity, etc. Am I allowed any autonomy or must we all accept that if a rich group wants to plop down a leather tanning factory across the street, I should have no recourse?
  - jeffbee 5mo ago
    That's a mix of different issues. The site of a natural resource isn't one of the things that political systems control, whereas the site of a petrochemical refinery or a power station is chosen by those systems. So yes, it is obviously hypocrisy to consume petrochemical products while insisting that the refinery can't be in your "rural character" exclave with the arbitrary line drawn around it, but allowing the same facility to be built over the county line in the poorer, browner community that you consider sacrificial. Anyway, the impacts of a data center are not in the same ballpark as the other things you mentioned.
- mindslight 5mo ago
  Maybe everyone in this village already has their own local AI rig. From a technical perspective, data centers aren't providing public goods - rather they're more like attractive nuisances that foster centralized control.
  - thewebguyd 5mo ago
    Mentioned earlier in the thread, but maybe these data centers should start providing public goods to the towns/counties in which they build? Free high speed internet, heavily subsidized compute, maybe partner with local colleges to offer labs & internships, etc. There's no reason they can't be economic accelerators for the towns they are in.
    - mindslight 5mo ago
      I agree it would help their image, but this all sounds like more corporate centralization to me. I've got a functioning electric coop that provides gigabit internet for a flat fee every month. I think they're even doing trial runs of 10Gb, but I haven't looked into it because I simply don't need it. Internet access can be a solved problem these days, where there is the political will. And if anything local colleges should be offering compute resources to the larger community, not themselves relying on scraps of generosity from commercial buildouts.
      - trollbridge 5mo ago
        With a new data centre, your electric coop rates can go up with no benefit to you whatsoever.
        jeffbee 5mo ago
        In America electric rates are increasing due to 20 years of stagnation and failure to invest in transmission, and new data centers are on average associated with lower, not higher retail electric rates. This is because large consumers drive down marginal prices. In your country things may be proceeding differently, but that's the story here.
- Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
  I kind of agree but I live in a city in Sweden. Should I not be able to use youtube or order online because we don't have a DC right next door?
  - KptMarchewa 5mo ago
    Sweden has a bunch of data centers. Doubt any of them consume coal based electricity though.
    - Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
      Yup exactly :) It is all about how you plan, build etc how good you are.
thewebguyd 5mo ago
> provide multi gigabit fibre Internet to everyone nearby. Kind of a cool idea, actually. These data centers could turn the towns where they build into startup incubators. Offer free high speed internet and heavily subsidized compute to residents in exchange for building there. At least gives back economically somewhat, as a data center itself doesn't provide much in return.
- culi 5mo ago
  Gigabit internet doesn't power startups. It powers consumer streaming. As long as you can run Zoom, you don't need high internet speeds for startups
  - trollbridge 5mo ago
    You pretty much need low latency 1G+ to work from home these days.
    - weakfish 5mo ago
      ... do you? I have 500mpbs and both my partner and I WFH with no problems.
      - culi 5mo ago
        For group calls you just need 1.0 Mbps. If you want 1080p group calls you need 3.8 Mbps. Zoom itself says for a "reliable WFH setup" you should have "at least 25 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload" I've gotten by on McDonald's wifi
    - nixgeek 5mo ago
      I work from Starlink regularly and it’s just fine for meetings and everything else I do. Meetings are usually under 10Mbps of downstream and 2Mbps upstream. It’s simply false you need 1Gbps of “low latency” internet to work from home effectively unless your job is something like content production and working with huge files. Producing for OnlyFans? Benefit from 1G to send raw to your editor. Doing most other forms of work? Doesn’t require remotely close to this amount of bandwidth.
parineum 5mo ago
This water usage meme needs to die. Although, it is nice to have an indicator for people who believe whatever they told without trivial verification.
RajT88 5mo ago
I'm seeing a lot of pushback against data centers in my town, building where there is currently cornfields. I would disagree that it provides no benefit whatsoever. I ran the numbers on the proposed campuses, and at half price for industrial property taxes, it's at full build-out going to bring a billion dollars a year to the city. The property taxes I pay, which 73% of go to the local school district is about 108 million per year. Unless the city royally screws this up, my property taxes are going to go down. Only a tiny number of residents will live near the data centers. But, the opposition is massive locally here, and I've been trying to understand why. Talking to people in various groups, there seems to be more going on with the opposition than simple NIMBYism (although that's part of it). Some of the cited reasons are understandable - concerns about electricity. The state passed a bill to provide some relief, and there should be no water impacts locally here. > Some of us would like to keep our “infinite” water resources which actually aren’t infinite. We're talking Lake Michigan, which is where the local data centers by me will be sourcing their water from (our city and surrounding cities are switching from deep aquifer wells to lake water brought in via very long pipe). Forget the data centers (that's a drop in the bucket compared to the cities' usage), such pipes usually have a capacity of 50-100 million gallons per day (MGD). That'd be able to drain Lake Michigan in about 35000 years, assuming no rainfall. Forget draining, how many such pipes do you have to build for it to start draining water faster than it's flowing into the lake? At 100MGD, 300 or so. So yeah, it's not infinite. Enough of these big pipes built out across multiple states could have an effect. IL is apparently limited to ~2000 MGD, and any other state bordering a lake (any great lake) has limits/usage far, far lower than that (Michigan is apparently 5MGD?). It doesn't appear to be too much of a concern. None of what's allowed would add up to taking out more lake water than is flowing into the lake. As long as the current limits are kept as-is.
- jeffbee 5mo ago
  Given the predicted rise of Lake Michigan, and the predicted future volatility of its level, I would suggest that the cities and states of the region be building as many megascale waterworks as they can, and the energy systems to operate them. If they can get that money from data center builders, all the better.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

jeffbee 5mo ago

I support in principle the rights of towns to set their own land use rules, but on the larger societal picture I don't support people benefiting from things like intermodal shipping, goods distribution, and information services that they refuse to host. So I perceive a certain hypocrisy in this story.

3eb7988a1663 5mo ago
Surely I benefit from a host of things for which I want nowhere near me. Strip mining, petroleum refining, chemical processing, coal fired electricity, etc. Am I allowed any autonomy or must we all accept that if a rich group wants to plop down a leather tanning factory across the street, I should have no recourse?
- jeffbee 5mo ago
  That's a mix of different issues. The site of a natural resource isn't one of the things that political systems control, whereas the site of a petrochemical refinery or a power station is chosen by those systems. So yes, it is obviously hypocrisy to consume petrochemical products while insisting that the refinery can't be in your "rural character" exclave with the arbitrary line drawn around it, but allowing the same facility to be built over the county line in the poorer, browner community that you consider sacrificial. Anyway, the impacts of a data center are not in the same ballpark as the other things you mentioned.
mindslight 5mo ago
Maybe everyone in this village already has their own local AI rig. From a technical perspective, data centers aren't providing public goods - rather they're more like attractive nuisances that foster centralized control.
- thewebguyd 5mo ago
  Mentioned earlier in the thread, but maybe these data centers should start providing public goods to the towns/counties in which they build? Free high speed internet, heavily subsidized compute, maybe partner with local colleges to offer labs & internships, etc. There's no reason they can't be economic accelerators for the towns they are in.
  - mindslight 5mo ago
    I agree it would help their image, but this all sounds like more corporate centralization to me. I've got a functioning electric coop that provides gigabit internet for a flat fee every month. I think they're even doing trial runs of 10Gb, but I haven't looked into it because I simply don't need it. Internet access can be a solved problem these days, where there is the political will. And if anything local colleges should be offering compute resources to the larger community, not themselves relying on scraps of generosity from commercial buildouts.
    - trollbridge 5mo ago
      With a new data centre, your electric coop rates can go up with no benefit to you whatsoever.
      - jeffbee 5mo ago
        In America electric rates are increasing due to 20 years of stagnation and failure to invest in transmission, and new data centers are on average associated with lower, not higher retail electric rates. This is because large consumers drive down marginal prices. In your country things may be proceeding differently, but that's the story here.
Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
I kind of agree but I live in a city in Sweden. Should I not be able to use youtube or order online because we don't have a DC right next door?
- KptMarchewa 5mo ago
  Sweden has a bunch of data centers. Doubt any of them consume coal based electricity though.
  - Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
    Yup exactly :) It is all about how you plan, build etc how good you are.

thewebguyd 5mo ago

> provide multi gigabit fibre Internet to everyone nearby. Kind of a cool idea, actually. These data centers could turn the towns where they build into startup incubators. Offer free high speed internet and heavily subsidized compute to residents in exchange for building there. At least gives back economically somewhat, as a data center itself doesn't provide much in return.

culi 5mo ago
Gigabit internet doesn't power startups. It powers consumer streaming. As long as you can run Zoom, you don't need high internet speeds for startups
- trollbridge 5mo ago
  You pretty much need low latency 1G+ to work from home these days.
  - weakfish 5mo ago
    ... do you? I have 500mpbs and both my partner and I WFH with no problems.
    - culi 5mo ago
      For group calls you just need 1.0 Mbps. If you want 1080p group calls you need 3.8 Mbps. Zoom itself says for a "reliable WFH setup" you should have "at least 25 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload" I've gotten by on McDonald's wifi
  - nixgeek 5mo ago
    I work from Starlink regularly and it’s just fine for meetings and everything else I do. Meetings are usually under 10Mbps of downstream and 2Mbps upstream. It’s simply false you need 1Gbps of “low latency” internet to work from home effectively unless your job is something like content production and working with huge files. Producing for OnlyFans? Benefit from 1G to send raw to your editor. Doing most other forms of work? Doesn’t require remotely close to this amount of bandwidth.

parineum 5mo ago

This water usage meme needs to die. Although, it is nice to have an indicator for people who believe whatever they told without trivial verification.

RajT88 5mo ago

I'm seeing a lot of pushback against data centers in my town, building where there is currently cornfields. I would disagree that it provides no benefit whatsoever. I ran the numbers on the proposed campuses, and at half price for industrial property taxes, it's at full build-out going to bring a billion dollars a year to the city. The property taxes I pay, which 73% of go to the local school district is about 108 million per year. Unless the city royally screws this up, my property taxes are going to go down. Only a tiny number of residents will live near the data centers. But, the opposition is massive locally here, and I've been trying to understand why. Talking to people in various groups, there seems to be more going on with the opposition than simple NIMBYism (although that's part of it). Some of the cited reasons are understandable - concerns about electricity. The state passed a bill to provide some relief, and there should be no water impacts locally here. > Some of us would like to keep our “infinite” water resources which actually aren’t infinite. We're talking Lake Michigan, which is where the local data centers by me will be sourcing their water from (our city and surrounding cities are switching from deep aquifer wells to lake water brought in via very long pipe). Forget the data centers (that's a drop in the bucket compared to the cities' usage), such pipes usually have a capacity of 50-100 million gallons per day (MGD). That'd be able to drain Lake Michigan in about 35000 years, assuming no rainfall. Forget draining, how many such pipes do you have to build for it to start draining water faster than it's flowing into the lake? At 100MGD, 300 or so. So yeah, it's not infinite. Enough of these big pipes built out across multiple states could have an effect. IL is apparently limited to ~2000 MGD, and any other state bordering a lake (any great lake) has limits/usage far, far lower than that (Michigan is apparently 5MGD?). It doesn't appear to be too much of a concern. None of what's allowed would add up to taking out more lake water than is flowing into the lake. As long as the current limits are kept as-is.

jeffbee 5mo ago
Given the predicted rise of Lake Michigan, and the predicted future volatility of its level, I would suggest that the cities and states of the region be building as many megascale waterworks as they can, and the energy systems to operate them. If they can get that money from data center builders, all the better.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]