4 ms·

I'm seeing a lot of these sorts of articles talking about things like air pollution, but something seems a bit off, given that, to my knowledge, computers do no

by Gormo 1mo ago

I'm seeing a lot of these sorts of articles talking about things like air pollution, but something seems a bit off, given that, to my knowledge, computers do not produce any emissions at all. The article lumps data centers in with landfills, laundromats, and steel mills. But landfills, laundromats, and steel mills all involve physical waste products that can have chemical or biological effects on the surrounding environment. What waste products do data centers output? The article talks about expanding a fossil fuel plant as the source of the pollution question in the Virginia example. This seems only tangentially related to data centers, which don't care what specific technologies are used to generate fungible electricity. Are these disingenuous attempts to attribute pollution originating from power plants to one specific, cherry-picked application of electrical power (despite the increasing prevalence of clean generation technologies over polluting ones, and despite lots of other, unrelated drivers of increased demand for electrical power)? Or is there something more to these arguments that I'm missing?

Tyr42 1mo ago
Behind the meter power generation is being included on site with the data centers.
AnneTrotter 1mo ago
The data centers described incorporate dedicated power generation into their design. The power generation is fossil fuel based and high-pollution, and is being deployed at scale.
tosapple 1mo ago
[dead]
pjc50 1mo ago
The specific issue is that because it's a data center, from a company with unlimited money and therefore political power, it's being allowed to skip all the rules about clean generation. The ones in question are building on-side dirty power.
- pixl97 1mo ago
  Oh add in the Texas railroad commission just voted to end public participation... they are the regulators that permit natural gas pipelines. So ya, add that to the corruption.
Sharlin 1mo ago
If building a data center essentially necessitates building more fossil fuel plants (and/or indeed comes with its own gas and diesel generators because the grid could not handle the extra load, plus generating their own dirty electricity is cheaper for the megacorp because a corrupt govt allows them to externalize costs), the extra emissions are obviously caused by the data center. No matter whether it could maybe in the future run on renewables instead.
defrost 1mo ago
There's a surge in data centre building - a massive surge of power hungry hungry hyper scaled hippos. Many local grids are currently unable to meet that demand, therefore various "solutions" so far include: * buying up jet engines from COVID era bankrupted / downsized air fleets and running them continuously in banks along side data centres to spin generators. You'll note these aren't the cleanest solution, are a bit noisy, and not renewable. * building a data centre AND and onsite LNG gas extraction facility to directly on site gas supply and derived electrical power. This one is expected to be the single largest CO2 source in mainland USofA (or some similar stat, it was recent news). So these are fossil fuel polluting sources that are directly attached to specific data centres and not being used for non data centre purposes.
- Gormo 1mo ago
  So it seems like confirmation that this really is a case of disingenuous conflation of power-generation concerns with data centers per se. I don't think it's reasonable to regard concerns about emissions from banks of continuously running jet engines as "opposition to data centers" any more than concerns about, using the same jet engines to power charging stations in remote areas would, for example, amount to "opposition to EVs".
  - defrost 1mo ago
    > I don't think it's reasonable to regard concerns about emissions from banks of continuously running jet engines as "opposition to data centers" Clearly you don't. For others, it's opposition to power hungry, polluting, noisy, developments that are concentrating digital power in the hands of a few, raising local heat levels (if topology domes heat), consuming memory and GPU resources to the detriment of the commons.
    - Gormo 1mo ago
      > Clearly you don't. Obviously, since I'm the one discussing it here. The broader question is whether the people who are conflating them together are doing so out of honest confusion or out of ulterior motives. > For others, it's opposition to power hungry, polluting, noisy, developments that are concentrating digital power in the hands of a few, raising local heat levels (if topology domes heat), consuming memory and GPU resources to the detriment of the commons. This seems like a hodgepodge of concerns that are all quite distinct from each other. None of them is necessarily invalid in its own right, but lumping them all together and treating them as irresolvable problems in order to oppose data centers per se -- rather than issues that can and should be mitigated independently of anything related to AI -- seems to be disingenuous.
27183 1mo ago
> What waste products do data centers output? Energy production consequences aside, they produce tons of e-waste
jasonjayr 1mo ago
There is also the giant "Tax Incentives" being given to these projects under the guise of them being "job creators". Unfortunately, data center's only need a bunch of jobs at the initial construction + installation of hardware. Once it's operational, it'd need about a dozen staff to maintain round-the-clock on premise supervision.
fuzzfactor 1mo ago
>to my knowledge, computers do not produce any emissions at all. >is there something more to these arguments that I'm missing? Yes. You can't be expected to know everything that comes into play, each person rarely has a very good grasp of the big picture. Have you ever smelled the type of acids and toxic gases that need to be handled before you even get computer chips to build computers with? Where do people think the toxic wastes from these processes end up? Plus the emissions from the freight across different modalities which scales linearly with massiveness of the tonnage. And that's before you even consider the power needs of development when it exceeds the clean energy available at any one time.
- Gormo 1mo ago
  > Have you ever smelled the type of acids and toxic gases that need to be handled before you even get computer chips to build computers with? Yes. These are waste products generated by chip manufacturing, not by using computers that include chips that have already been manufactured elsewhere. > Where do people think the toxic wastes from these processes end up? Hopefully, they end up neutralized at the site of their production. In the worst case, they may end up creating pollution around the locations where the chips are being manufactured, in which case the chip manufacturers should definitely be held responsible for the externalities they create. Could you elaborate on how this relates to data centers? > Plus the emissions from the freight across different modalities which scales linearly with massiveness of the tonnage. And scales not at all in relation to what categories of products are included in that tonnage. This seems to be another instance of cherry-picking a single use case to blame for the externalities of a services that's used by essentially everything else too -- the solution here is to find cleaner ways of fueling cargo ships, just as we need to find cleaner ways of fueling power plants, since it is not reasonable to expect any net reduction in demand for either cargo shipping or for electricity. > And that's before you even consider the power needs of development when it exceeds the clean energy available at any one time. This should be a strong impetus for expanding clean energy production. There's little point in complaining about any specific application of electricity if it's not meant to advocate for generating more power with less pollution.

by Gormo 1mo ago

Tyr42 1mo ago

Behind the meter power generation is being included on site with the data centers.

AnneTrotter 1mo ago

The data centers described incorporate dedicated power generation into their design. The power generation is fossil fuel based and high-pollution, and is being deployed at scale.

tosapple 1mo ago

[dead]

pjc50 1mo ago

The specific issue is that because it's a data center, from a company with unlimited money and therefore political power, it's being allowed to skip all the rules about clean generation. The ones in question are building on-side dirty power.

pixl97 1mo ago
Oh add in the Texas railroad commission just voted to end public participation... they are the regulators that permit natural gas pipelines. So ya, add that to the corruption.

Sharlin 1mo ago

If building a data center essentially necessitates building more fossil fuel plants (and/or indeed comes with its own gas and diesel generators because the grid could not handle the extra load, plus generating their own dirty electricity is cheaper for the megacorp because a corrupt govt allows them to externalize costs), the extra emissions are obviously caused by the data center. No matter whether it could maybe in the future run on renewables instead.

defrost 1mo ago

There's a surge in data centre building - a massive surge of power hungry hungry hyper scaled hippos. Many local grids are currently unable to meet that demand, therefore various "solutions" so far include: * buying up jet engines from COVID era bankrupted / downsized air fleets and running them continuously in banks along side data centres to spin generators. You'll note these aren't the cleanest solution, are a bit noisy, and not renewable. * building a data centre AND and onsite LNG gas extraction facility to directly on site gas supply and derived electrical power. This one is expected to be the single largest CO2 source in mainland USofA (or some similar stat, it was recent news). So these are fossil fuel polluting sources that are directly attached to specific data centres and not being used for non data centre purposes.

Gormo 1mo ago
So it seems like confirmation that this really is a case of disingenuous conflation of power-generation concerns with data centers per se. I don't think it's reasonable to regard concerns about emissions from banks of continuously running jet engines as "opposition to data centers" any more than concerns about, using the same jet engines to power charging stations in remote areas would, for example, amount to "opposition to EVs".
- defrost 1mo ago
  > I don't think it's reasonable to regard concerns about emissions from banks of continuously running jet engines as "opposition to data centers" Clearly you don't. For others, it's opposition to power hungry, polluting, noisy, developments that are concentrating digital power in the hands of a few, raising local heat levels (if topology domes heat), consuming memory and GPU resources to the detriment of the commons.
  - Gormo 1mo ago
    > Clearly you don't. Obviously, since I'm the one discussing it here. The broader question is whether the people who are conflating them together are doing so out of honest confusion or out of ulterior motives. > For others, it's opposition to power hungry, polluting, noisy, developments that are concentrating digital power in the hands of a few, raising local heat levels (if topology domes heat), consuming memory and GPU resources to the detriment of the commons. This seems like a hodgepodge of concerns that are all quite distinct from each other. None of them is necessarily invalid in its own right, but lumping them all together and treating them as irresolvable problems in order to oppose data centers per se -- rather than issues that can and should be mitigated independently of anything related to AI -- seems to be disingenuous.

27183 1mo ago

> What waste products do data centers output? Energy production consequences aside, they produce tons of e-waste

jasonjayr 1mo ago

There is also the giant "Tax Incentives" being given to these projects under the guise of them being "job creators". Unfortunately, data center's only need a bunch of jobs at the initial construction + installation of hardware. Once it's operational, it'd need about a dozen staff to maintain round-the-clock on premise supervision.

fuzzfactor 1mo ago

>to my knowledge, computers do not produce any emissions at all. >is there something more to these arguments that I'm missing? Yes. You can't be expected to know everything that comes into play, each person rarely has a very good grasp of the big picture. Have you ever smelled the type of acids and toxic gases that need to be handled before you even get computer chips to build computers with? Where do people think the toxic wastes from these processes end up? Plus the emissions from the freight across different modalities which scales linearly with massiveness of the tonnage. And that's before you even consider the power needs of development when it exceeds the clean energy available at any one time.

Gormo 1mo ago
> Have you ever smelled the type of acids and toxic gases that need to be handled before you even get computer chips to build computers with? Yes. These are waste products generated by chip manufacturing, not by using computers that include chips that have already been manufactured elsewhere. > Where do people think the toxic wastes from these processes end up? Hopefully, they end up neutralized at the site of their production. In the worst case, they may end up creating pollution around the locations where the chips are being manufactured, in which case the chip manufacturers should definitely be held responsible for the externalities they create. Could you elaborate on how this relates to data centers? > Plus the emissions from the freight across different modalities which scales linearly with massiveness of the tonnage. And scales not at all in relation to what categories of products are included in that tonnage. This seems to be another instance of cherry-picking a single use case to blame for the externalities of a services that's used by essentially everything else too -- the solution here is to find cleaner ways of fueling cargo ships, just as we need to find cleaner ways of fueling power plants, since it is not reasonable to expect any net reduction in demand for either cargo shipping or for electricity. > And that's before you even consider the power needs of development when it exceeds the clean energy available at any one time. This should be a strong impetus for expanding clean energy production. There's little point in complaining about any specific application of electricity if it's not meant to advocate for generating more power with less pollution.