7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities

SilverElfin

It’d basically the same as fracking. No one should have to be subject to noise pollution or water pollution from these things. And they’re an eyesore. Plus it’s not like the incumbent residents share in the wealth of these tech companies.

platevoltage

Living in a place where land is super expensive has its benefits I guess.

rho138

Those damn NIMBY’s blocking progress again! /s

IFC_LLC

It's fun to watch how a thing that can potentially create an immense surge of economic development is being vilified. Yes, true, you can't just take and build a data center without having the power and water and all the rest of the things. So fine, make investors to come and build new power plants and get more water lines. This is going to handle a lot of current problems in the infrastructure. We could have used the momentum to build new work opportunities and resources. Instead we managed to mis-represent the thing so much that people won't even consider having a data center in their vicinity. It COULD have been a good thing. It became a bad thing.

good8675309

Finally something that unites the right and the left

freetime2

Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/8yQin

phendrenad2

Like the panic over fracking, or nuclear, or electricity itself (cue the infamous newspaper comic portraying electrical lines as a giant spider shocking people below), it'll take time for the novelty of the anti-hype to wear off, and people will realize that datacenters aren't actually noisy, and they don't annihilate water in a matter-antimatter reaction nullifying its existence, and they don't run jet fuel turbines 24/7. But in that time, China is going to build 100x as many datacenters and Americans will then lament being left behind in the AI race (the way they lament not having high-speed rail like China does).

Lucent

This is why land use and nuisance laws exist in municipalities. People clamor for deregulation when it prevents them from shooting off fireworks or guns or burning trash and move to unincorporated areas. Then, a datacenter comes along, effectively a bigger, louder, richer neighbor playing by the same lack of rules and outdoes them at their own game. It's only oppression when a bigger dog shows up?

alephnerd

Back in the Biden era, we saw a similar movement against REE mining and processing in the far right and left wing social media ecosystem perpetuated by the PRC [0]. Heck, a number of nation state associated accounts were reported and taken down from HN a couple years ago. It wouldn't be surprising if a large portion of the anti-DC movement is being perpetuated by the same orgs. Personally, I view the Kochs and Singham as two sides of the same coin and a major reason why Citizens United should not have been ruled in the manner it was. It is what it is. Data centers are the one bright spot that has been subsidizing green and renewable energy investment now that the Trump admin is running the show, as only mass scale solar and wind can support much of the buildout cheaply and efficiently. We can always leave for the CEE and India where their governments are basically subsidizing the entire capex for buildout. And then American and Western European HNers complain that "dey took 'er jerbs". [0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...

freetime2

These problems feel like they should be solveable. Communities should set strict noise limits and fine the heck out of data centers for exceeding them. Data centers should be required to provide their own power, like this datacenter [1] in Ireland (and ideally a large portion of it should be renewable). They should also be required to minimize water usage, like this Microsoft design that uses closed-loop cooling [2]. It will increase costs, but so be it. If you're going to build these things, then do it right. A bigger problem, however, is that this requires functional government working in the interests of its residents. [1] https://www.computeforecast.com/news/pure-dc-avk-europe-data... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/12...

jmyeet

People are starting to see just who the government works for and this goes for local, city, county, state and federal governments. And it's not you, the voter. It's for the interests of the wealthy. We're seeing just how easy it is to get something wildly unpopular approved. Approvals are given in the dead of night, with little notice, over objections and by weaponizing certain legislation or government authority. A great example of this is the Kevin O'Leary Utah mega-data center than the county didn't want so Kevin O'Leary went to the military, specifically the Military Installation Development Authority ("MIDA") to basically get them to argue the project was for "national security" and to override the county [1]. And here's what's going to happen. Most of these officials won't get voted out. Those that do will get some random six-figure job loosely associated with whoever owns the data center. Basically, we're getting a front row seat on just how undemocratic and corrupt government generally is. It's worth adding that a decade ago Princeton did a study on the effect of public opinion on what bills Congress passed and basically it has zero effect [2]. Bills have about a 30% chance of getting passed and that doesn't change if 0% of people support it or 100% of people support it. [1]: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/05/11/utah-data-center-proj... [2]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

bronco21016

I live in an area where one of these has caused state level political drama in Michigan. Many of my family members love to weigh in when we gather and I’m struggling to understand the animosity. The arguments I frequently hear are: 1) It will jack up our electric rates. From the same people who will NIMBY solar and battery all day long. 2) It uses all of our water. 3) The dust and construction traffic is terrible and it looks terrible. 4) It’s massive and noisy. I’m struggling because the only item I can seemingly validate is electricity cost. There is water usage but it seems heavily tied to the electrical generation. Cooling is a one time consumption and annual top off. Which as I mentioned, these same people will tell you solar and battery are no good. For the eyesore and size etc, it way out of town, when it’s done not many will work there, and noise, they’ve built a hill around it and it won’t use on site electrical generation. I just don’t get the hate. The electrical stuff is a challenge but was going to be no matter what. AI just accelerated it. Maybe I need to go see some other sites to see how bad it is.

selectedambient

this is why offline embedded and local models is the best path forward continuing with AI.

sometimelurker

here's a fun idea: with normal-person ram really expensive, and fabs are pivoting to making more HBM, what if a town built its own datacenter and gave access to it for the townspeople?

fuckinpuppers

Feels like nimby-ism but even for the poor. Everyone gets a piece! It surprises me that these datacenters hum even far away from the buildings. Not too shocked about water but that also seems like a solvable problem by using dirty water, somehow keeping some closed loop system, things that people much smarter than me have looked into. I thought there was a lot of work done back in the “open datacenter” era when FB and Google both seemed to open source their plans and tech and stuff. It’s crazy that now more than ever there is demand for DCs but either they’re cutting corners on efficiency and being responsible stewards, or these are at some scale that still hasn’t solved some of those basic concerns.