'People are going to get screwed' Pennsylvania voters unite against data centres

kerhackernews

Really the main issue causing the data center backlash is because they aren't building new 100% green energy production capacity with it. When you drop a data center into an area, energy prices will spike. Additionally, without that green energy capacity they will cause much more air pollution.

tolugenius

Archive link: http://archive.today/0Rxl7

neko_ranger

Residents of the state should get money for needing to live next to data centers and the use of their land/natural resources/etc, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Zigurd

There's lots of AI capex that is low risk. If it ends up being under utilized companies like Amazon and Google will adjust their capex plans. When they say things like under spending is riskier than overspending, for them, that's plausible. But the sketchiest part of the bubble is when you directly bolt a no name data center company to Nvidia's cash pile, and you start turning cash into ever-lengthening receivables collection time, that's why people are skeptical of data centers: even if they can't tell a Google data center from a pivoting crypto bros data center, they smell the bullshit. People also know they are being lied to, Oracle claims their New Mexico data center will run on Bloom fuel cells. I doubt Bloom is ready to scale to data center size without proof of concept in different applications at large if not directly comparable scale.

martythemaniak

The intense anti-DC sentiment shouldn't be surprising - NIMBYism is the only viable mechanism available to people in the US. It doesn't matter if you're worried about Glonzo or have real concerns, they must be expressed in NIMBY terms in order to be heard. For example, imagine you're worried about what goes on inside those DCs, are worried about the lack of accountability from Big Tech and would like to see sensible consumer-protection regulations. Can you express that anywhere? Sure, you can leave random comments somewhere, but that doesn't matter. OTOH, you can actually join a local NIMBY group and slow things down. It's not what you want, but it's better than nothing. Same goes for people worried about clean energy and other issues.

monster_truck

Do they promise?

peterldowns

As a Pennsylvanian I think this is idiotic and I completely blame the press, who have breathlesslly amplified baseless negative claims. Such as that datacenters are somehow bad for the environment, have negative impacts on water supply, will raise energy and water rates for residential customers, etc. I HATE that this is somehow becoming a culture war issue.

greenowl

Turns out putting them in space is the answer!

nancyminusone

People don't want the billionaires coming into your town and having their way with it, the one you live in and are supposed to get a say in how things are done. This is not difficult to understand.

jeanmichelselli

I'm glad to see that people unite for things like this. This is important and necessary.

doublepg23

Many things divide us here: Wawa or Sheetz; cheesesteaks or pierogi; Eagles or Steelers; but I very glad we could come together on this.

cmiles8

You tell everyone AI is going to put them out of a job and then you’re surprised when working class communities say “no, please leave” when folks want to build a data center in their back yard. There are times when Silicon Valley looks out of touch and there are times when Silicon Valley just looks like idiots with hubris. This is more the later.

jmyeet

Consider: 1. Lawmakers literally do not care what you think (study from Princeton) [1]; 2. Private utilities are more expensive than public utilities [2]; and 3. Nobody goes to war over a solar panel [3]. All of this is relevant here. The privatization of utilities has shown to be a massive mistake, in part based on debunked economics (ie the tragedy of the commons). Demand is very inelastic so they have to be highly regulated. The electricity price is set by lawmakers so how do they make profits? By building more infrastructure because that cost can be passed on to consumers. So if a hyperscalar needs 6GW of power, you need to build massive transmission lines and power plants. That's great for private utility profits. And that's what we're all paying for. The DCs are usually getting subsidized electricity as well as not paying for the extra infrastructure. So many things would be better if we'd had mass adoption of renewable power but that's bad for the wealthy. You install a solar panel and it just generates electricity every year. It can be built incrementally and quickly. It also tends to utilize land that is of little value otherwise, such as in the Southwest US. But fossil fuels make people wealthy. An oil or natural gas well declines in production over time. That means you have to keep building them. That's more profit. This whole saga is revealing to a lot of people just how little lawmakers care about the voters. They'll ignore protests and vote anyway. They'll do it in secret. If they get voted out, who cares? They'll magically find their way into jobs for these companies. [1]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba [2]: https://energyandpolicy.org/utility-profit-report/ [3]: https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar...

mannanj

Anyone who has never lived next to a data center is commentating on the side lines without experience about what it’s actually like. Lots of these commentaries miss the following: - noise and uncomfortable vibrations making nearby habitual living challenging - rises costs of power and water - more traffic and disruption to traveling patterns The first is a big deal. These companies have a history of refusing to address noise and disruptions to neighbors personal health. They simply don’t care because they only care about the money. Its greed at an immense level. Until you’re ready to accept you would be comfortable with a data center as your neighbor you have 0 skin in making decisions for others who do. And the rich bourgeoisie people who are so misguided about this: mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary famous shark tank billionaires, who claim “you’re experiencing Chinese propaganda about data centers” and probably even anyone on these forums who makes a strong claim without experience, would never ever accept living next to a data center. They are sideline commentators and should take responsibility for the harms to local people.

vatsachak

Why don't they just buy extra land surrounding the data center to reduce noise pollution concerns? Regardless hopefully this restarts nuclear power generation

JimiofEden

I can actually speak to this as someone in ruralish Pennsylvania whose town is going through one of these backlashes pretty heavily. The major issue, at least in my neighborhood, is location more than anything else. We have a lot of industrially zoned areas that are great for data center location, and where they could be surrounded by other established industrial builds (think soda bottling plants, warehouses, transportation depos, semiconductor fabs, etc.) All the infrastructure is built out, electricity needs, etc. There is also a ton of land that exists that could be used for this purpose pretty distantly from town centers, if you can convince the gov/owners to part with it. But despite this, the folks who want to expand data centers are instead trying to push instead into residential areas, or otherwise on land that would basically butt you up against pre-existing neighborhoods. Where I lack insight is if it's a matter of industrial property being too expensive compared to the swathes of otherwise unused land (at least that isn't used for state forests or whatnot,) or if there just literally is no room available for what they want to build out. But all the aspects of having bought your land to be in a residential area suddenly become way busy, value might go down because it's now in this weird quasi-industrial zone. While there are legitimate concerns about the electricity/water usage, I (tinfoil hat) think that this is more of a game of influence/propaganda/state-level interest in an subject where it's easy to sow seeds of dissent. I personally think the electricity/water thing is a concern on a bigger scale than just individual utility bills, but it's blown out of proportion under that guise by conveniently cherry picking data from extreme examples. I also (more tinfoil) think that there's a lot of money changing hands since the AI boom is still growing and people are desperate to try to make a buck asap in any way possible, regardless of what may come tomorrow, so they're more willing to make a profit off of everything, but I have no legitimate proof of this.

beej71

Everyone against data centers is doing cost-benefit analysis. If the data center folks want to solve this, work on that ratio. And both sides, if you please, since the perceived benefit right now is basically zero.