This is bad news for everyone (well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings), but it certainly makes the communities who've successfully opposed data centers seem ever more justified in retrospect.
It also sustains the bubble for a bit longer. I'm genuinely curious/anxious to see when and how the bubble bursts. It could end up being something seemingly trivial or random and completely illogical that finally topples the jenga tower.
> except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings
Let's not be this flippant about where the real pressure for this is coming from. Presidents and their appointees come and go. The people pushing the regulators[1] are not subject to US election cycles. It's important to know who they are when we aim our finely honed fingers, even if we find that these folks were formerly virtuous and mighty green energy advocates, because if your solution is merely different figureheads, all that will really change is the scale of the bribes.
>Presidents and their appointees come and go. The people pushing the regulators[1] are not subject to US election cycles.
While true, it’s also true that presidents and their appointees can vary wildly in their susceptibility to those “people pushing”. Both sides might be bad, but one’s very obviously worse.
> except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhu-oid godlings...
I did not say that, but is so obvious, like looking through a plate glass window. There is no pressure, its just a natural transition to the end of bipedal life.
>(well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings
This is potentially good news for everyone who wants to do anything less dirty than a datacenter (logistics, cold chain, light manufacturing/assembly, etc) because they'll probably be able to get the precedent extended to them in the next decade or so. The people and communities that make money off that sort of stuff will probably do well. Most of that sort of industry is in poorer sections of states where the municipalities are constantly being hamstrung by their own state because the municipalities want to permit it but state rules make that hard. So there is potential for some good to come out of it.
These exemptions are not granted based on logic or precedent. "Less dirty" has nothing to do with it. They're entirely based on open bribery. This will be granted to any industry that bribes the administration enough. What's the good news again?
oh! "This will benefit the 2%, while the 1% burns the earth to the ground"
This is like Republicans claiming that they're doing everything for small businesses, when the reality is they're doing things for contract workers who more often are just being forced into contracts that wouldn't exist without the lax regulatory reality and are abused thereof.
"This will benefit the little guy (assuming they survive their cancer diagnosis)"
Why is skipping public review bad news for everyone?
Public review is a blight on the democratic process. Instead of having a set of democratically established laws and regulations that apply fairly to everyone, a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands can stop anyone they don't like from doing something that is perfectly legal.
It's an incredibly dumb process and bypassing it is good, actually.
It also has nothing at all to do with whether the environmental regulations themselves are being followed.
I think you have to actually do local politics (I'm assuming you do) to really get just how fucked public comment is as a process, and I think this is an important and useful thing to talk about that just won't be possible to talk about in a data center thread, because of the political valence data centers have taken on.
"The public having access to information on what corporations plan to do in their communities and having the ability to vote to against what corporations want is a blight on the democratic process" is a crazy stance to take.
What you call "a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands" I call "We the People" and it should fall to them to decide what happens in their own communities. It's legal for me to put a hot tub in my living room. My family doesn't have to let me put it there. It's legal to pave over city park in my community and turn them into parking lots, but the people in my city should have a say in that.
> Public review is a blight on the democratic process. Instead of having a set of democratically established laws and regulations that apply fairly to everyone, a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands can stop anyone they don't like from doing something that is perfectly legal.
We're talking about data centers, which are deeply unpopular with just about everyone. It's laughable to suggest that skipping public review is a good thing here, because it's only going to result in data centers being sneakily approved contrary to the overwhelming desire of constituents. We can ruminate all day on whether public comments or public review is useful in the grand scheme, but the realpolitik of the situation is that – barring possession of a time machine to go back and elect different representation – it's one of the few levers that constituents have to prevent data centers from moving into their area.
Often not everyone is impacted equally by a policy. So it is reasonable to allow, for example, the people living near a potential data center greater say into what happens.
The EPA hasn’t been able to regulate anything since it’s been gutted by the current administration. Of course it’s going to scrap rules. We’re not even allowed to measure the effects of climate change.
One of the very early Nick-names for the EPA (shortly after its founding) was “Every Polluter’s Ally”, as it was viewed as more emitter-friendly than the state regulators which preceded it.
Reminds me of how HIPAA was actually created as a way to standardize patient data so it could be more easily shared. The stuff about doctors not being allowed to share your medical history with employers only came later. A lot of people think of it as a privacy bill but it's actually the exact opposite
A lot of industry regulation has basically been regulatory capture since the start
Nixon created the EPA because he used our natural unspoiled resources to back the dollar. Looks like the admin doesn't care about that anymore, they think global war and AI can back the dollar
I can’t believe we’re seeing so much bad news coming from EPA. Why all this backtracking from an agency that used to be so effective and well organized? Well, I guess we know the reason.
The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change? Approved the widespread use of PFAS for stuff as silly as egg pans and snowboard wax, poisoning people's blood and community water supplies for decades? The same EPA that allows the use of leaded AVgas for flights over communities and schools, because otherwise a dentist might have to pay a little more for his Cessna flight?
Gosh, they were such a paragon of environmental protection, effective and well organized in the last 40 years.
> The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change?
Huh? The endangerment finding was in 2009. The problem is that we have a very litigious set of polluters and then we elected Trump who stacked the supreme court, and then we elected Trump again, this time with a bunch of insane people with him who had specific plans to bring on the end of this country via the unitary executive.
I agree with the sentiment but you lack context. The SuperFund has been a training ground for stall-and-pad-billing for decades. Certain bureaucrats gained lifetime employment for stall-and-declare skills.
read the article (shocking i know) there's no avoiding a review. The local government can have as much public review as it wants. This is where control should have been all along since the local government is accountable to the local community.
The article says they're considering removing the federal requirement that state governments even tell their constituents let alone allow public review.
So literally yes you can avoid the review... until you manage to convince your local government to pass their own version of this law, or vote out the existing people if they are against this thing you didn't think you had to care about because it was already law. And the slated time is within a year, so good luck accomplishing that in time.
Also please note the rules of this forum: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
These changes will last exactly as long as this administration, so it would be a pretty foolish business that makes long term investment decisions based on this announcement.
The bet is that the democrats won’t have the spine to force AI companies to eat a loss on half a trillion dollars worth of data centers, and it’s frankly a pretty good one.
Well, in part you are correct but look how the billionaires set up Vance as the next "elected" boss right now - it is quite a lot in the recent media, how Vance single-handedly rescues babies at night while being blindfolded. I think these anti-people changes that are harmful to them, will remain. Trump is just the old dementia guy; Vance "my eyeliners are perfect" will follow after "winning" the next election. And then nobody will admit to ever having voted for him - and people will be very befuddled, almost as if an oligarchy runs the show.
Vance’s problem is that whenever he walks into the room at least half the crowd covers their drinks. He’s got absolutely negative charisma. It’s the same reason Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, and Ted Cruz couldn’t win the big chair - for all Trump’s… Trump-ness, people actually want to follow him. The rest of that cohort sets off people’s uncanny valley detectors - they’re just viscerally unappealing.
A good start is to vote in the midterms to reduce the amount of power that these antihuman criminals have. The US is currently in the midst of a serious political disaster and there will be no quick fix to any of this. But if we take every opportunity possible whenever we can to rid ourselves of these people and to stand in their way as much as possible, we can work our way back from the brink.
I'm not sure winning in the midterms will be a net positive for Democrats (barring an infeasible supermajority). Even if they stop everything Republicans want to do (which they won't even get close to), that's just going to become the excuse for the next Republican campaign to blame Democrats for a dysfunctional government, and there's a good chance Democrats would lose as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if it would actually turn out better for Democrats if they stay a minority so that they can't get the blame during the presidential election.
Unfortunately the answer is ”it requires effort”, or in other words: Vote (and hold them accountable after the ballots have been counted), Shout (literally), Protest (including civil disobedience), join any civil or environmental movement, help file legal challenges.
Democracy is for good and for worse not a one-and-done thing, it is a continuous fight.
The time cost to the thousands of people putting in long hours to organize against bad ideas is a measurable loss to the economy. It's very clear that the system itself is deficient because it massively rewards first movers, incumbents, and amplifies economic leverage rather than mitigating it.
This doesn't seem like a very effective method. I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. Literally shouting at a data center seems more cathartic than helpful.
If such reviews are required by legislation then you stop it in the courts; approvals without legally required steps are invalid.
If they are not required by legislation then you just deal with the change.
While you're thinking about this, realize even the Democrats are annoyed at how weaponized things like NEPA have become to slow down necessary changes.
The people in power are making a lot of mistakes right now. You ignore popular will at your peril. The more the bought-and-paid for Supreme Court and politicians weaken the power of the individual voter through shit like Citizens United and gerrymandering, the further they push people towards "uncivilized" methods.
4. Find every publicly accessible local forum with _your_ representatives at every level, and get on the mic. Tell your reps they will lose your vote and the votes of your entire network for complicity in harm against society on behalf of the billionaire class. Follow through on that threat.
Extreme option: Run for election yourself on the platform and get voted into office. The bar is lower than ever in some places.
Scrap the current forms of elected representation with one that encourages multiple parties instead of a forced dichotomy. Create some kind of constant recall mechanism for elected officials. And other things.
Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.
Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.
If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business.
A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.
> Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.
It's not that simple. The Democrats are shit, and lost to Trump twice because of that shittiness. Perversely, Trump has allowed them to convince themselves that they don't have to reform.
I don't expect anything to change if the Democrats gain power, they'll curb only the most egregious abuses curbed a bit, while leaving the overall thing intact. Then they'll lose again because they're shit.
ftfa "provide the state and local agencies most familiar with local issues the discretion to determine whether, when, and for how long to provide opportunities for public participation."
so give local government the controls, that doesn't seem so bad. As for the next line in the article saying people are losing faith in their local government i don't buy that a bit. Local government and elections are where your vote and voice are loudest. The most faith lost seems to be at the federal level.
Triggering articles like this are usually not so alarming if you take the time to read them and fish out the details. They're made for social media distribution and engagement from the headline alone.
Here's the thing... pollution is a global issue. We share the same atmosphere, we share the same grid, we share the same resources to generate energy.
So no this isn't an issue for local governments who can be easily bribed, it's absolutely something the federal gov should be all over. This isn't some "gotcha" you're offering, it's damning.
About the only type of pollution which is actually global is CO2, which is exactly the thing this kind of review has nothing to do with. If you want people to emit less CO2 then you price carbon and as a result everyone has that amount of incentive to prefer alternate means of generating electricity.
public forums should be for exchanging ideas and not a place to virtue signal whatever fad Nextdoor/Facebook emotional bait normies are feeding each other via brain rot feeds.
the public essentially has little interest in preventing human extinction. And tons of interest in preventing data centers under false arguments and performative displays.
What is the point of empowering the public when they are not curious but rather emotional children.
Basically, to empower the public now means, how to bastardize your arguments into an emotional narrative that is palatable to the commoners but probably misses all relevant arguments.
Like if you think x-risk is real, and datacenters are benign/reasonable/can-be-done-in-net-local-positive-way - then you are incentivized to pretend like datacenter are bad because peasants will not entertain your x risk calculus.
It's a herding/shepherding game where the only people willing to play are compromised.
Public comment is bad. It gives people with time to comment far more power than those who can't. It's one of the major reasons we can't building housing or high speed rail.
This doesn't scrap public review. It scraps federal mandates for public review. The states can decide for themselves if a public review is required. This is a good thing. As the ability for highly motivated activist groups to veto projects is a major strategic impediment for the economic expansion of the United States.
There is a huge business opportunity to become the world leader in sustainable data center design. Whoever wins could one day have immense influence over every single data center in the world (or even out of this world, where efficient resource utilization would likely be essential). It’s disappointing to see the United States miss out: US companies and research institutions would actually be extremely competitive in this field with the right government incentives.
I think most people who are working towards greater AI would consider that not an opportunity, but planning to lose in a game that is winner(s) take all.
Winning scenarios in AI don't include being accountable for sustainability and they don't include expertise being valuable. Winners will decide what sustainable means for them.
Winner take all is a farce. It didn't work for Uber when they tried to out-spend the competition, Lyft is still very much a thing, and so are taxis (the non-robo kind). There will always be many, many AI companies and trying to execute "winner take all" in this space is only going to make more problems and waste a shit-ton of money.
Sustainable design for datacenters is orthogonal to success in data centers. That's like saying a local bakery should become a leader in pet adoption - it'll score some feel good points, but is almost counterproductive to the actual mission.
A data center (right now) needs to be built fast, with a large amount of always-on power. Sticking a gas turbine behind the meter in the parking lot is one of the most practical ways to get there.
It’s not just a feel good thing. There are real resource limits, even if someone chooses to foolishly not believe that. If you can get more done with a given level of power and other resources, you get more out of your data centers.
Isn't the goal to power most non-earthbound data centers with solar? I am no scientist, but going out to space feels like it gets rid of most of the downsides to solar.
The US is in a new cold war. It's clear that the government has determined that who owns AI will be leaders in this century and they will do whatever is necessary to accomplish that - I mean in the 50s into the 90s we nuked our own soil - I don't know what we expect here.
>Last year, Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA, said it was now the agency’s top priority to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.” The 56-year-old agency was established in 1970 to protect the environment and public health.
lol, reminds me of those videos where a host will say one thing and then the cameraman pans to reveal the lie
This just simply removes the last vestiges of the old Republic, and leads the way to the common deployment of Chinese designed AI reactors, which while designed by AI, are really for the burning of the sky in preparation of a Matrix future. It has been foretold: It is the way.
It’s strange because on one hand, people don’t want to live near data centers, but on the other: the rampant use of AI signals people really *do* want data centers.
The proposal to put data centers in space doesn’t seem too far fetched.
Funnily enough this probably the most safetyist thing the administration could do at the moment, since this will certainly autocatalyze more opposition to DC construction in a bunch of states and probably accelerate the state-level moratoriums. A big thank you to the White House for taking AI pause as such an urgent priority.
IMO, capitalism is itself an unaligned artificial intelligence, with its own logic and goals orthogonal to human life. All “ex risk” paranoia is a projection of sublimated anxiety about capitalism.
The crazy part is that everybody in the US calls this "data center pollution". Over here in Frankfurt/Germany, we have data centers in the middle of the city, right next to residential housing. You don't smell anything, you do not hear anything.
A data center can simply put the heat pumps onto the roof or in the backyard pointing away from housing. Humans have developed noise protection systems for ages. All this stuff is available.
This is just end-stage capitalism giving a sh*t about humans, burning fossil fuels without any filters of any kind next to kids playing outside like it's the year 1920.
It's like we're on a 100 year cycle over here, gilded age part 2 and a return to letting those who aren't rich eat straight industrial pollution so the rich can keep getting richer.
This is the missing context for NIMBYism. The legal mechanisms used to stall construction in San Francisco were created because of an explicitly racist plan to demolish people’s homes to build freeways. The people building datacenters should stop, take a breath, and think a few moves ahead about how to get to real agreement and mutual benefit with surrounding communities instead of just driving a truck over them. Nobody’s going to be happy with the consequences.
At which point installations can be grandfathered in under previous rules. It would be so unfair to the corporations to suddenly have to meet the stricter standards that came out of nowhere.
Goddamnit this is the worst possible administration to have while we’re having this massive buildup of data centers. Any reasonable government would have done what Massachusetts did and stipulated that you can build a data center, but it needs to be powered by renewable energy so build out your own energy sources, which would have been a win-win for everyone but instead we get this. Also, if the Democrats were in power, I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers and completely take us out of the race.
> I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers
The most recent set of polls I saw said that 71% of Democrats and 64% of all Americans support banning datacenter construction. It's not merely a majority, at this point it's a pretty significant supermajority. There are good recents not to ban DC construction but at this point it's pretty clear it's what the people want and letting construction go ahead is, in some sense, undemocratic.
Trump and co have done so many awful things that I forgot about their gutting of the EPA. There is no punishment fitting for him and the idiots who voted for him. A significant amount seem to prowl around HN I'll add. They can read and write but can't think apparently.
I'm pro-information and believe generally that anti-data-center activists are chasing a Glonzo on par with anti-5G electrosensitives. That said given the tide of opinion I'm overjoyed that Trump and his allies want to step into the fusilade to defend the unpopular.
That data centers need a lot of power and some cases a lot of water isn't some sort of conspiracy theory. When you have data centers like the box elder county DC that is planed to consume more power than the entire state of Utah and it wants to do that by burning natural gas, that's not some sort of conspiracy theory that it would be tremendously bad for the environment and the regional gas and electric bills (particularly since a decent amount of power already is generated via natural gas there).
I'm not wholesale against data centers, but there are more than a few projects that are downright irresponsible.
I'm sure this will stop all the public opposition to data centers! /s
This type of thing will just enrage the opposition more, give them far more fuel, and attract far more people into opposing data centers.
The ruling regime is used to controlling a subservient political group that always, 100% falls in line to marching orders. Now that they control the entire country, they either need to have oppressed tho populace enough that all objection gets arrested or is subject to immediate political violence. But that's not going to be possible with how unpopular they have made themselves.
The nonsense about 'using all the water' and datacenter protests has to be a Chinese psyop. It's so fantastically stupid to protest someone taking an empty field and paying local taxes on it and employing dozens of highly paid people in the middle of nowhere. There's literally no downside. There is effectively no pollution. There are jobs for every level of education, from security guard to the people installing hardware. There's no toxic runoff, no danger of a chemical explosion, and no carcinogens being dumped. This is the only rural industry you can say that about.
Water is a renewable resource. I know you folks in California can't comprehend this, but in the parts of the country where it actually makes sense for humans to live water just falls from the sky multiple times per week. We get so much water the problem is making sure we get rid of it safely, we don't have to fight over who has the most senior claim to it or decide whether we want to have endangered species or almonds more. Our streams don't run dry 4/5 of the year. We don't have to check about water restrictions when we water our lawns because there are never water restrictions and we never have to water our lawns.
There are entire areas miles across in this country where if you drive through it you might throw up from the smell. The ponds full of animal feces make the air un-breathable. Where is the protest over that? You realize that this literally does ruin ground water and poisons surface water? Where are the people coming out to say they have to live 4 miles from oceans of pig feces and when the wind blows their way they can't go outside? Yet the media is able to find the 4 people on earth that want to say a building full of computers is 'loud' and that computers use lots of water? When was the last time you filled the water tank on your computer? Yet people are very quick to believe that somehow a warehouse with a bunch of computers in it somehow destroys water?
When did datacenters start using up all the water? Nobody seemed to worry about this until the US and China were fighting for AI dominance, then suddenly datacenters use water and are so loud people go insane from them. What is the first time someone mentioned datacenters using water and causing pollution?
It's absolute group psychosis. Are you actually so dumb that you don't notice that a thing that has been around for 50 years suddenly is a threat to our survival? Were you born yesterday so you don't remember 2 years ago when nobody had ever realized the existential threat of building datacenters in America? Why didn't anyone notice that datacenters were pumping the wells dry in 2021? Maybe they weren't and still arent...
Also, your last two paragraphs are completely bogus because you overlooked something important: scale.
AI data centers are being built at a massively higher rate than data centers were being built a few years ago, and an AI data center uses 5-10x more energy than a non-AI data center.
It is quite common for something that is not a big problem to become a major problem when scale massively increases. You can't simply dismiss concerns because they weren't concerns a few years ago. You will have to actually do the analysis to determine if they are legitimate concerns now.
Perhaps the next administration will drop a few cluster bombs on some hyperscaler data centers. The air force needs targets to practice on, after all. Then throughout the land there will be much rejoicing and feelings of justice done, as trillions of dollars of GPUs go up in smoke.
With diesel over $6/gallon now that's probably not too attractive. Natural gas probably more likely, and less polluting at least as far as particulates go. CO2 still created.
Are all new data centers being built with on-site power generation (for regular operations, not just emergency backup)? I'd assume they'd prefer utility power where they could get it.
Diesel generators are mostly for emergencies. Natural gas turbines (many of which are or are derived from jumbo jet engines) are for on-prem power generation.
Good. Public review is nonsensical anyway. The public always “wants everything in one bag but the bag shouldn’t be heavy”. Elected representatives, and a set of rules with enforcement are a far better system than discretionary review.
We can’t have everyone extracting rent from all productive pursuits. If the public has their way they’d prefer to have the right to vote on who gets to be their neighbor.
This is bad news for everyone (well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings), but it certainly makes the communities who've successfully opposed data centers seem ever more justified in retrospect.
Pejoratives aside, it’s also bad news for AI companies.
Anyone who knows the story of the US auto industry in the 1970’s and 1980’s knows how excessive government protection for an industry works out.
I don't know that story. Can you summarize?
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It also sustains the bubble for a bit longer. I'm genuinely curious/anxious to see when and how the bubble bursts. It could end up being something seemingly trivial or random and completely illogical that finally topples the jenga tower.
> the bubble
> the jenga tower
I am not so sure about these narratives anymore.
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I don't think it's a bubble
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> except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings
Let's not be this flippant about where the real pressure for this is coming from. Presidents and their appointees come and go. The people pushing the regulators[1] are not subject to US election cycles. It's important to know who they are when we aim our finely honed fingers, even if we find that these folks were formerly virtuous and mighty green energy advocates, because if your solution is merely different figureheads, all that will really change is the scale of the bribes.
[1] https://www.datacentercoalition.org/members
>Presidents and their appointees come and go. The people pushing the regulators[1] are not subject to US election cycles.
While true, it’s also true that presidents and their appointees can vary wildly in their susceptibility to those “people pushing”. Both sides might be bad, but one’s very obviously worse.
> except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhu-oid godlings...
I did not say that, but is so obvious, like looking through a plate glass window. There is no pressure, its just a natural transition to the end of bipedal life.
It isn't flippant, it's just not exclusively focused on your target of choice.
[dead]
>(well, except the high priests of the LLMs / nascent Cthulhoid godlings
This is potentially good news for everyone who wants to do anything less dirty than a datacenter (logistics, cold chain, light manufacturing/assembly, etc) because they'll probably be able to get the precedent extended to them in the next decade or so. The people and communities that make money off that sort of stuff will probably do well. Most of that sort of industry is in poorer sections of states where the municipalities are constantly being hamstrung by their own state because the municipalities want to permit it but state rules make that hard. So there is potential for some good to come out of it.
> Most of that sort of industry is in poorer sections of states where the municipalities are constantly being hamstrung by their own state
Oh yes, the well-known path to riches by being a toxic dumping ground.
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These exemptions are not granted based on logic or precedent. "Less dirty" has nothing to do with it. They're entirely based on open bribery. This will be granted to any industry that bribes the administration enough. What's the good news again?
I mean, like this?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/pfas-forever-chem...
"Great" news indeed.
oh! "This will benefit the 2%, while the 1% burns the earth to the ground"
This is like Republicans claiming that they're doing everything for small businesses, when the reality is they're doing things for contract workers who more often are just being forced into contracts that wouldn't exist without the lax regulatory reality and are abused thereof.
"This will benefit the little guy (assuming they survive their cancer diagnosis)"
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This seems like yet another piece in a build up to a civil war. And those in governance know it.
Why is skipping public review bad news for everyone?
Public review is a blight on the democratic process. Instead of having a set of democratically established laws and regulations that apply fairly to everyone, a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands can stop anyone they don't like from doing something that is perfectly legal.
It's an incredibly dumb process and bypassing it is good, actually.
It also has nothing at all to do with whether the environmental regulations themselves are being followed.
Seems to me public review is a failsafe - an acknowledgement that laws and regs can't always keep up with real life harms.
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I think you have to actually do local politics (I'm assuming you do) to really get just how fucked public comment is as a process, and I think this is an important and useful thing to talk about that just won't be possible to talk about in a data center thread, because of the political valence data centers have taken on.
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"The public having access to information on what corporations plan to do in their communities and having the ability to vote to against what corporations want is a blight on the democratic process" is a crazy stance to take.
What you call "a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands" I call "We the People" and it should fall to them to decide what happens in their own communities. It's legal for me to put a hot tub in my living room. My family doesn't have to let me put it there. It's legal to pave over city park in my community and turn them into parking lots, but the people in my city should have a say in that.
> Public review is a blight on the democratic process. Instead of having a set of democratically established laws and regulations that apply fairly to everyone, a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands can stop anyone they don't like from doing something that is perfectly legal.
We're talking about data centers, which are deeply unpopular with just about everyone. It's laughable to suggest that skipping public review is a good thing here, because it's only going to result in data centers being sneakily approved contrary to the overwhelming desire of constituents. We can ruminate all day on whether public comments or public review is useful in the grand scheme, but the realpolitik of the situation is that – barring possession of a time machine to go back and elect different representation – it's one of the few levers that constituents have to prevent data centers from moving into their area.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-does-everyone-hate-data-cen...
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Wait, we're talking about public comment.
That doesn't give anyone veto power, the worst people can do is say mean comments and make the listeners feel bad before they do the thing anyway.
Moving to cut off comments is simply breathtaking arrogance, which is on brand for this regime.
Often not everyone is impacted equally by a policy. So it is reasonable to allow, for example, the people living near a potential data center greater say into what happens.
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The EPA hasn’t been able to regulate anything since it’s been gutted by the current administration. Of course it’s going to scrap rules. We’re not even allowed to measure the effects of climate change.
That's in line with the EPA's new mission of ensuring environmental degradation.
One of the very early Nick-names for the EPA (shortly after its founding) was “Every Polluter’s Ally”, as it was viewed as more emitter-friendly than the state regulators which preceded it.
Reminds me of how HIPAA was actually created as a way to standardize patient data so it could be more easily shared. The stuff about doctors not being allowed to share your medical history with employers only came later. A lot of people think of it as a privacy bill but it's actually the exact opposite
A lot of industry regulation has basically been regulatory capture since the start
It was created by Nixon, so yeah I'm sure the early days were a little weird (and it hasn't gotten any better since).
Environment Pollution Agency
Everything this administration does only makes sense if you live in bizzaro-world and want this world to burn.
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Nixon created the EPA because he used our natural unspoiled resources to back the dollar. Looks like the admin doesn't care about that anymore, they think global war and AI can back the dollar
The current admin has the explicit goal to devalue the dollar (see mar-a-lago accord). I don’t think the goal is to back it
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I can’t believe we’re seeing so much bad news coming from EPA. Why all this backtracking from an agency that used to be so effective and well organized? Well, I guess we know the reason.
The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change? Approved the widespread use of PFAS for stuff as silly as egg pans and snowboard wax, poisoning people's blood and community water supplies for decades? The same EPA that allows the use of leaded AVgas for flights over communities and schools, because otherwise a dentist might have to pay a little more for his Cessna flight?
Gosh, they were such a paragon of environmental protection, effective and well organized in the last 40 years.
Yeah, they were bad at their jobs before, so we should make them even worse now!
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> The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change?
Huh? The endangerment finding was in 2009. The problem is that we have a very litigious set of polluters and then we elected Trump who stacked the supreme court, and then we elected Trump again, this time with a bunch of insane people with him who had specific plans to bring on the end of this country via the unitary executive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_greenhouse_gases...
Really, you can’t? When the President and his party have been saying out loud for decades that they want to destroy the EPA?
Because it's now headed by an ex-lobbyist for the chemical industry
I agree with the sentiment but you lack context. The SuperFund has been a training ground for stall-and-pad-billing for decades. Certain bureaucrats gained lifetime employment for stall-and-declare skills.
Critics on all sides have ample ammunition AFAIK
Bad news? This is good news.
I wonder if you could open any type of business as a datacenter now, to avoid the review.
Hilarious legal maneuver. Soon to see, Jack’s Slaughterhouse Datacenter, Dean’s Nuclear Waste Repo and Datacenter, et
I can surely squirrel away a couple of GPUs into any random closet and rent out the capacity.
A similar maneuver is already being used for the White House National Security Ballroom.
Jones BBQ and Data Center (Chicagoland only)
read the article (shocking i know) there's no avoiding a review. The local government can have as much public review as it wants. This is where control should have been all along since the local government is accountable to the local community.
The article says they're considering removing the federal requirement that state governments even tell their constituents let alone allow public review.
So literally yes you can avoid the review... until you manage to convince your local government to pass their own version of this law, or vote out the existing people if they are against this thing you didn't think you had to care about because it was already law. And the slated time is within a year, so good luck accomplishing that in time.
Also please note the rules of this forum: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
These changes will last exactly as long as this administration, so it would be a pretty foolish business that makes long term investment decisions based on this announcement.
It's a pretty foolish business plan to depend on wrecking the planet.
I get one small comfort knowing that Wall Street will be increasingly under water as the climate disaster progresses (remember Sandy?).
> It's a pretty foolish business plan to depend on wrecking the planet.
People who thinks they need the planet to survive until they die sees it as a great opportunity to reap the value they generated over their lifetime.
It's very shortsighted and foolish desire.
wall street already moved to higher ground
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It'll last exactly as long as the Republicans being in power, which could be longer than this administration.
The bet is that the democrats won’t have the spine to force AI companies to eat a loss on half a trillion dollars worth of data centers, and it’s frankly a pretty good one.
The changes may not last, but it’s quite unusual for an already-permitted facility to lose permission to operate.
What are the odds right now this administration is still in power in 2030?
Almost zero. The party may still be, but the administration almost certainly won't.
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What are the odds of this regime ceding power willingly in 2028?
Well, in part you are correct but look how the billionaires set up Vance as the next "elected" boss right now - it is quite a lot in the recent media, how Vance single-handedly rescues babies at night while being blindfolded. I think these anti-people changes that are harmful to them, will remain. Trump is just the old dementia guy; Vance "my eyeliners are perfect" will follow after "winning" the next election. And then nobody will admit to ever having voted for him - and people will be very befuddled, almost as if an oligarchy runs the show.
Vance’s problem is that whenever he walks into the room at least half the crowd covers their drinks. He’s got absolutely negative charisma. It’s the same reason Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, and Ted Cruz couldn’t win the big chair - for all Trump’s… Trump-ness, people actually want to follow him. The rest of that cohort sets off people’s uncanny valley detectors - they’re just viscerally unappealing.
Antis are running out of time to stop what they wish to stop without resorting to destructive methods (bold and extreme action is already necessary).
Pros are running out of time to square their ambitions with a public that's about to go from needing a leg up to a public that wants their heads.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-streamline-sta...
Probably an oversimplified question but how do we actually stop this?
A good start is to vote in the midterms to reduce the amount of power that these antihuman criminals have. The US is currently in the midst of a serious political disaster and there will be no quick fix to any of this. But if we take every opportunity possible whenever we can to rid ourselves of these people and to stand in their way as much as possible, we can work our way back from the brink.
I'm not sure winning in the midterms will be a net positive for Democrats (barring an infeasible supermajority). Even if they stop everything Republicans want to do (which they won't even get close to), that's just going to become the excuse for the next Republican campaign to blame Democrats for a dysfunctional government, and there's a good chance Democrats would lose as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if it would actually turn out better for Democrats if they stay a minority so that they can't get the blame during the presidential election.
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Unfortunately the answer is ”it requires effort”, or in other words: Vote (and hold them accountable after the ballots have been counted), Shout (literally), Protest (including civil disobedience), join any civil or environmental movement, help file legal challenges.
Democracy is for good and for worse not a one-and-done thing, it is a continuous fight.
The time cost to the thousands of people putting in long hours to organize against bad ideas is a measurable loss to the economy. It's very clear that the system itself is deficient because it massively rewards first movers, incumbents, and amplifies economic leverage rather than mitigating it.
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This doesn't seem like a very effective method. I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. Literally shouting at a data center seems more cathartic than helpful.
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If such reviews are required by legislation then you stop it in the courts; approvals without legally required steps are invalid.
If they are not required by legislation then you just deal with the change.
While you're thinking about this, realize even the Democrats are annoyed at how weaponized things like NEPA have become to slow down necessary changes.
Thousands of people marching on data centers and taking them over at the same time.
Elections will never save you when the parties in power serve the billionaires.
The people in power are making a lot of mistakes right now. You ignore popular will at your peril. The more the bought-and-paid for Supreme Court and politicians weaken the power of the individual voter through shit like Citizens United and gerrymandering, the further they push people towards "uncivilized" methods.
1. Vote
2. Vote
3. Vote
4. Find every publicly accessible local forum with _your_ representatives at every level, and get on the mic. Tell your reps they will lose your vote and the votes of your entire network for complicity in harm against society on behalf of the billionaire class. Follow through on that threat.
Extreme option: Run for election yourself on the platform and get voted into office. The bar is lower than ever in some places.
Scrap the current forms of elected representation with one that encourages multiple parties instead of a forced dichotomy. Create some kind of constant recall mechanism for elected officials. And other things.
Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.
Vote strategically.
Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.
If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business.
A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.
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> Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.
It's not that simple. The Democrats are shit, and lost to Trump twice because of that shittiness. Perversely, Trump has allowed them to convince themselves that they don't have to reform.
I don't expect anything to change if the Democrats gain power, they'll curb only the most egregious abuses curbed a bit, while leaving the overall thing intact. Then they'll lose again because they're shit.
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ftfa "provide the state and local agencies most familiar with local issues the discretion to determine whether, when, and for how long to provide opportunities for public participation."
so give local government the controls, that doesn't seem so bad. As for the next line in the article saying people are losing faith in their local government i don't buy that a bit. Local government and elections are where your vote and voice are loudest. The most faith lost seems to be at the federal level.
Triggering articles like this are usually not so alarming if you take the time to read them and fish out the details. They're made for social media distribution and engagement from the headline alone.
Here's the thing... pollution is a global issue. We share the same atmosphere, we share the same grid, we share the same resources to generate energy.
So no this isn't an issue for local governments who can be easily bribed, it's absolutely something the federal gov should be all over. This isn't some "gotcha" you're offering, it's damning.
About the only type of pollution which is actually global is CO2, which is exactly the thing this kind of review has nothing to do with. If you want people to emit less CO2 then you price carbon and as a result everyone has that amount of incentive to prefer alternate means of generating electricity.
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public forums should be for exchanging ideas and not a place to virtue signal whatever fad Nextdoor/Facebook emotional bait normies are feeding each other via brain rot feeds.
the public essentially has little interest in preventing human extinction. And tons of interest in preventing data centers under false arguments and performative displays.
What is the point of empowering the public when they are not curious but rather emotional children.
Basically, to empower the public now means, how to bastardize your arguments into an emotional narrative that is palatable to the commoners but probably misses all relevant arguments.
Like if you think x-risk is real, and datacenters are benign/reasonable/can-be-done-in-net-local-positive-way - then you are incentivized to pretend like datacenter are bad because peasants will not entertain your x risk calculus.
It's a herding/shepherding game where the only people willing to play are compromised.
> It's a herding/shepherding game where the only people willing to play are compromised.
This is how all politics is, and frankly the existential risk crowd needs to learn how to play the game instead of complaining about it.
>the public essentially has little interest in preventing human extinction.
yes, most people don't belong to that cult
Hasn’t the idea of existential risks entered the kind of “cultural elite Overton window” at this point?
Bill gates is talking about it, NYT just ran a bunch articles on AI safety concerns, a reporter just asked Trump about it in a one on one.
Feels unfair to still dismiss it as a cult LessWrong thing at this point.
Public comment is bad. It gives people with time to comment far more power than those who can't. It's one of the major reasons we can't building housing or high speed rail.
This doesn't scrap public review. It scraps federal mandates for public review. The states can decide for themselves if a public review is required. This is a good thing. As the ability for highly motivated activist groups to veto projects is a major strategic impediment for the economic expansion of the United States.
There is a huge business opportunity to become the world leader in sustainable data center design. Whoever wins could one day have immense influence over every single data center in the world (or even out of this world, where efficient resource utilization would likely be essential). It’s disappointing to see the United States miss out: US companies and research institutions would actually be extremely competitive in this field with the right government incentives.
I think most people who are working towards greater AI would consider that not an opportunity, but planning to lose in a game that is winner(s) take all.
Winning scenarios in AI don't include being accountable for sustainability and they don't include expertise being valuable. Winners will decide what sustainable means for them.
Winners don’t decide what is sustainable, the reality of the planet does.
Winner take all is a farce. It didn't work for Uber when they tried to out-spend the competition, Lyft is still very much a thing, and so are taxis (the non-robo kind). There will always be many, many AI companies and trying to execute "winner take all" in this space is only going to make more problems and waste a shit-ton of money.
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Sustainable design for datacenters is orthogonal to success in data centers. That's like saying a local bakery should become a leader in pet adoption - it'll score some feel good points, but is almost counterproductive to the actual mission.
A data center (right now) needs to be built fast, with a large amount of always-on power. Sticking a gas turbine behind the meter in the parking lot is one of the most practical ways to get there.
It’s not just a feel good thing. There are real resource limits, even if someone chooses to foolishly not believe that. If you can get more done with a given level of power and other resources, you get more out of your data centers.
Isn't the goal to power most non-earthbound data centers with solar? I am no scientist, but going out to space feels like it gets rid of most of the downsides to solar.
Sustainable business center design
Executive Protection Agency
The US is in a new cold war. It's clear that the government has determined that who owns AI will be leaders in this century and they will do whatever is necessary to accomplish that - I mean in the 50s into the 90s we nuked our own soil - I don't know what we expect here.
which reality show host is running the EPA now?
The administration is way behind the curve on this one. Data center opposition is one of the rare areas that has bipartisan support.
> Data center opposition is one of the rare areas that has bipartisan support.
This is true. Although, I think resistance to datacenters is just a symptom of the majority of people being anti-AI.
You have to be really dumb not to view a devaluing of your skills is a bad thing.
Since when does this administration give a damn about what the "curve" is. They set their own agenda regardless of the curve.
There are a lot of things that a party does opposite to its messaging, in some cases shared by both parties.
This article seems incredibly biased. Is there a more balanced report of what is actually occurring?
So much for no taxation without representation.
I love this line:
>Last year, Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA, said it was now the agency’s top priority to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.” The 56-year-old agency was established in 1970 to protect the environment and public health.
lol, reminds me of those videos where a host will say one thing and then the cameraman pans to reveal the lie
That's a very strange goal for the EPA to have. I mean, it's a worthy goal, but it sounds very much like not their department?
Of course it is. The datacenters are running personalized cops, they will get their cut for sure. This is how we will transition to the new Slave Age.
"Slave Age"? Slaves were kept because they were economically useful. It's not clear Humans will be economically useful in the new age.
This just simply removes the last vestiges of the old Republic, and leads the way to the common deployment of Chinese designed AI reactors, which while designed by AI, are really for the burning of the sky in preparation of a Matrix future. It has been foretold: It is the way.
Did you miss some Terminator background color on your way to Albuquerque?
Just in time for midterms.
It’s strange because on one hand, people don’t want to live near data centers, but on the other: the rampant use of AI signals people really *do* want data centers.
The proposal to put data centers in space doesn’t seem too far fetched.
Funnily enough this probably the most safetyist thing the administration could do at the moment, since this will certainly autocatalyze more opposition to DC construction in a bunch of states and probably accelerate the state-level moratoriums. A big thank you to the White House for taking AI pause as such an urgent priority.
When you can't tell if it's profit motive or the AGI has already taken over.
IMO, capitalism is itself an unaligned artificial intelligence, with its own logic and goals orthogonal to human life. All “ex risk” paranoia is a projection of sublimated anxiety about capitalism.
It's paperclip maximization either way.
The crazy part is that everybody in the US calls this "data center pollution". Over here in Frankfurt/Germany, we have data centers in the middle of the city, right next to residential housing. You don't smell anything, you do not hear anything.
A data center can simply put the heat pumps onto the roof or in the backyard pointing away from housing. Humans have developed noise protection systems for ages. All this stuff is available.
This is just end-stage capitalism giving a sh*t about humans, burning fossil fuels without any filters of any kind next to kids playing outside like it's the year 1920.
It's like we're on a 100 year cycle over here, gilded age part 2 and a return to letting those who aren't rich eat straight industrial pollution so the rich can keep getting richer.
So plan for a heavy crack down or a severe rule change after this probably short-lived partisan deregulatory action?
And a return to voluntary membership in the Paris Agreement?
This is the missing context for NIMBYism. The legal mechanisms used to stall construction in San Francisco were created because of an explicitly racist plan to demolish people’s homes to build freeways. The people building datacenters should stop, take a breath, and think a few moves ahead about how to get to real agreement and mutual benefit with surrounding communities instead of just driving a truck over them. Nobody’s going to be happy with the consequences.
Has capitalism ever stopped and thought instead of hitting full throttle at any cost?
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Other datacenter concerns in other communities?
- water usage
- water pressure
- water contamination (from evaporative cooling towers concentrating metals)
- purple pipe water
- heat waste from air cooling
- corrosion from evaporative cooling
- decibel levels (due to 60 Hz AC, air cooling fans, evaporative coolers,)
- electronics recycling
- non-sustainable and near-conflict chip inputs
- PFAS in waste process water
- energy usage
- emissions from nonrenewable electricity sources
- compact fast diesel for the generators
Constraints to solve within would help solve.
Here's another example: "EPA to Weaken Rules on Methane Pollution From “Stripper Wells”" (2026) https://www.propublica.org/article/methane-gas-epa-proposal-...
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas; it's worse than CO2.
Wells leaking methane cause it to be hotter.
We need to cap wells that are leaking methane.
We should pay for regular aerial methane surveys.
Well, that's not gonna happen, under the administrative procedures act they'll have to open it up for public comment, which opens it up for lawsuits.
"for the next 800 days" (this is what I say in my head everytime I read a horrible headline)
but of course a lot of permanent damage can be set in motion in that time
So-- basically until the next administration. Interesting timing.
At which point installations can be grandfathered in under previous rules. It would be so unfair to the corporations to suddenly have to meet the stricter standards that came out of nowhere.
Goddamnit this is the worst possible administration to have while we’re having this massive buildup of data centers. Any reasonable government would have done what Massachusetts did and stipulated that you can build a data center, but it needs to be powered by renewable energy so build out your own energy sources, which would have been a win-win for everyone but instead we get this. Also, if the Democrats were in power, I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers and completely take us out of the race.
> I hope they wouldn’t succumb to a minority in their base and just ban data centers
The most recent set of polls I saw said that 71% of Democrats and 64% of all Americans support banning datacenter construction. It's not merely a majority, at this point it's a pretty significant supermajority. There are good recents not to ban DC construction but at this point it's pretty clear it's what the people want and letting construction go ahead is, in some sense, undemocratic.
Trump and co have done so many awful things that I forgot about their gutting of the EPA. There is no punishment fitting for him and the idiots who voted for him. A significant amount seem to prowl around HN I'll add. They can read and write but can't think apparently.
I'm pro-information and believe generally that anti-data-center activists are chasing a Glonzo on par with anti-5G electrosensitives. That said given the tide of opinion I'm overjoyed that Trump and his allies want to step into the fusilade to defend the unpopular.
That data centers need a lot of power and some cases a lot of water isn't some sort of conspiracy theory. When you have data centers like the box elder county DC that is planed to consume more power than the entire state of Utah and it wants to do that by burning natural gas, that's not some sort of conspiracy theory that it would be tremendously bad for the environment and the regional gas and electric bills (particularly since a decent amount of power already is generated via natural gas there).
I'm not wholesale against data centers, but there are more than a few projects that are downright irresponsible.
I figured that one was non-serious and just used as anchoring and to take the heat whilst other large ones were ok to go under the radar.
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I have no idea and one can trace a parallel between the construction of resource hungry data centers and 5G crack pots.
Trump really works for billionaires only. 33% of the public in the USA still do not understand this.
I'm sure this will stop all the public opposition to data centers! /s
This type of thing will just enrage the opposition more, give them far more fuel, and attract far more people into opposing data centers.
The ruling regime is used to controlling a subservient political group that always, 100% falls in line to marching orders. Now that they control the entire country, they either need to have oppressed tho populace enough that all objection gets arrested or is subject to immediate political violence. But that's not going to be possible with how unpopular they have made themselves.
The nonsense about 'using all the water' and datacenter protests has to be a Chinese psyop. It's so fantastically stupid to protest someone taking an empty field and paying local taxes on it and employing dozens of highly paid people in the middle of nowhere. There's literally no downside. There is effectively no pollution. There are jobs for every level of education, from security guard to the people installing hardware. There's no toxic runoff, no danger of a chemical explosion, and no carcinogens being dumped. This is the only rural industry you can say that about.
Water is a renewable resource. I know you folks in California can't comprehend this, but in the parts of the country where it actually makes sense for humans to live water just falls from the sky multiple times per week. We get so much water the problem is making sure we get rid of it safely, we don't have to fight over who has the most senior claim to it or decide whether we want to have endangered species or almonds more. Our streams don't run dry 4/5 of the year. We don't have to check about water restrictions when we water our lawns because there are never water restrictions and we never have to water our lawns.
There are entire areas miles across in this country where if you drive through it you might throw up from the smell. The ponds full of animal feces make the air un-breathable. Where is the protest over that? You realize that this literally does ruin ground water and poisons surface water? Where are the people coming out to say they have to live 4 miles from oceans of pig feces and when the wind blows their way they can't go outside? Yet the media is able to find the 4 people on earth that want to say a building full of computers is 'loud' and that computers use lots of water? When was the last time you filled the water tank on your computer? Yet people are very quick to believe that somehow a warehouse with a bunch of computers in it somehow destroys water?
When did datacenters start using up all the water? Nobody seemed to worry about this until the US and China were fighting for AI dominance, then suddenly datacenters use water and are so loud people go insane from them. What is the first time someone mentioned datacenters using water and causing pollution?
It's absolute group psychosis. Are you actually so dumb that you don't notice that a thing that has been around for 50 years suddenly is a threat to our survival? Were you born yesterday so you don't remember 2 years ago when nobody had ever realized the existential threat of building datacenters in America? Why didn't anyone notice that datacenters were pumping the wells dry in 2021? Maybe they weren't and still arent...
The article is about air pollution.
Also, your last two paragraphs are completely bogus because you overlooked something important: scale.
AI data centers are being built at a massively higher rate than data centers were being built a few years ago, and an AI data center uses 5-10x more energy than a non-AI data center.
It is quite common for something that is not a big problem to become a major problem when scale massively increases. You can't simply dismiss concerns because they weren't concerns a few years ago. You will have to actually do the analysis to determine if they are legitimate concerns now.
This is really bad news. Here's a good look at what infrasound is doing to humans near datacenters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo
Perhaps the next administration will drop a few cluster bombs on some hyperscaler data centers. The air force needs targets to practice on, after all. Then throughout the land there will be much rejoicing and feelings of justice done, as trillions of dollars of GPUs go up in smoke.
First of all, what is datacenter pollution?
Second, why is the article trying so hard to make datacenters out as racist?
The pollution is the immense amount of exhaust from the power generation equipment being installed on site at data centres.
The article is from Capital B, which focuses on news affecting the Black community.
CO2? The stuff we naturally exhale? Water vapor? The stuff we drink?
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We're in a county with a coal plant and an oil refinery. Somehow people are more concerned about potential data center pollution.
Read up on Musk's Tennessee data center for an example of the kind of pollution under discussion.
Pollution happens when you don't have enough power in the grid so you will bring either diesel generators or methane turbines to make power.
Also noise is pollution too.
With diesel over $6/gallon now that's probably not too attractive. Natural gas probably more likely, and less polluting at least as far as particulates go. CO2 still created.
Are all new data centers being built with on-site power generation (for regular operations, not just emergency backup)? I'd assume they'd prefer utility power where they could get it.
Diesel generators are mostly for emergencies. Natural gas turbines (many of which are or are derived from jumbo jet engines) are for on-prem power generation.
> Second, why is the article trying so hard to make datacenters out as racist?
AI Datacenters are classist.
Because of their negative externalities they will always be constructed near the poor who have the least political power.
Humans are racist.
So there is a strong systemic correlation between that group of disenfranchised people and people of color.
The most directly harmful impacts of datacenters are racist, transitively.
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https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260811-memphis-ai-da...
Yeah, but just being a human is enough to qualify for not living in a smog cloud.
Also the article is trying to connect gas turbines from 2 years ago with cancer rates..
Good. Public review is nonsensical anyway. The public always “wants everything in one bag but the bag shouldn’t be heavy”. Elected representatives, and a set of rules with enforcement are a far better system than discretionary review.
We can’t have everyone extracting rent from all productive pursuits. If the public has their way they’d prefer to have the right to vote on who gets to be their neighbor.
Public review is the only way the public has to counter a public official acting on their own behalf instead of the constituents before election day.