Comment by WarmWash

10 hours ago

First of all, what is datacenter pollution?

Second, why is the article trying so hard to make datacenters out as racist?

28 comments

WarmWash

Reply
standeven  10 hours ago

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.

  • WarmWash  9 hours ago

    CO2? The stuff we naturally exhale? Water vapor? The stuff we drink?

    • standeven  9 hours ago

      CO2, the stuff that has been buried for millions of years, and we're releasing all at once into the atmosphere? The stuff that is warming our planet faster than we, or nature, can adapt to? The stuff that is worsening global wildfires, flooding, retreating glaciers, heat waves, desertification, etc.?

      Yeah, that stuff. And other nasty things in the exhaust as well.

      3 replies →

    • runako  6 hours ago

      > Water vapor? The stuff we drink?

      This is really obnoxious coming as people are still missing after historic flooding in Asia (via lots of concentrated water vapor, I guess).

    • convolvatron  9 hours ago

      no, we already abolished all rule making and review about CO2, this is removing the EPA requirement to install scrubbers for removal of NO and NO2 given sufficiently large outputs, which cause acid rain and are linked to respiratory problems. of course it all depends on the dose, which is why there there is a review process, which I guess was just too inconvenient

      4 replies →

forshaper  9 hours ago

We're in a county with a coal plant and an oil refinery. Somehow people are more concerned about potential data center pollution.

tzs  7 hours ago

Read up on Musk's Tennessee data center for an example of the kind of pollution under discussion.

Geof25  10 hours ago

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.

  • SoftTalker  10 hours ago

    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.

  • burnt-resistor  10 hours ago

    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.

georgemcbay  10 hours ago

> 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.

  • precision1k  10 hours ago

    [flagged]

    • georgemcbay  10 hours ago

      The pre-AI datacenters where you live are very different than the Colossus-style methane turbine and inadequately soundproofed AI datacenters that are being built today.

      1 reply →

    • datsci_est_2015  10 hours ago

      > Your idea that datacenters are racists transitively is woke slop.

      Your knee jerk reaction to refer to something as “woke slop” belies your privileged distance from anything remotely resembling hardship (I LiVe iN LoUdOuN) and an underdeveloped sense of empathy.

      Anyway, we should be extremely skeptical of how infrastructure is built out in the US because of historical baggage. Poverty and industrial development create a vicious cycle that leads people to walk around with their thumb in their ass and claim that the poors just aren’t pulling themselves up by their bootstraps hard enough.

      1 reply →