Comment by mbreese
5 hours ago
You’re making the wrong argument. Making a pitch for renewable energy-powered data centers shouldn’t be about the environmental impact. If you do that you’ll only convince people who already agree with you.
I think you’ll have better luck by arguing the economics and cost predictability. Not everyplace has a natural gas field next door, and in those places you’ll have a compelling argument.
But I’m not entirely convinced that all of the anti-data center voter backlash was about the physical infrastructure and power usage. I think a large fraction was general anti AI sentiment. And you’ll have a much harder time getting people who hate all AI to think putting a datacenter powered by anything is a good idea.
Anecdotally my hunch is voters care about what impacts their wallet primarily, even if they won’t admit it.
People don’t want these in their backyard but also care about lot about their energy costs.
And their 401ks
And by anti-AI sentiment it's really more like "anti- oligarchs controlling everything and making us live in the sewers."