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.
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.
They already do, indirectly. The local government gets property taxes from these data centers. But maybe it would be more real for people if you just wrote them a check I guess.
The local government gets property taxes from these data centers.
Not if they get a sweetheart tax deal. Why do you think folks are so pissy? It’s like a sports stadium next to your house in that the principals get tax breaks, eminent domain, and other considerations, but it makes noise every day(not just weekends) and you don’t get to go to the game.
The sweetheart deals are usually from the state, sometimes the county. Town budgets tend to be so small that ~$20m/yr will have the council falling over themselves to approve it.
The problem, from the cases I have looked at, seems to be that towns want to do dumb shit with this money rather than just cut residents a tax break.
Even with a state sweetheart tax deal, the most populated county in my state gets half of its property tax income from a datacenter. Projection for one in my county looks like it would hit 70%.
tbh I'm more worried about the resource curse from the sudden change in budget
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.
I suspect the authors of this paper would like to hear out your evidence for increasing energy prices https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19777
In the United States at least there's been plenty of polling on why people oppose data centers. Consistently, it's water usage and water contamination fears, which is exactly what you see most often in social media and discussed online. I think a lot of high-minded rationalizations are just trying to dodge the embarrassing fact that people simply think data centers are draining municipal and natural water sources.
They do use water, and the numbers look very large which makes for big scary headlines. However people who actually know how water is used in a city are used to numbers much larger than that.
Yeah, it’s one thing when SV runs the Uber script (ignoring the law to build big enough to buy politicians) to hurt cab drivers. It’s very different when it’s your neighborhood.
People should stop citing that paper. It makes the opposite point they think it makes. I think most people just read the first couple of sentences in the abstract.
"We estimate that data centers caused average retail electricity rates to fall modestly in the United States from 2015 to 2024 using an instrumental variables approach."
But the data center backlash really started 2 years ago. It's 2026 now. Getting new energy generation built and approved takes time.
"We caution that future supply constraints could reverse the effect."
Here in Switzerland new AI datacenters are also causing some uproar but a lot less because regulations are rigid enough in most places that you can only build them if you do so cleanly. You can't just take all the water, electricity, make noise and polute.
I live next to a waste valorisation plant and they have very over sized water cooling systems because they need to keep the noise below regulation. They also for example have under pressure in the trash receiving bunker to prevent smells from escaping. All regulations that cost money but are the benefit of all.
Even worse some data centers have been caught running on diesel generators even in places where that is illegal. People are sick of tech companies bribing their way out of any accountability.
It won’t necessarily impact local energy prices significantly. Some facilities build gas turbine generators, but these cause the noise that neighbors complain about. Gas isn’t as bad about pollution (except CO2) but you don’t want to live next door to a plant either.
Also, adding a few data centers to a large grid shouldn’t bump up the energy prices, it’s only when you add many across the area. This is difficult to pin down because if one side of a region builds many data centers without their own power generation, the whole region could see eventual price increases. Fortunately most (all?) states regulate utility price increases, but still you don’t want to max out the price bump year after year.
It’s hard to discuss because different facilities have different configurations, and the local impact depends on that plus local characteristics.
Given the externalities of large facilities like this, impacted neighbors should definitely get a vote. Maybe we need a standard to define the impact radius based on the facility characteristics. This would add transparency and make it easier for people to decide without FUD and distortion. Unfortunately I don’t have much confidence in anyone coming up with such a standard without altering it to benefit their side, now that it’s become a political football.
No a big part is that the buildings are ugly and transform the character of a place that folks grew up in. Maybe focus should be put on beautifying these buildings in some way
Even if invisible they would not be a popular neighbour because they are a very overt reminder to the poor people around them how uneven the wealth and political power distribution is between them and the tech exec owners?
So then does the data center compensate local residents for their higher power bills today? Until the new capacity comes online?
> Your requirements is like demanding nobody can buy a house unless they have pay they entire amount upfront.
No it's like demanding your new neighbors aren't forced to lend you money for your purchase - which is entirely reasonable. If you need money, get it from the bank.
The top-level comment explains it already:
"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."
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.
The older I get the more and more convinced I become that the media is the actual real enemy of the country. Their lifeblood is creating controversy and drama about everything so they can show ads. So insane that so few call them out (probably because most people are already "captured" by them).
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.
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.
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.
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.
They already do, indirectly. The local government gets property taxes from these data centers. But maybe it would be more real for people if you just wrote them a check I guess.
The local government gets property taxes from these data centers.
Not if they get a sweetheart tax deal. Why do you think folks are so pissy? It’s like a sports stadium next to your house in that the principals get tax breaks, eminent domain, and other considerations, but it makes noise every day(not just weekends) and you don’t get to go to the game.
The sweetheart deals are usually from the state, sometimes the county. Town budgets tend to be so small that ~$20m/yr will have the council falling over themselves to approve it.
The problem, from the cases I have looked at, seems to be that towns want to do dumb shit with this money rather than just cut residents a tax break.
Even with a state sweetheart tax deal, the most populated county in my state gets half of its property tax income from a datacenter. Projection for one in my county looks like it would hit 70%.
tbh I'm more worried about the resource curse from the sudden change in budget
While specifics vary by state and county, data centers have often been getting 100% property tax abatements good for decades.
Billionaires don’t pay taxes, they receive tax breaks.
New rev source = spend more as opposed to reduce taxpayer burden?
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.
I suspect the authors of this paper would like to hear out your evidence for increasing energy prices https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19777
In the United States at least there's been plenty of polling on why people oppose data centers. Consistently, it's water usage and water contamination fears, which is exactly what you see most often in social media and discussed online. I think a lot of high-minded rationalizations are just trying to dodge the embarrassing fact that people simply think data centers are draining municipal and natural water sources.
What exactly are you getting at? Datacenters do use potable water from municipal sources for evaporative cooling. Are you claiming that's not true?
Here's a recent source: https://pacinst.org/publication/how-much-water-do-data-cente...
They do use water, and the numbers look very large which makes for big scary headlines. However people who actually know how water is used in a city are used to numbers much larger than that.
Some do, some use closed-loop systems that are essentially 'charge once'. higher energy use, but less water
Yeah, it’s one thing when SV runs the Uber script (ignoring the law to build big enough to buy politicians) to hurt cab drivers. It’s very different when it’s your neighborhood.
People should stop citing that paper. It makes the opposite point they think it makes. I think most people just read the first couple of sentences in the abstract.
"We estimate that data centers caused average retail electricity rates to fall modestly in the United States from 2015 to 2024 using an instrumental variables approach."
But the data center backlash really started 2 years ago. It's 2026 now. Getting new energy generation built and approved takes time.
"We caution that future supply constraints could reverse the effect."
There it is.
Exactly
Here in Switzerland new AI datacenters are also causing some uproar but a lot less because regulations are rigid enough in most places that you can only build them if you do so cleanly. You can't just take all the water, electricity, make noise and polute.
I live next to a waste valorisation plant and they have very over sized water cooling systems because they need to keep the noise below regulation. They also for example have under pressure in the trash receiving bunker to prevent smells from escaping. All regulations that cost money but are the benefit of all.
Even worse some data centers have been caught running on diesel generators even in places where that is illegal. People are sick of tech companies bribing their way out of any accountability.
Or the fact everyone's utility bills are going up.
It won’t necessarily impact local energy prices significantly. Some facilities build gas turbine generators, but these cause the noise that neighbors complain about. Gas isn’t as bad about pollution (except CO2) but you don’t want to live next door to a plant either.
Also, adding a few data centers to a large grid shouldn’t bump up the energy prices, it’s only when you add many across the area. This is difficult to pin down because if one side of a region builds many data centers without their own power generation, the whole region could see eventual price increases. Fortunately most (all?) states regulate utility price increases, but still you don’t want to max out the price bump year after year.
It’s hard to discuss because different facilities have different configurations, and the local impact depends on that plus local characteristics.
Given the externalities of large facilities like this, impacted neighbors should definitely get a vote. Maybe we need a standard to define the impact radius based on the facility characteristics. This would add transparency and make it easier for people to decide without FUD and distortion. Unfortunately I don’t have much confidence in anyone coming up with such a standard without altering it to benefit their side, now that it’s become a political football.
No a big part is that the buildings are ugly and transform the character of a place that folks grew up in. Maybe focus should be put on beautifying these buildings in some way
[delayed]
Even if invisible they would not be a popular neighbour because they are a very overt reminder to the poor people around them how uneven the wealth and political power distribution is between them and the tech exec owners?
That includes nuclear power, correct?
Can you build it safely as fast as the data center it's meant to power? Full steam ahead then.
It can be a little later. Your requirements is like demanding nobody can buy a house unless they have pay they entire amount upfront.
It typically takes 11-12 years for a nuclear plant to get built including planning and construction [1].
Is the idea that we'd build the data centers now, and then finish the nuclear plants to power them 11-12 years from now?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Typical-timeline-of-a-nu...
People do not believe big companies when they say "I'll deal with the externalities a little later."
So then does the data center compensate local residents for their higher power bills today? Until the new capacity comes online?
> Your requirements is like demanding nobody can buy a house unless they have pay they entire amount upfront.
No it's like demanding your new neighbors aren't forced to lend you money for your purchase - which is entirely reasonable. If you need money, get it from the bank.
The top-level comment explains it already:
"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."
Archive link: http://archive.today/0Rxl7
Turns out putting them in space is the answer!
> Turns out putting them in space is the answer!
Can we put them on Mars, and maybe send Elon to tend them?
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.
The older I get the more and more convinced I become that the media is the actual real enemy of the country. Their lifeblood is creating controversy and drama about everything so they can show ads. So insane that so few call them out (probably because most people are already "captured" by them).
we can probably generalize and say that anything that's a culture war issue has become disconnected with useful actionable reality.
Do they promise?
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.
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.