Was Maine ever at risk of being overrun with data centers? Regardless, if the ban is what Maine voters want then more power to them.

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culi an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's not a ban. It's a temporary moratorium (on data centers requiring over 20 megawatts) until 2027 to give them time to research and plan for how to do data centers in an environmentally responsible way

> The bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.

	▲	ApolloFortyNine 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'm just going to post so I can reference this in the future. The council is going to do and accomplish nothing, eventually some company may try to build, but after 2 years another environmental survey will be requested and they'll give up and go somewhere else (likely considered a win by people who support this bill). These special government councils rarely accomplish anything, they're the exact kind of thing people reference when answering why building in the US is so expensive and why we don't have large infrastructure projects. It's red tape on top of red tape.

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smarf 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> more power to them

that seems to be the idea!

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rockemsockem 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Except that's wrong because greater electricity demand stimulates greater investment and leads to lower prices.

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nemomarx 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.consumerreports.org/data-centers/ai-data-centers...

It seems like that has pretty substantial time lag. Maybe require the ai companies to build power plants before they're allowed to build data centers in a certain region?

	▲	rockemsockem an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sounds like a great idea

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dymk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Like how demand for RAM and hard drives drove prices of those down, because of all that greater investment, right?

	▲	rockemsockem an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. Are you actually being serious? Look at the last 60 years.