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| ▲ | 1shooner 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Would you believe NERC? https://www.nerc.com/newsroom/nerc-issues-level-3-alert-reli... |
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| ▲ | vatsachak 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They're chronically online because millennials basically shoved digital heroin into their face from birth |
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| ▲ | SV_BubbleTime 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I like the number of times I heard: “they’re going to be so good at computers!”. I can not imagine getting my children a straight access to internet or a phone or allowing them on social media until after 16. |
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| ▲ | hackable_sand 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's not weird at all. Go outside. |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water Wait till they hear about big Ag and how they use, abuse and ‘pay’ for water, while farming deserts. |
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| ▲ | rockskon 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Somehow I don't see arguments comparing powering AI with producing food to go over well with them. Many opponents to AI do not view the tech as having a net benefit. Comparing it to food production would serve to make you look more the fool to them despite their claims about water consumption frequently being wacky. | | |
| ▲ | denkmoon 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Like all food production has equal merit. Growing almonds in the desert is national food security obviously. | | |
| ▲ | phowat 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Since this is HN let's be factually correct. Almond production is irrelevant in water usage. The bulk of it is going to animal agriculture. | | |
| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I am finding that 42% of California water is agriculture and 8% of that is for almonds. 3% of state water usage on a luxury nut might not be moving the needle that much, but it does feel wasteful for a state that is perpetually hovering on drought conditions. | | |
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| ▲ | JuniperMesos 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Right; anti-data-center sentiment is really a way of attacking AI as a technology; arguments about the water or power use of data centers are just an excuse. | | |
| ▲ | rockskon 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, to be fair, the public has been going through a multi-year forced beta-test of AI all while CEOs keep going on national television and posting on social media how there will be mass unemployment because of AI. To say nothing of all the companies that have (and soon will) close up shop due to increased prices from the global memory shortage unrelated to the proclaimed job-replacing benefits of AI. And let's not forget many of the remaining independent websites on the Internet closing up shop due to being unable to afford the substantial increase in hosting costs resulting from aggressive scrapers getting data to keep training AI on. Or the massive improvement in bots and click-fraud due to AI, pushing an increasing number of companies to embrace heinous practices such as mandatory facial recognition for users to be allowed to engage in socialization. Or the increased electricity prices already realized around much of the country due to AI both so much of the existing grid's supply and requiring expensive upgrades to the infrastructure - the latter of which is frequently paid for by taxpayers. All for the wondrous promises of unproven future capabilities. The real mystery to me is how it's a mystery to so many people why there's a large and enduring anti-AI sentiment. |
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| ▲ | recursive 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Plenty of alfalfa and corn aren't going to food production. And much of those the remaining are not efficient. https://youtu.be/XusyNT_k-1c | |
| ▲ | analognoise 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Everyone should find a comparison to food - which people need to live - as stupid? |
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| ▲ | tempaccount5050 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Yep. 10000 gallons per query, spews out toxic water, contaminates the water supply, uses more power than an entire state, and on and on. I'm convinced it's a psyop to prevent the US's progress in tech. It's so over the top crazy and obviously false, but everyone I know is falling for it. |
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| ▲ | jorvi 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They might be wrong on this one, but check the history on cancer alley, or the legalized massive PFAS dumping in rivers the world over, that has now polluted the earth so thoroughly you cannot escape going over the maximum recommended body serum. Same for microplastics. It is absolutely justified to be extremely suspicious of big corporate. They've earned it. | | |
| ▲ | protocolture 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Suspicion and making up claims are separate ideas. You can be suspicious without polluting the internet with junk information. | |
| ▲ | knollimar 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It seems pretty easy to undermine the trust in the other side if you just pretend to be on it and inflate their numbers. See: Florida will be underwater by date X [in the past] | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But datcenters have been around for decades now. That's what makes it so insane. Around me people are rioting about the construction approval of a new DC, it has all the insane FUD on social media flying around about it. ...and yet there are already 24 datacenters in the area, with the oldest ones running since the early '00s | | |
| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Legacy data centers were not representing a multiple of existing electricity demand. It is only recently that DCs are being built hoping to consume hundreds of MWs, up to GWs. Elsewhere in the thread is the Utah DC which will consume more electricity than the entire state. Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. DCs are causing real strains to the grid which has not had to accommodate rapid growth. | | |
| ▲ | exmadscientist 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Seeing a datacenter proposal in the news come in at 1.3GW was very sobering for me. I spent a lot of time in grad school on the campus of a large nuclear plant, and it turns out one nuclear core is good for about 0.9GW of electricity (or 2.9GW of heat). A single site consuming more than the entire electrical output of a nuclear core, considering the sheer size and scale of that reactor and its supporting infrastructure and workforce, is just boggling to my mind. It's literally billions of dollars just to feed that one site, if they're being accurate in their proposal. | |
| ▲ | protocolture 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. Interesting considering the similar outcry about bitcoin mining. |
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| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Understandable and justified are very different. I worry that unprincipled skepticism of big corporate makes it harder to stop the bad stuff; if every large project becomes a battle of corporate power vs. slopulist criticism, how do you sort through that to focus on the truly bad ones? |
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| ▲ | jamescrowley 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW. | | |
| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | For a less rural example, I am finding different numbers, but all of New York City is estimated at somewhere between 5-10GW. So, some 9 million people vs one data center. | |
| ▲ | tempaccount5050 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute? | | |
| ▲ | rahkiin 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Watt is Joule/second 3 gigajoule per second. It already has a unit of time. | |
| ▲ | jamescrowley 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 3GW/9GW is peak load, as I understand it - data centres usually operate at 85-90% of peak load according to Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, the 4GW figure is average demand - Utah consumed 35,075GWh for 2025, so average demand of 4GW (35075/(365*24)). | |
| ▲ | smallerize 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 3GWh/h. | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | hackable_sand 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Common parlance is "own goal" | |
| ▲ | Teever 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a take. But let's stop and ask ourselves -- Cui bono? Another take is that the same companies that are pushing for datacentres are often the same companies that control social media and traditional media outlets and are using this control to foster datacentres onto thee average person who is either wildly unenthusiastic about or at best ambivalent about. It's all pretty moot anyways. Big tech oligarchs have gotten pretty much everything they want over the years, it's not like the average person in bum-fuck nowhere is really going to be able to stop them from destroying their watersheds, poisoning their air and jacking up electrical prices. I wouldn't get too upset about opposition to datacentres if I were you. Money is King and the King has spoken. There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it. | | |
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