It’s reaching the point of absurdity in my area. People are bringing “All data centers are flammable” signs to city meetings.

A plot of land that’s already zoned for the heaviest of industrial activities, is across the street from a dump, 3 miles from an airport, 16 miles from a nuclear generating station, and in a region with good climate, and no water crunch is a pretty good place for a data center.

Facts don’t matter, it’s a religious fight. Even if you provide numbers specific to the local area there’s no way to pierce the rhetoric.

Too much land? I added up lol the land used by the 10+ golf courses in the area. Dwarfs the proposal.

Too much water? I called the head of the parks department and asked them how much water the golf courses that they operate use each year. Massive.

Regional electricity costs going up? Our nuclear generating station already sells 80-85% of all power generated wholesale to other markets.

Data centers are loud? I measured the noise outside of my house. I live on a busy street. It was much louder than the viral videos going around Facebook with titles like “Data center noise from my porch SCARY MUST WATCH”.

I don’t know about all proposed data centers everywhere, but the one they’re eyeing to build in my backyard is fine by me.

I lived in Northern Virginia for years. Data centers are everywhere.

It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives. Just don’t run them on coal, natural gas, or the souls of orphans. And don’t rely exclusively on evaporative cooling if it’s in the desert.

They’re having fun treating tech people like villains. It was the same or worse with bankers back in 2008-2010. Anything I have to say, any data provided, any comparisons made, are biassed because I “use data centers”. When I explain that they use data centers as well, I get the finger.

When I talked to an anti data center family member who runs a local Facebook news group (5,000+ subscribers) they just kept sending me Google AI summaries as counter points… My god. I don’t even use gen AI.

People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”. All of this on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. How many data centers are involved to get a post from poster to viewer? 2? 3? 8?

A bad data center project proposal somewhere should not mean opposition to data center projects everywhere.

> It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives.

This isn't about efficiency, power, water, or fire. AT ALL.

Massive amounts of people have their jobs and livelihood threatened. The datacenters, which are enabling that, are being deployed in their neighborhoods while everyone in that neighborhood goes jobless. There is no plan of relief in the form of better economic policy, UBI, less taxation of actual humans, or anything else. That is the real crux of what is being fought.

You're not wrong that the position of many anti-datacenter people isn't entirely rational (in the sense of "backed by solid numbers"), but you're entirely missing the point of why they are angry.

Consider this:

    - People are struggling more and more financially, with income that does not keep up with inflation
    - People are seeing inequality rise with the ultra-rich getting ultra-richer
    - People are seeing climate change quickly changing their environment for the worst: droughts, heatwaves, storms...
    - People are expecting climate change to make their financial prospect worse, too

And they see their own government encouraging and subsidising these projects, how could they not feel betrayed?

> People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”.

I don't think so. People would rather these benefits weren't there, but people exist in society and balance principle with practicality. You're allowed to criticise how AI is being brought into society while also using AI yourself, moral purity isn't a requirement to having opinions.

Surely you have some measure of empathy for their position? I’m sure you certainly did in 08, as people lost their homes.

I think it’s a topic that’s scary to many and this datacenter-to-be, or the local banker, just happens to be what they can easily protest.

One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes, and they’re using it for technology that disempowers and annoys people. It’s pretty obviously offensive.

All for rezoning golf courses too

You realize that "golfs are even worse so why people complain" is not a serious argument?

But in PJM they are almost entirely being powered by natural gas and coal? Even if you contract out power from a nuclear plant some other plant on the grid is now enjoying a higher capacity factor, at the margin natural gas.

The data center in question in Utah was marketed as a 9GW full build out natural gas facility more than twice the electrical generation of the entire state. Coal electrical production in the US increased 13% last year.