I feel like this is one of those things that sounds good, but it's not. It's probably cheaper to build it far away from residential areas, and it's probably better for the people living there to not live too close to a data center.

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gigatree 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why, is there some hidden downside to living by a data center? Northern VA real estate is super pricey but they’ve got tons of them

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pocksuppet 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The new ones are being built with massive numbers of unpermitted gas turbines with the exhaust filters removed, because there's not enough electricity and there isn't enough grid power and exhaust filtering costs money. So they're giving entire nearby towns asthma. They're also so loud the whole town can't sleep.

Data centers were, and still can be, some of the cleanest industrial facilities - but the ones being built in this AI wave are not, because they are being built as cheaply and as quickly as possible and without regards to proper infrastructure.

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chasd00 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> The new ones are being built with massive numbers of unpermitted gas turbines with the exhaust filters removed

That’s every local investigative journalist’s wet dream. Can you link us to a source please?

PS saw an interview with he who shouldn’t be named and they made an interesting point that there isn’t a way to scale the manufacturing of gas turbine blades, there will never be enough gas turbines for these DCs to come online as scheduled.

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Konnstann 3 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2026/4/whitehous... not quite local investigative journalism but should suffice

	▲	chasd00 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		here's something more local and what i would expect. However, it's murky [link at the bottom] "Mississippi officials told xAI it could run the generators without an air permit because they were deemed “temporary” and “mobile” units.". Makes sense because as far as i can tell they were on trailers. but then there's this: "But lawyers at the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing the NAACP in the federal lawsuit, have long maintained that such a loophole doesn’t exist, and that running such turbines without a permit violates the federal Clean Air Act. “Mobile, temporary, portable, whatever you want to call them, turbines need air permits,” Patrick Anderson, a center attorney, told Mississippi Today." as per typical, it's not clear who's right https://mississippitoday.org/2026/04/15/data-center-turbines...

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1234letshaveatw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

why must we tear up undeveloped areas for data centers instead of backfilling vacant industrial areas? Humanity will never rest until all of the world is a brownfield

	▲	SoftTalker 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's cheaper to build on vacant land than to get construction equipment and materials into a built up area, possibly discovering underground tanks and other surprises that can inflate the project cost, etc. City ordinances may also limit work hours and/or noise. Rural land is cheap and there are fewer neighbors to annoy with the 24/7 construction activity.
	▲	chasd00 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The current NIMBY trend with respect to DCs guarantees it.