Posted by stalfosknight 3 hours ago
What won't work is something like "it'll be better for the economy in the entire country, so put up with some disruption for a while." No one likes higher electricity bills while a power plant is being constructed, a new building going up too close to their homes that doesn't create jobs they can apply for, etc. It's a losing message to promise the payoff only years later or indirectly.
1. The taxes can offset the federal cuts so local taxes do not need to be raised. Requires the local gov't officials signing onto the deal in this way, which seems more likely given the massive pushback nation wide.
2. The data centers should be forced to build the energy generation they require. Excess (during off peak) can be fed back into the local grid and lower prices. It's quite likely the energy deficit will be the primary limiting factor to build out. We can also force the data center to pay premium prices, this is within the capability of regulations.
are they? whats been done to solve the infrasound pollution?
governments haven't even managed to get datacenters to follow clean air regulation
1. About 25% of data centers use close water cycle systems [1]. This could be part of the approval process. It costs more, but these companies are flush with cash.
2. Where they go matters for water table impact and energy generation mix, both geographically and per zoning laws. There are good and bad places to put data centers.
3. Energy shouldn't be a problem, but we have under/mis-invested. A world with limitless energy is possible, what happened to that vision for massive renewables to realize that?
4. A responsive government is required, which seems to be what is happening (as evidenced by the significant pushback). We should be more reasonable (the middle path), but that seems not within the politics of our times.
[1] https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275...
Seems like an assumption on your part that being pro-data center reflects "vision" and "optimism."
Interestingly, the group is mixed on the Ai topic. Some are anti, some are very excited. We have had amazing discussions without it becoming heated, IRL, because people communicate differently in the flesh.
Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being built over what would otherwise be usable farmland. I'm sure many will say "it's not that much land", but then tech billionaires would like to build datacenters the size of Manhattan. What for? To train a bigger LLM? Yay?
If the cost of energy is a problem, I feel like we should fix that problem instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's no reason residential customers should pay the same amount as data centers.
Sure but you can say this about everything. Where are the protests about the wine industry in California? 500,000 acres of land for vineyards, far more water used for growing grapes than cooling data centers, all so a handful of people can make fortunes selling empty calories to the rich?
If you want to focus purely on utilitarian "optimal land use for essentials only" arguments there's way worse offenders than datacenters, the anti-DC sentiment is purely part of the anti-AI wave.
Now explain to me why you are allowed to have the things you like which use a lot of water, while other people are not allowed to have the things they like which use a lot of water.
Is this based on an assumption of irrigation being used?
> Napa Valley’s most contentious political battleground — winery and vineyard development — has potentially reached a significant turning point following a series of key victories for proponents of limited expansion, leaving continued growth of Napa’s prized wine region uncertain.
> While final votes were being cast in the midterm election on Nov. 8, (2022,) Napa County’s Board of Supervisors voted to revoke a permit for one of the largest winery development proposals in the region's history, the Mountain Peak winery, following nearly nine years of opposition. ... locals fiercely objected to the project’s scale, voicing concerns over water supply and quality, increased fire risks and potential environmental and biological harm.
https://www.newtimesslo.com/sucking-air-how-one-vineyard-cau...
> The first phase of Coakley Vineyards is what was the most distressing to neighbors: the construction of an irrigation reservoir—also known as an ag pond—to hold 3.3 million gallons of water when full. The pond would be filled (and replenished after depletion and evaporation) with groundwater from three wells on the property.
> To the locals surrounding the property, the plan posed a very real threat to their water supply.
> Steve and two other concerned landowners met with one of the Coakley project leaders, Randy Heinzen, the chief operating officer of local vineyard management and consulting firm Vineyard Professional Services, to discuss their qualms about the project.
> Neither Coakley nor Heinzen responded to requests for comment from New Times for this story.
> According to Steve, the meeting only exacerbated their fears about the pond’s potential stress on surrounding groundwater levels.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article306005076.html
This isn't new. 2005: https://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2005/2005_05_04.clos04.sh...
It also isn't limited to the US. Mexico: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/protesters-occupy-coahuila-...
> Protesters in Coahuila have occupied the winery of Mexico’s oldest winemaker since Friday night, accusing its owners of using too much water from a shared source, leaving them with too little to irrigate their crops.
> Communal landowners took over the Casa Madero winery in the town of San Lorenzo, 140 kilometers west of Saltillo, to demand that the owners reduce their water use. They first arrived at the winery on Wednesday but left when state police arrived, only to return to enter the property two days later.
> The company accused the protesters of violently installing themselves on the property and blamed municipal police for failing to take action, despite being present. The newspaper El País reported that the protesters were armed with machetes, picks and shovels.
There are also protests of entities, including Harvard's endowment, that purchase vineyards specifically to economically exploit their groundwater rights: https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/28626-harvard-quietly-amas...
On the other end, local governments can raise excess water usage rates on farms, golf courses, and wineries, instead of giving them offsetting tax or rate breaks and subsidies to attract them: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article...
Or incentivize water conservation: https://nypost.com/2026/05/25/us-news/napa-valley-wineries-f...
Which some wineries have proactively done for more than a decade, via wastewater irrigation and recycling post-irrigation water for cleaning casks and other surfaces: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/07/446096090/ca...
But that's also been protested, for polluting groundwater reserves: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article306005076.html
Dry-irrigated wineries that only use rainwater or mountain runoff also exist, but unlike a data centre, they can't close up shop and move when drought hits: https://www.eenews.net/articles/water-shortages-force-a-reck..., https://triplepundit.com/2022/washington-wine-climate-change...
Here it's the same thing--the people protesting don't give a damn about water waste, electricity usage, or wasted land. If they did, there are tons of other offenders who are way worse. But they don't want to outright say they're protesting against AI because it makes them seem like luddites.