alt Hacker NewsI agree that I don’t want a data center in my backyard either.
What’s missing from this strange conversation is discussion about how many data center proposals are near residential areas.
I tried to look for one in my state and a few surrounding areas and couldn’t find any. There was an amusing story about how data center protestors had to organize expensive bus trips to get the protesters out to the data center site because it was so remote.
There was another story about a small town without any major electricity or communication infrastructure coming together to impose a moratorium on data center construction. There were no plans to build data centers in their small town and no reason to consider it at all, but they felt so threatened that they needed to convene and put on a big show about banning it.
The social phenomenon of the data center construction protest movement is really fascinating. My assumption is that it will run its course and then be mostly dropped when the next current thing comes along.
There are some actual concerns about using natural gas instead of trying to utilize the optimal power sources or locations, but they’re mostly overshadowed by bogeyman complaints like thinking that a data center is going to end up in your backyard or water consumption that is negligible compared to golf courses and swimming pools.
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My take is that people feel powerless to really do anything against these massive tech companies. This is the only tangible way they can fight back.
> What’s missing from this strange conversation is discussion about how many data center proposals are near residential areas.
What's strange is that you didn't once mention the layperson's fear of data center projects in their county/state potentially raising the cost of consumer electricity. I've never heard a layperson mention data centers without mentioning that fear.
Have you really heard zero occurrences of that fear in your view-from-Mars survey of this issue?
It's easy for politicians to support a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Nobody will really oppose it, and it's a safe way to appear to be "fighting for the community."
And on the flip side, I live in Fairfax County, VA and there are data centers EVERYWHERE. Especially if I cross into Ashburn (home of AOL and stuff) - literally mixed in with large townhome developments.
And the current plan - building a data center in Canaan Valley - is a whopper... 785 MW natural gas power plant on site with diesel generator backups (solely for the data center, not sold back to grid), 500+ acres of land, 2 million sqft initial building space, air quality impact assessment by the state is heavily redacted, $4 billion price tag.
All right next to one of DC's most popular outdoor/skiing recreation areas. The DC would loom over the two towns that support the entire region.
I can't speak for elsewhere, but a town near me has a few data centers, and the anti-datacenter sentiment precedes their use for LLMs.
They simply take a lot of space, and the city gave sweet tax deals, and they employ almost no one. The locals aren't happy with that type of land use.
Most of it is anti-AI sentiment, there are already a ton of people who have lost jobs, or clients to AI.
What bothers me is clearing forests, sometimes even protected forests with the idea that they'll ask for forgiveness instead of permission.
Does a data center need to be an immediate neighbor to raise electricity rates or consume water capacity?
Data centers are conflated with rising energy costs.
It's partly about people's nominal objections, but mostly an attempt to hold them hostage to extract some energy bill subsidies (and general cost of living relief).
If you look at Elk Grove Village, Illinois as their budget there after declaring they would become the AI Datacenter Capital of the World -- there is an obvious answer:
Suburbs cannot continue to pay for their infrastructure without drastically increasing taxes or finding new sources of income.
> There was an amusing story about how data center protestors had to organize expensive bus trips to get the protesters out to the data center site because it was so remote.
How did they get in?
> There were no plans to build data centers in their small town and no reason to consider it at all
You have to be fair on this though. The time to ban something is before they start talking about doing it, not after. Being ahead of the game is never a bad thing, especially when small towns are so easily exploited due to income and infrastructure. They just can't afford long legal battles.