Data Centers-- water and power

[Thermal]

It’s the “hyperscalers” that are the problem, not the “old fashioned” datacentres.

That's what I meant. After a certain point, those puppies ain't for benefitting the public, either.

 

[LiteBright]

It’s the “hyperscalers” that are the problem, not the “old fashioned” datacentres.

They both always had negative externalities but it is the massive amount of compute required by AI being built out now that has dwarfed the issue caused by the smaller data centres of the past 20 years.

 

[TragicMonkey]

It’s the “hyperscalers” that are the problem, not the “old fashioned” datacentres.

The old-fashioned mom-and-pop data centers! I fondly remember them. Rockers on the porch while you wait for your data to be done, root beer barrel candies for the kiddies. Each bit and byte carefully hand-crafted. Back when data was for regular folks! Pride in craftmanship, real artisanry. *nostalgic hawk screech*

 

[The_Animus]

I wouldn't care about data centers being built if the resources and pollution were entirely covered by the company. They need a ton of energy? Then build the additional power and infrastructure needed to run it. They need cooling? Then figure out how to do it without depleting a water supply or contaminating it with bacteria or raising the temperature of the surrounding area several degrees.

Speaking of pollution, I don't believe the noise pollution has been raised yet. If they want to build data centers then they need to make it so people don't have to constantly hear a high pitch whine.

Now as to what portion of all these new data centers are guilty of these issues I can't say but you can find reports on it and video of the reactions by city councils when their constituents show up to complain so it seems that there are genuine concerns.

 

[theprestige]

I wouldn't care about data centers being built if the resources and pollution were entirely covered by the company.

Progressives: Capitalists depend on the state to make their business work.

Also progressives: Datacenters are fine, but why does the state have to eat some of the externalities?

 

[thaiboxerken]

I wouldn't care about data centers being built if the resources and pollution were entirely covered by the company. They need a ton of energy? Then build the additional power and infrastructure needed to run it. They need cooling? Then figure out how to do it without depleting a water supply or contaminating it with bacteria or raising the temperature of the surrounding area several degrees.

Speaking of pollution, I don't believe the noise pollution has been raised yet. If they want to build data centers then they need to make it so people don't have to constantly hear a high pitch whine.

Now as to what portion of all these new data centers are guilty of these issues I can't say but you can find reports on it and video of the reactions by city councils when their constituents show up to complain so it seems that there are genuine concerns.

The concerns are well founded, if not exaggerated. I believe much of the disdain is transference. People hate AI, therefore they hate data centers. I don't think DC's should get tax breaks any more than any other business. I don't think they depend on the state to make their businesses work, nor should they. DC's should also have to be good neighbors and not pollute the environment. They need regulations. If that ends up costing customers more, then so be it.

 

[dirtywick]

OpenAI proposes 5% stake to Trump administration to ease Washington pressure: Report

Trump said in June that the U.S. taking an ownership stake in AI giants would be "a beautiful thing" and make American public "partners in this revolution."

www.cnbc.com

unfortunately, openai made a proposal that the government get an equity stake in ai companies in exchange for the creation and access to a sovereign wealth fund

Altman suggested a stake of that size in early discussions with the Trump administration, as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold 5% of each of the leading U.S. AI developers via a government vehicle, according to the report.

The proposed arrangement envisions other U.S. AI companies, such as Anthropic, Google and Meta, ceding similar stakes to the government through a sovereign wealth fund vehicle, the FT said. It is not clear whether any of these groups would agree to OpenAI’s proposal.

in any case, i think data centers and ai companies are also linked together in a fairly inescapable way. if you are opposed to ai companies, it's pretty hard not to oppose the construction of their data centers, particularly since those are the most egregiously sized ones. and fairly so, there's not much to the companies without them.

and that's not even getting into palantir and oracle.

 

[dirtywick]

plus, the people. elon musk, sam altman, alex karp, peter thiel, larry ellison, these guys are garbage people driving all this for all the wrong reasons. just listen to some of their interviews, they talk about it openly

 

[TragicMonkey]

plus, the people. elon musk, sam altman, alex karp, peter thiel, larry ellison, these guys are garbage people driving all this for all the wrong reasons. just listen to some of their interviews, they talk about it openly

Listen, they need these data centers for AI to replace the serfs before the mass exterminations. If they wait til afterward who will build the data centers? The slaves? Those are for agricultural use only, outside the Forbidden Zone. Sometimes I wonder if you're even paying attention to the wise plans of the overlords!

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Progressives: Capitalists depend on the state to make their business work.

Also progressives: Datacenters are fine, but why does the state have to eat some of the externalities?

Capitalists: We are completely independent and make money all on our own

Also Capitalists: We need complete tax exemption, exemption from labor laws, exemption from environmental laws and the infrastructure should be redirected for our use, at taxpayers costs.

 

[The_Animus]

The concerns are well founded, if not exaggerated. I believe much of the disdain is transference. People hate AI, therefore they hate data centers. I don't think DC's should get tax breaks any more than any other business. I don't think they depend on the state to make their businesses work, nor should they. DC's should also have to be good neighbors and not pollute the environment. They need regulations. If that ends up costing customers more, then so be it.

I think whether they are exaggerated is yet to be determined. AI and DC hate are certainly intertwined and while I agree there is a lot to hate about AI, I'm also annoyed at how often people generalize and paint AI like it's only an evil terrible thing that shouldn't exist at all. AI is a tool and like any tool can be created and used ethically, or unethically. I try not to use AI very often because of the immense resource costs and other ethical issues, but I have found that it can be really useful for creative endeavors, efficiency with certain tasks, and accuracy with search results.

I think there are a few factors as to why AI and DC's get so much hate and most of it is well earned. The biggest is, as dirtywick mentions above, many of the people and companies creating and pushing AI have a track record of being dangerous sociopaths who have absolutely no problem doing terrible things to increase their wealth, power and status in society. Their ability to create the AI in the first place is largely based on theft from millions of people such as torrenting audiobooks for AI speech applications. Then there is the AI products themselves. Meta for example designed AI systems for romantic and sexually suggestive roleplay. Internal reports about minors interacting with this AI was brushed aside and ignored in favor of prioritizing user engagement.

Another big factor causing AI hate is how overhyped it is and how much those at the top push for it to be used even when there is no reason to use it or the quality is piss poor. Unfortunately you can find an immense number of stories from people where some C-Suite ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ decided to spend a bunch of money on an AI system to get on the hype train when it wasn't actually needed or even useful but employees were forced to waste time and resources pretending. The company I work at has thankfully not required its use and isn't part of any metric as far as job performance. I have, however, encountered more instances of people using AI to write or respond to emails and I absolutely hate it. I'll get responses that could have been a single sentence and instead have two paragraphs of overly professional fluff or the response doesn't even make sense or answer the question. They also recently used AI to update our software system when we switched from one major distributor to another. Probably 75%+ of the changes had something wrong with them and people had to review every change and make corrections so it's questionable as to whether it actually helped. I'm sure someone made some good money on it though and someone else got a career boost.

There are many more factors but I think the last one I will mention for now is that people hate how AI had made it incredibly hard to discern what is real. People hate not being able to trust pictures, video, audio, posts on a forum, or news articles.

I will say that I think, like with anything, there are a subset of people who don't really know much about AI and DC's other than "they're bad" and it's the popular thing to crusade against right now. They see their friends hating on it, see some article titles about it being bad, and join the bandwagon.

I agree with you that AI and DC's can and should be done ethically and if done ethically there would be no problem. But we have seen time and time again that these people and corporations cannot be trusted to do anything ethically.

 

[thaiboxerken]

"But we have seen time and time again that these people and corporations cannot be trusted to do anything ethically."

I believe this applies to all corporations. It's the reason why regulations exist in the first place. There happens to be more money in data centers, which amplifies poor behavior and enables lobbyists to manipulate governments and capture regulation.

 

[Planigale]

Data centers can have a number of impacts depending on location and design.

Visual impact, do they overlook residences, impact on rural scenery. Power lines.
Light pollution, may impact on neighbours and wild life.

If built on a greenfield site environmental loss. Loss of surface to absorb rainwater, with potentially large surface water run off impacting on sewage systems or streams.

Sound pollution particularly if using air cooling.

Water cooling may significantly impact / stress local supplies or aquifers if extracted locally. dropping aquifers can lead to increased pollution of the water in the aquifer making unsuitable for potable water supplies. Chemicals may be added (e.g. anti corrosion anti biofilm) that make it unsuitable to be directly released into the environment. Heating the water may make it unsuitable to be directly released into streams / rivers. Loss of pressure in systems may impact fire fighting.

Life cycle costs, what are the recycling plans for servers?

Whatever the source of power, increased demand for electricity will result in an increase in pollution. Most are dependent on fossil fuel generation which will produce pollutants impacting on human health and green house gases. It should be noted the EPA has exempted generators dedicated to data centers from pollution standards that 'utilities' are required to adhere to.

Assuming actual emissions equal 10% of the permitted level as of December 2024 as a reference case, our estimates indicate that backup generators could contribute to approximately 14,000 asthma symptom cases and 13–19 premature deaths each year, among other health impacts. These impacts correspond to an estimated annual public health burden of $220–300 million across the U.S.....In particular, populated counties located downwind of power plants supplying electricity to data centers tend to experience higher health costs, reflecting the transport of air pollutants across regions. The cumulative distribution function (CDF) in Fig. 9b highlights that while many counties incur relatively low health costs, a small fraction of counties bear substantially higher impacts.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.06288

We while the air pollution emissions from individual data centers is minor, the collective impact from the 100+ such facilities in the Northern Virginia region is significant. Notably, the cumulative emissions exposure in certain neighborhoods near clusters of data centers is already comparable to, and sometimes exceeds, the neighborhood-level emissions exposure from the Dominion Possum Point power station and other notable facilities in the region.

Localized Air Pollution Impacts from Data Centers in Northern Virginia

This report examins the extent of air pollution emissions resulting from the use of backup generators at data centers in Northern Virginia, including both actual current emissions and potential future emissions, and how those emissions totals compare to other sources of air pollution in the...

scholarscompass.vcu.edu

datacenter

How to Protect Your Home from Data Center Impacts While data centers may provide many benefits, these facilities should not be located near homes or other

ceds.org

https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/5473691-us-canada-air-pollution-wildfires/

Higher demand, and therefore higher prices, are expected to keep more fossil fuels, particularly coal and natural gas, on the grid for more time. In the case of gas, the increased demand is likely to result in more investment.
“It looks like we have a setback in our climate and decarbonization trajectory here, as we build a lot of new gas plants and some pipeline capacity and drill more. It looks like our emissions are going to go up for a while and old coal plants are being retained on the system,
Grid Strategies has recently projected that electricity demand in 2030 could grow massively over the next several years, with 55 percent of the demand increase coming from data centers.
Hertz-Shargel agreed that a data center boom could increase the nation’s planet-warming emissions, particularly through the expansion of gas plants.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5624407-trump-ai-data-centers/

Increased production of green house gases increases risk of heat waves and brown outs. Increased risk of forest fires with increased risk of particulate pollution with increased respiratory disease and deaths. Perhaps with a loss of two years in US life expectancy.

https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/5473691-us-canada-air-pollution-wildfires/

 

[Tero]

Something about the data I don't get: what part of the electricity goes into the calculations and then how does that compare to the power for sending the results to the customers? Finland is putting in 4 Google centers. It's far from all but Sweden and Norwegian Lapland. Does this make sense? I did ask...er-...Google. It claims 40-50% into calculations.

It gave me some data:

The Transmission Efficiency VariableThe power it takes to send results also changes based on how the customer connects:
[1] (https://carbon-badge.com/en/blog/swdm-v4-explained/)
Fiber Optic & Wi-Fi: Highly energy-efficient, requiring minimal power per megabyte.Mobile Networks (4G/5G): Can use up to 2.5 times more energy than fixed fiber broadband because sending data over cellular radio waves requires continuously powered base stations.

So all those people googling on phones are the scum of the earth.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

AI, Data Centers, and the U.S. Electric Grid: A Watershed Moment

www.belfercenter.org

well simply put, it’s a significant increase in demand on the grid. not sure what the reasoning is behind increasing load has no effect on the cost. i agree there’s some other factors increasing costs as well tho

virginia

texas grid

Those projections say VA and TX will each face the equivalent increase of the entire electricity demand of the UK, just to feed new datacenters.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Something about the data I don't get: what part of the electricity goes into the calculations and then how does that compare to the power for sending the results to the customers? Finland is putting in 4 Google centers. It's far from all but Sweden and Norwegian Lapland. Does this make sense? I did ask...er-...Google. It claims 40-50% into calculations .

It gave me some data:

The Transmission Efficiency VariableThe power it takes to send results also changes based on how the customer connects:
[1] (https://carbon-badge.com/en/blog/swdm-v4-explained/)
Fiber Optic & Wi-Fi: Highly energy-efficient, requiring minimal power per megabyte.Mobile Networks (4G/5G): Can use up to 2.5 times more energy than fixed fiber broadband because sending data over cellular radio waves requires continuously powered base stations.

So all those people googling on phones are the scum of the earth.

The parts I highlighted are contradicted by the reference cited within your quotation of what Google told you.

According to your link, data centres account for only 28% of the energy, not 40-50%.

According to your link, network transmission accounts for 30% of the energy. It should be noted that "continuously powered base stations" are powered continuously regardless of whether anyone is actually using a cell phone, for any purpose, so that 30% fraction is attributable to the fact that people own cell phones and want them to work 24 hours a day, no matter where they are.

According to your link, it is end-user devices that account for the largest share of energy, at 41%. Cell phones are the most energy-efficient end-user devices discussed by your link, consuming 2-4 watts when browsing the Internet. Laptops and desktop computers consume 15-100 watts. So the folks you want to call "the scum of the earth" would be people who don't use cell phones for their Googling, and use more traditional devices (computers with keyboard and display) instead.

 

[Planigale]

Water usage of a data center depends on the design. I believe the cooling tower design is largely unpopular by data center builders anymore.

Cooling towers can produce significant noise pollution.

 

[Planigale]

AI is probably best used for things humans can't easily do. Drug design, studying complex multi-gene issues like autism, engineering, complex mathematical problems. I am not sure that large language models, music composing or creating art is a good use of AI resources.

Using AI to transcribe meetings just puts a secretary out of a job.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The question of how a Data Center sources water and power is somewhat moot, given that whatever it takes cannot be used by anything else.
Until we have stable power and water for Humans, we shouldn't spend hundreds of billions to provide it to computer programs.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Using AI to transcribe meetings just puts a secretary out of a job.

My manager enthusiastically uses AI to transcribe meetings. As of yet there hasn't been a single meeting that anybody wanted or needed a transcript of.