[tempaccount5050]

Yep. 10000 gallons per query, spews out toxic water, contaminates the water supply, uses more power than an entire state, and on and on. I'm convinced it's a psyop to prevent the US's progress in tech. It's so over the top crazy and obviously false, but everyone I know is falling for it.

[jorvi]

They might be wrong on this one, but check the history on cancer alley, or the legalized massive PFAS dumping in rivers the world over, that has now polluted the earth so thoroughly you cannot escape going over the maximum recommended body serum. Same for microplastics.

It is absolutely justified to be extremely suspicious of big corporate. They've earned it.

[protocolture]

Suspicion and making up claims are separate ideas. You can be suspicious without polluting the internet with junk information.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Understandable and justified are very different. I worry that unprincipled skepticism of big corporate makes it harder to stop the bad stuff; if every large project becomes a battle of corporate power vs. slopulist criticism, how do you sort through that to focus on the truly bad ones?

[WarmWash]

But datcenters have been around for decades now. That's what makes it so insane.

Around me people are rioting about the construction approval of a new DC, it has all the insane FUD on social media flying around about it.

...and yet there are already 24 datacenters in the area, with the oldest ones running since the early '00s

[3eb7988a1663]

Legacy data centers were not representing a multiple of existing electricity demand. It is only recently that DCs are being built hoping to consume hundreds of MWs, up to GWs. Elsewhere in the thread is the Utah DC which will consume more electricity than the entire state.

Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years. DCs are causing real strains to the grid which has not had to accommodate rapid growth.

[exmadscientist]

Seeing a datacenter proposal in the news come in at 1.3GW was very sobering for me. I spent a lot of time in grad school on the campus of a large nuclear plant, and it turns out one nuclear core is good for about 0.9GW of electricity (or 2.9GW of heat).

A single site consuming more than the entire electrical output of a nuclear core, considering the sheer size and scale of that reactor and its supporting infrastructure and workforce, is just boggling to my mind. It's literally billions of dollars just to feed that one site, if they're being accurate in their proposal.

[protocolture]

>Electricity demand growth in the country has been flat for the past twenty years.

Interesting considering the similar outcry about bitcoin mining.

[knollimar]

It seems pretty easy to undermine the trust in the other side if you just pretend to be on it and inflate their numbers. See: Florida will be underwater by date X [in the past]

[jamescrowley]

‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.

[3eb7988a1663]

For a less rural example, I am finding different numbers, but all of New York City is estimated at somewhere between 5-10GW. So, some 9 million people vs one data center.

[pjc50]

Some significant fraction of that NY number will already be data center.

[Schiendelman]

There's a little evidence that project is real, it looks a lot more like a pie in the sky dream.

[tempaccount5050]

3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?

[rahkiin]

Watt is Joule/second

3 gigajoule per second. It already has a unit of time.

[jamescrowley]

3GW/9GW is peak load, as I understand it - data centres usually operate at 85-90% of peak load according to Goldman Sachs.

Meanwhile, the 4GW figure is average demand - Utah consumed 35,075GWh for 2025, so average demand of 4GW (35075/(365*24)).

[smallerize]

3GWh/h.

[bryan_w]

You didn't even mention the "infrasound" issue that's been picking up steam lately

[Teever]

That's a take. But let's stop and ask ourselves -- Cui bono?

Another take is that the same companies that are pushing for datacentres are often the same companies that control social media and traditional media outlets and are using this control to foster datacentres onto thee average person who is either wildly unenthusiastic about or at best ambivalent about.

It's all pretty moot anyways.

Big tech oligarchs have gotten pretty much everything they want over the years, it's not like the average person in bum-fuck nowhere is really going to be able to stop them from destroying their watersheds, poisoning their air and jacking up electrical prices.

I wouldn't get too upset about opposition to datacentres if I were you.

Money is King and the King has spoken.

There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

[bluefirebrand]

> There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

There's plenty we can do about it but the average person isn't quite there yet.

But it's coming

[hackable_sand]

Common parlance is "own goal"