[hardbass]

How does a data center harm me? I have seen how incredibly stupid the average (dem or republican both)'s reasons are. If not outright lizard brain radiation beams, more than once I have seen claims of it producing "toxic waste" which is absolutely absurd.

[teh64]

How about all of noise if you live close enough to one?

https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-n... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277298502...

[hardbass]

I will be honest, at this stage I have zero to negative opinion on what "community" says. The second one appears a research paper which is much better and I will read it.

[sersi]

Cheaply designed datacenter that don't use a close loop for watercooling and use too much water are a problem

[Symbiote]

Increased energy prices, increased local pollution, increased climate change.

(And waste electronics are considered hazardous in the EU.)

[scotty79]

I don't think incresed incentives to develop lagging energy infrastructure are a bad thing. Especially in times when solar is cheaper than everything else.

[hardbass]

What is the mode of pollution here? And why is the energy price an issue rather than a need to revamp the electricity production?

[Symbiote]

I was thinking of the emissions from 'temporary' gas-powered electric generators in the USA.

Improving the electrical production system would be fine, but it needs to be paid for upfront by the datacentre and ideally completed no later than the datacentre. Otherwise citizens end up paying for this on their electricity bills, as is happening in Ireland [1], and other electrical upgrades (factories etc) can't be done as there isn't the capacity. (I think the limit here is trained engineers to design and build the power plants and distribution networks.)

We have at least 4 new-ish hyperscale datacentres in Denmark, one each from Microsoft, Meta, Google and Apple. I think they're here for the renewable power, and at least the Meta and Microsoft ones are putting their waste heat into the local district heating systems. Some of them have indirectly financed construction of renewable power.

But the energy used is enormous! [3] says data centres were 10% of electricity generation in 2020, before the massive increase in GPUs.

They are built on the promise of high-paid jobs, but that turns out to be 20 technicians and a few security guards [2].

I haven't looked into it, but I assume there are no "profits" from big-tech datacentres leading to additional tax payments, unlike e.g. a factory.

[1] https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/the-cost-of-data-centr...

[2] https://ing.dk/artikel/how-few-people-work-tech-giants-data-... — just 450 full time staff for the big-tech datacentres in Denmark — seems to 1-2 each for MS, Meta, Google and Apple.

[3] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.116928

[hardbass]

I think physically owning compute is a benefit of its own beyond paper employment considerations. And I understand straining existing power infrastructure but I am afraid many of the people opposing data centers also oppose construction of new electrical construction on the same frivolous "noise" and "pollution" reasons which are not their actual reason they oppose it.

[bogeholm]

> why is the energy price an issue

Electricity is sold on the market. If you live next to a data center you can choose not to use any services enabled by that center, but you cannot choose to pay non-datacenter prices for the electricity to charge your car or run your household