[bob1029]

To be even more nuanced, the land is not typically taken entirely. The more typical solution is an easement with compensation for the land owner to cover the reduction in utility.

Transmission lines are pretty harmless when considering things that could be built instead. Zero emissions, silent, no illumination, etc.

[johndough]

> Zero emissions, silent, no illumination, etc.

Mostly silent. High voltage transmission lines may have a low-frequency hum. You have to stand directly under them to hear it though.

[Gracana]

I was looking at buying a house with big transmission lines crossing over the property. It was a misty not-quite-raining day when I went to look at it, and you could hear the lines crackling and humming the whole time you were outside. I figured I’d have to give up ham radio if I moved there, ha.

[elzbardico]

Over time as some dirty coats the insulators, and on high humidity days some kind of crackling is clearly audible in a fairly wide radio close to the towers.

Also, transmission towers are usually the best lightning rods for miles in a given location, and it is fucking unsettling to live close to them during storms. Not to mention they are an eye sore.

[inigyou]

Which you would, if they were crossing over your house. Probably not worse than many other mundane things though.

[bigfishrunning]

There's a high-voltage line that crosses over a park (with soccer fields etc...) near me, and you can hear it crackling whenever you're there. I'm sure it's a noisy radio environment.

[giantg2]

These are not silent nor zero emission. These do emit large electromagnetic fields that interfere with some electronics. There are also some studies that show higher risk of childhood leukemia and potentially negative affects to sensitive groups such as people with neurodiverse conditions. They also tend to hum and crackle. At times you will have helicopters doing line work too.

[Aurornis]

> potentially negative affects to sensitive groups such as people with neurodiverse conditions

People with neurodiverse conditions are not sensitive to power lines. Hard to believe we’re seeing this type of claim on Hacker News.

Modern high voltage DC transmission lines also don’t have 60Hz emissions because they’re DC.

Anyway, the land where these transmission lines are built usually isn’t running through high population density areas. They’re not slapping a HV transmission line right in the middle of a residential corridor if they can avoid it. It’s going through farm land and empty space if at all possible. It’s a hundred times easier to build the towers in those locations instead of near population centers.

[thejokeisonme]

Having zero knowledge about these studies I have high credence they are baloney.

[sznio]

you've never walked under a high voltage power line? even driving a car under it you can hear the radio being weird. i assume it can make life miserable for a ham radio enthusiast. also, walking beneath one, you can hear the crackle, which is why nobody places a power line above homes.

as for them causing leukemia i'd not consider that realistic

[jasonjayr]

My home is like 1500 ft from HV lines. According to OSM, they are 115kV. Some of my neighbors are even closer. These things are totally built near homes.

[sznio]

near sure, i live in a city and people have lines right next to their homes, but never right above them because that's what causes issues.

[giantg2]

Which ones - the ones that show an association or the ones that don't?

[zug_zug]

Well maybe you should have a bit more hubris is in the face of science. You can power a lightbulb just by standing under certain high-voltage lines.

[mapt]

Skeptic here.

Many of them probably are. Individual EMF concerns are often debunked. It is possible but unlikely that all of them are categorically complete nonsense. But let's put them aside for a moment. There are real, known consequences of living next to a data center as implemented.

Coil whine from transformers, in audible and infrasound movement of air, has real known effects, as well as suspected poorly studied effects, on the human head & ear.

The fact that we're just allowing a data center that says "I'm out of power, let me use more", to run four extraordinarily loud, dirty airplane jet turbines at the middle of their property for power generation on an improvised basis. And then when we look at their operation in aerial photos, we see 36 jet turbines.

Any and all non-closed-loop cooling systems are an issue, especially when they pull from potable water or operate in dryland droughts. The ratio of wattage consumed vs water consumed should be instructive here.

The amount of money that is going into these things is obscene, and when they choose to involve local officials it is essentially buying out your local-level democracy wholesale. Total lack of regulation. Town council meeting videos where all of your supposed representatives are under NDA; Extremely blatant corruption that the state doesn't want to touch. Races to the bottom.

These things are designed to run basically as lights-off factories, with little to no local labor involved. While there may be some initial investment in facilities, that will dwindle. When they are simultaneously not paying taxes via assorted individual arrangements, and raising electrical rates, there's very little to recommend them to locals.

We have established no general rules as far as buffers. Large-scale construction in general tends to kill rural watersheds & aquifers in close proximity. The sound issue is real, the EMF issues may have some limited credibility, and well-water is often tragedy of the commons, all of which might be totally mitigated by a half mile or whatever of forest buffer mandated around a data center zoning.

[infecto]

I am going to say ok maybe possible but I look at how many transmission lines criss cross places like Dallas. Would there not be enough data to have already proved that thesis?

I remember the original issue with these is they were spraying some kind agent orange like chemical to keep growth down under the lines and people were getting cancer from it 50 years ago.

[oliwarner]

Pretty harmless? That's easy to say until it's your land and view that now has pylons and restrictions dumped on it.

[bob1029]

I've got overhead transmission lines in my back yard right now. It's really not a big deal. I've got a garden and a small shed that are directly underneath the lines. I have no perceptible loss in utility. Every now and then, someone will visit my property but I don't have to interact with them.

The nature of the easement can make a big difference. Oftentimes the power lines will be colocated with gas pipelines which tend to impose stricter requirements on land owners. It's a lot easier to do things like excavate when you can see what you aren't supposed to hit.

[madaxe_again]

Ditto. They come and trim my trees for me and pay me £300 a year for the privilege. I really don’t mind, barely even notice the lines are there.

[UltraSane]

My parents got $7000 when the state wanted to shave their hill for better visibility around a road curve. They lost a pretty cherry tree.

[drysine]

What's the voltage of power lines to datacenters?

[downrightmike]

Lots. They are trying to build Gigawatt transmission to these

[drysine]

Seems dangerous in case the line breaks or short-circuits.

[throwaway667555]

They buzz loudly and increase leukemia.

[left-struck]

Sources?

[crote]

The buzzing is pretty obvious when it is rainy or misty. I passed a power line during my high school bike commute, it never failed to amuse me. I wouldn't call it "loud" though: noticeable, but the average traffic noise is far worse.

The leukemia is bullshit, though. The numbers are too small to make any kind of definitive statement, or to properly compensate for things like socioeconomic factors - plenty of other potential causes on the rural farms and poor urban neighborhoods where we usually build power lines, after all.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The leukemia is bullshit, though. The numbers are too small to make any kind of definitive statement, or to properly compensate for things like socioeconomic factors - plenty of other potential causes on the rural farms and poor urban neighborhoods where we usually build power lines, after all.

This seems like the thing where people use the phrase "there is no evidence of" to imply that something has been disproven when what it actually means is that we don't know enough to say one way or the other.

[left-struck]

Basically I just thought the leukaemia claim is quite an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary evidence if you’re trying to convince a sensible person of your claim.

I know a thing or two about rf, emf and electricity in general and I don’t see why or how these hv wires would cause cancer, or if they did why would it be specifically leukaemia.

I’m fully aware though that before we knew about nuclear radiation people would have had similar thoughts about some random rare earth metal causing cancer if you’re not even touching it. So point is, I’ll wait for the proof before I’m convinced, or attempt to convince others.

I’ve also anecdotally noticed that people are concerned about many things where there is like very marginal evidence that maybe this is slightly bad for you but then regularly engage in very well known risky behaviour like eating big macs or driving cars. I might be speaking from personal experience.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I know a thing or two about rf, emf and electricity in general and I don’t see why or how these hv wires would cause cancer, or if they did why would it be specifically leukaemia.

Probably the same theory for how a microwave cooks food.

> I’ve also anecdotally noticed that people are concerned about many things where there is like very marginal evidence that maybe this is slightly bad for you but then regularly engage in very well known risky behaviour like eating big macs or driving cars.

Eating junk food has the countervailing benefit that they like the taste. There is very little personal benefit to having a high voltage line in your yard, and people respond especially poorly to things that have a personal risk with no personal benefit.

[maxerickson]

They do vegetation control in larger easements, the power lines/electrcity aren't the only possible factor.

[malfist]

> what it actually means is that we don't know enough to say one way or the other.

To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the leukemia claim just as likely.

[AnthonyMouse]

If there was a teapot at a proposed orbit then there would be various falsifiable ways to prove it one way or the other. Once you do the experiment, you have the evidence. Before you do the experiment, you don't.

If there is a cancer risk then good evidence either way would require randomized controlled trials, which for long-term exposure are very expensive and take a long time, so then nobody does them and nobody really knows the answer. This is not the same thing as knowing it to be false.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starglider

The crackling of HV-lines was used as a sound-effect in that game. 'Realistically'. Using that buzz and crackle from reality, only slightly ampflified.

[steele]

Is the nuance you're contributing here substantiated in the proposals being discussed in the article?

Transmission lines emit EMF which seem pretty harmless unless you're a pollinator or migratory bird. Maybe the home owners are just making a fuss so they can get a better payout to improve the amenities in the bunkers that comprise their subterranean community of concrete beneath the barren badlands of the over-world. At the very least, they should ensure respirators and gaussmeters for able-bodied coal miner minors.

[M95D]

> Transmission lines are pretty harmless

Debatable. Some studies found this:

https://emfradar.com/articles/power-lines-childhood-leukemia

Then some other studies mostly invalidated that.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-018-0097-7

[inigyou]

There's a lot of people saying they aren't harmless but there's no credible evidence they aren't harmless. It's like flat earth, you know, there's no evidence the earth is flat.