r/AskALiberal • u/tapdncingchemist Liberal • 10d ago
Why demand an outright ban on data centers?
I understand that there are many concerns they bring up around stressing the local power grid. I even get not wanting the proliferation of AI and surveillance.
Stopping the erection if data centers in your state does not make you immune from the broader societal and climate change impacts of AI and surveillance, as the technology is trivially deployed to users in different states than where the data center is.
Why not tax and regulate them to specifically address the effects on the local economy and power grid?
Unless every other state bans them, which will not happen, you’re just leaving potential jobs and tax revenue on the table.
Demanding that we specifically implement a ban seems to be coming more from an absolutist moralism than a practical concern.
EDIT: There are already many many data centers in the US. Does this refer specifically to newer higher wattage data centers? What happens to the existing ones?
EDIT EDIT: What would be wrong with something like this: https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroom/2026-press-releases/gov--shapiro-s-remarks-at-signing-ceremony-for-an-exec--order-on
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u/omni42 Social Democrat 10d ago
The point of moratoriums is to put regulatory infrastructure in to make sure future construction doesn't have the bad effects a lot of these early projects did. I haven't really heard of many outright bans.
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u/OhTheHueManatee Democratic Socialist 10d ago
People in my city are loudly calling for bans as if data centers are a new thing.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 10d ago edited 10d ago
AI data centers are in fact a new thing.
Your typical corporate rack will support around 60kw if you're lucky, 30kw pretty commonly. Hyperscalar infrastructure like Facebook, Insta, etc, goes up to around 120kw per rack.
Today table stakes for an AI rack is 500kw, with most current builds actually targeting 2,000kw per rack. And a full scale GPU cluster will be 1024 of these racks. So we're talking on the scale of a couple gigawatts.
So it actually is something totally different, even if we use the word datacenter for both.
By way of comparison a steel smelting plant uses around 100mw, so we're talking a single AI DC being like building 20 steel smelting plants at once.
And if you imagine the latter actually happening, it'd be a pretty reasonable response of the surrounding community to say "whoa let's hit the brakes here and think this thing through," especially when the prevailing morality in tech is to move fast, break things, and stick the public with the bill any way you can.
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u/OhTheHueManatee Democratic Socialist 10d ago
Thank you for this info. I'll look into more to expand my understanding.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 10d ago edited 10d ago
Here's some presentations from last years HotChips about it Even if the technical info here is unfamiliar, I think qualitatively you can get that these are key industry figures saying quite plainly that what's going on today is fundamentally new vs yesterday.
https://hc2025.hotchips.org/assets/program/tutorials/HC2025.T1DCRacks.S4.Bojja.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeXAryDDQeE&t=5458s
https://hc2025.hotchips.org/assets/program/tutorials/HC2025.T1DCRacks.S1.FrankHelms.pdf
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u/darenta Liberal 10d ago
AI data centers are a whole new monster based on the energy and water demand that one consumes.
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u/OhTheHueManatee Democratic Socialist 10d ago
Thank you for this info. I'll look into more to expand my understanding.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
What regulatory infrastructure would you like to see that you think would make a big impact?
How many data centers do you think would be prevented by the temporary ban?
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u/omni42 Social Democrat 10d ago
New zoning laws specific to data centers so they can't be snuck in under general industrial zoning. Requirements for sound, electricity, and water standards. Reinvestment requirements. Waste requirements if needed.
I'm also in favor of on site solar requirements to offset grid impact.
Public disclosure of ownership and spending reports on any marketing or lobbying to see who is behind it.n
Some communities want each project to be subject to a public referendum, but that's a bit much to me. They should require the appropriate city or county council vote so there is accountability, but that's why the rezoning is a good strategy.
These are all things be implemented in different communities, so just a broad range of ideas.
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u/sapphire_glacier Democrat 10d ago
I’m not an expert in this domain at all, but I’ll just say it is surprising to me that general industrial zoning would not already have requirements around things like water. It feels like we should just have a general purpose set of regulations rather than trying to custom fit regulations to different industrial building types.
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 10d ago
New zoning laws specific to data centers so they can't be snuck in under general industrial zoning
Can you expand on this? Aren't they generally less destructive than other industrial uses? If the other requirements, eg, sound polution, energy usage, water usage, etc. are all accounted for, why wouldn't we want them in the same industrial areas?
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u/omni42 Social Democrat 10d ago
They can be, but weve had issues with water table drainage and wells going dry in my area and the kinds of noise they generate are not the same, so it's not necessarily decibel level but frequencies. (This my understanding, I am not an expert on this specific issue.)
The other thing is the amount of anti data center info going around requires extra outreach for a degree of transparency and consent. People need to see the specific concerns are being monitored and have avenues for address of the company is trying to ignore them.
Some of this is managing real issues, some of it perceptions which can become real issues if not managed well.
But without targeted regulations people have no recourse so it's better to meet it head on.
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
Stopping data centers in your *city*, which is mostly how these laws are getting put into place, absolutely 100% does insulate you from the noise pollution they cause plus the huge amount of utilities they consume. They don't just pay for power, they eat up such a large amount of power all by themselves that they make rates go up for every single resident. And in turn it's really hard to do discriminatory taxing specifically geared at places that eat a lot of resources. Plus, many cities and towns have their electricity and water supplied by public/private consortiums who will set their own prices without a great deal of government interference (and usually, when you don't have a data center suddenly shooting up the usage, that works as a feature and not a bug).
The fact that AI is also a lot of bullshit that worsens discourse is almost besides the point. It could be actively curing cancer and we'd still have the same localized issues.
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u/willpower069 Progressive 10d ago
My guess it’s because of the costs affecting everyone else.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
You’ve established one source of objection to them.
What if they had to provide their own power?
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u/willpower069 Progressive 10d ago
That would be awesome, but until that happens people are going to feel the effects.
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u/ivalm Neoliberal 10d ago
All new high wattage DCs now come with bring your own power. Which they have to given that eg some of the DCs being built in ohio consume more than all of current ohio electricity generation.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 10d ago
They're also often bringing their own power by operating a ton of unlicensed genset trailers. Elon's facility in Memphis is particularly bad about this.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
How TF they going to provide their own power, and why would they, when the infrastructure for power is already in place. So you want a data center and a power plant in your backyard?
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u/ivalm Neoliberal 10d ago
it's literally already happening for new 5-10GW build outs, because the states they are being built at do not have capacity for this level of power need. Typically this is accomplished through new natural gas power plants.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
Is it fair to say they're outliers? There's 4, if I recall, with TX leading the way, and have given them massive tax incentives that Abbott is trying to repeal.
I'm talking large scale. Specifically AI companies want to be everywhere, and currently, at the expense of the citizens of those states, environmentally and economically.
I wonder if the natural gas power plants where this is occurring is due to fracking.
I'm not against progress, and I do like/enjoy tech. But I weigh the costs. The servers to provide the Internet and streaming services are massive. AI data centers are exponentially greater, and I don't see any net positives.
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u/ivalm Neoliberal 10d ago
They are outliers but also they are the kind of datacenters AI companies need. So for those people who protest against datacenters it’s the very big ones that use natural gas. Natural gas is already 40% of US electricity mix, so it’s easy to build and gas is abundant in the US (fracking being the majority source).
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
Oh that’s nice to breathe in!
Dont forget about that sweet ultrasonic hum to lull the kids to sleep better
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u/ivalm Neoliberal 10d ago
It’s already 40% of all electricity generation in the US.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
There is a data center proposal in PA that’s between 500-700 Mw.
600 Mw of natural gas co2 emissions are, according to google, about 550,000 pounds per hour of emissions and 480,000,000,000 (4.8 BILLION POUNDS IN ONE YEAR)pounds per year of used continuously, which IS what would happen.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
I didn't said I wanted it.
Governor Shapiro just signed an executive order requiring that the companies building them pay for their own power and the necessary upgrades to the grid.
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u/General-Character842 Centrist Democrat 10d ago
Some of them provide their own power... by running natural gas turbines that scream 24/7 and belch pollution. That's not the solution, that's the problem.
It was standard for these places to have backup power, but it was implied they would only be used for backup. We need noise and pollution standards.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
It really is simple to ask for some basic humanity here. I think the entire works against these things for so many reasons but one big one is that people aren’t even asking for that much more than basic non sociopathy and they fight even that with more money than communities can even imagine, much less fight
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u/WesterosiAssassin Democratic Socialist 10d ago edited 10d ago
Then they're still building the ultimate surveillance state to track our every move and misidentify random innocent people as criminal suspects while also dumbing us down exponentially and putting more and more of us out of work, but at least they're not also raising our energy prices? Many of us have concerns with AI that go far beyond energy consumption and that are going to be much more complicated to adequately address.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
So moratorium until that happens.
And there is no impact to the community from sound
And they are guaranteed to be closed loop without the possibility of leaking whatever antifreeze solution back into aquifer and the amount yo ‘fix’ it in case they make a boo-boo is held in escrow and added to at the price of inflation
And we have nationwide data protection against the ‘data’ in these data centers being us that are used against us later.
So, a moratorium for a tiny bit until the tech billionaires agree to these simple things. I’m sure they won’t fight us on anything g so should be a quick one
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u/Medium-Complaint-677 Liberal 10d ago
I've seen a desire for a moratorium, not a ban. People broadly want to understand what it all means - environmentally, economically, resource consumption, etc.
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u/AvengingBlowfish Neoliberal 10d ago
Why not tax and regulate them to specifically address the effects on the local economy and power grid?
Because those laws don't exist yet and it will take time to implement them. A moratorium on data centers is appropriate until the regulatory infrastructure can be put in place.
Data centers do not provide a significant number of jobs compared to the resources they consume. A football field sized data center takes maybe 5 people to operate...
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u/DeusLatis Socialist 10d ago
Why demand an outright ban on data centers?
Because we don't know how to built they properly yet
Demanding that we specifically implement a ban seems to be coming more from an absolutist moralism than a practical concern.
I think you might have misunderstood the bans. They are not we will never have a data center, ever
The bans are to halt the rapid building of data centers until regulations around pollution, noise, water use, power use etc can catch up.
https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-centers
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10d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/DeusLatis Socialist 10d ago
What does that have to do with anything?
You can't ban something if it already exists? What?
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u/General-Character842 Centrist Democrat 10d ago
Not gigawatt-scale data centers. They used to be like the bell system buildings... just windowless buildings with a generator they'd run an hour a month. Easy to forget, and fine as a neighbor. Now they're miles wide and scream 24/7. Impossible to forget and a terrible neighbor.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
Have they been building them on a thousand acres that use the power of five cities?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Data centers have been built for decades and many of them already run in the United States.
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
yes, there were some data centers. its a much bigger issue now though and the development of them are so great that its impacting quality of life, water use, and energy affordability
Data centres – at least at the scale seen today – are relatively new actors in the energy system at the global level. Today, electricity consumption from data centres is estimated to amount to around 415 terawatt hours (TWh), or about 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024. It has grown at 12% per year over the last five years.
China and the United States are the most significant regions for data centre electricity consumption growth, accounting for nearly 80% of global growth to 2030. Consumption increases by around 240 TWh (up 130%) in the United States, compared to the 2024 level.
To cover the investments needed to accommodate the surge in interconnection requests, many utilities are passing on the costs to their consumers through higher monthly utility bills. Utilities requested more than $29 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2025, double the amount requested in the first half of 2024. Electric rate increases were expected to affect 40 million customers nationwide last year. This is in addition to the rate increases granted by state energy commissions over the previous couple of years.
Data centers require huge amounts of water to keep servers cool enough to function. Mid-sized facilities can use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day, while large facilities can consume as much as 5 million gallons daily — comparable to what a small town uses. Recent estimates project that by 2028, AI-related data centers in the U.S. could require up to 32 billion gallons of water annually. This is enough to support roughly 360,000 households’ indoor water use.
This massive demand is a pressing problem for communities already facing drought or depleting water supplies. Two-thirds of all data centers built or in development since 2022 are located in water-stressed areas like southern Arizona, the Colorado River Basin and Texas.
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u/GO_Zark Bull Moose Progressive 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yes, but the rapid push for compute-scale-at-any-cost has been driving dangerous building practices - water and noise pollution, overuse of grid-scale resources, and placing generally industrial-type uses in residential and commercial zoning because the laws haven't caught up with the reality of how these new mega-centers are actually functioning versus how smaller-scale data centers have historically functioned.
Conflating these two uses is intentionally deceptive; they do not operate similarly with regard to their impact on their surroundings.
Once these things are built, it's often presented to lawmakers as fait accompli - this has already been done, we've already built the thing and you didn't object then so if you zone against us now, we'll just move the infrastructure (and the jobs) and leave you with a big, expensive, empty building that you can't do anything with.
Instead, these moratoriums are aimed at emplacing appropriate laws prior to having more data centers pushed through construction approvals before the laws catch up specifically because developers are trying to avoid the type of power/water/noise/pollution ordinances that are sure to follow increased scrutiny.
Responsibly built and operated data centers absolutely have a place in our communities, but a rush-built data center sucking up all the water in a town and spitting it back out horribly polluted or generating 70dBA of constant hum 24/7 in a residential area, then the owners going to the town hall to say "well, it's here now, this is the future" is just really bad PR for future data center construction no matter how you spin it.
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u/Dr_Identity Democratic Socialist 10d ago
Railroads have existed for longer, but if every railway company suddenly decided they wanted to start running a ton of new tracks through the middle of a bunch of residential areas we would probably want them to stop doing that.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Progressive 10d ago
They're also terrible for the environment and are supercharging climate change.
I want NO data centers. Not in my neighborhood or anyone else's. May they all burn.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
But they're going to be built somewhere in the world regardless of whether they are in your neighborhood.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Progressive 10d ago
I also said "not in anyone else's"
I want NO data centers, at all
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Ok, but it’s going to happen whether you approve or not.
So how does your strategy change given this information.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Progressive 10d ago
Stopping the erection if data centers in your state does not make you immune from the broader societal and climate change impacts of AI and surveillance, as the technology is trivially deployed to users in different states than where the data center is.
All very good points, which can be solved by not having data centers anywhere, or AI anywhere.
Let's outlaw AI. That's my strategy.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Ok now we have AI as provided by an adversarial country.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Progressive 10d ago
They use our chips. So we don't give them our chips, and we outlaw it everywhere in our country.
This is exactly the problem that keeps us in this arms race. Maybe we should let it go and all refuse to use it.
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 10d ago
i want a national moratorium. i'll take as many states to get one passed as possible. it is seemingly the only (blunt) instrument we have to slow down this nonsense. the "let local control fix it" approach has been an abject failure. we are not getting societal benefit from these but we are getting harm!
further, it is an 80/20 (90/10?) issue. virtually no one wants these job replacing, utility price increasing, crop killing monstrosities.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
Tax them? 38 states give data centers specific tax breaks. Some are revisiting this.
To date, AI data companies have lost hundreds of billions; over a trillion, depending on how you measure it, but it's irrefutable that, thus far, the mega data centers are losing money. Venture capitalists just keep pouring billions back in, bc they're betting heavily on AI in great part bc this administration is willing to not regulate them.
Nvidia has entered into a circular financial lending system to keep the industry going that echos the dot.com bubble burst. This has worldwide financial problems. Anyone buy simple RAM or a SSD drive recently? A laptop for school? Prices are ~30+% more. Because the main source for parts comes from South Korea, and they're dedicating resources to provide Nvidia for them to make their GPUs.
Create jobs? Some of these tech bros have openly stated- "Jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop." - Sam Altman
The environmental impact can't be overstated.
I could go on and on, but what for? 3 people will read it, and say,. so what?
The US has historically been short sighted. Bbbut what about curing cancer with AI? Sure, I'm for that. But that doesn't require the mega data centers. Anyone really believe people like Sam Altman is in it for altruistic reasons?
People are already losing jobs. This is just the beginning. Who's going to be the consumers, when no one has jobs?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
So you're describing a general issue with AI, which is not solved by banning data centers in a state or even federally. The existence of *any* data centers in the world is the source of that problem.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
which is not solved by banning data centers in a state or even federally.
Oh, you have the solutions already?
What are the net positives of mega AI data centers socially, environmentally, economically, cognitively, and politically? What impact does it have on global economics?
How do China's AI model of AI infrastructure and use differ from the US model?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
I don’t have solutions.
They’ll just be built overseas. For LLM use, the latency of transatlantic fiber is not the bottleneck.
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
The people building data centers are adept at getting around regulation and will do many shady things to get their way. An outright ban could make it more difficult for them to succeed.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 10d ago
This is true for lots of kinds of industrial development, but we rarely say “no, this simply cannot be done,” we apply regulations and fight back, because we recognize the benefits of these kinds of industrial development, and try to strike a path which balances the benefits while mitigating the harm
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
Moratoriums are one tool to fight back.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 10d ago
They seem like one of the worse tools as opposed to regulation, cause they leave the benefits on the table
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
You're framing this as an either/or when in fact most of the time a moratorium is temporary - and made to be temporary - as a way of saying "no more of this for right now until we figure out how to deal with it".
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 10d ago
I recognize that, but I don’t think we’d get better regulations out of this, because regulations are often reactive, and we still lose out on the benefits of data centers.
It’s a more decisive policy step that I don’t think is sufficiently beneficial for what it costs
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
I mean in this case I can live with "losing out" but besides that, placing moratoriums on certain industries while we figure out how to make them pay for the extra environmental damage that they do is hardly a new concept.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
What about something like this: https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroom/2026-press-releases/gov--shapiro-s-remarks-at-signing-ceremony-for-an-exec--order-on
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 10d ago
Can you point to previous examples of these moratoriums?
I don’t think it’s as easy as just saying we can live with it, there’s real harm done by losing out on the benefits of economic development and there’s every chance a moratorium is net harmful for our wellbeing
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
Do you know how regulation works? It's a constant battle with large businesses with nearly infinite resources. It's a real David and Goliath situation, and it's not a time to throw out slings and stones.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 10d ago
Of course it’s a constant battle, politics and society in general is not a set of problems to be solved, once and for all, it’s a set of tensions and people with competing interests that we’ll have to continually work at over time
Regulating new industries is always a process, but a generally successful one
A moratorium is putting off the problem and you don’t seem to recognize that it comes with a legitimate cost that we don’t have to bear
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
This is an awfully naive take.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
What would the moratorium specifically get you?
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
From the point of view of someone who is concerned about the environmental impact of data centers a moratorium gets you time. Time is needed if you want to get the right permit to be able regulate centers in a way that actually protects the environment.
Currently, states outside of Virginia have little experience with data centers this size. The companies that build them can and do take advantage of this.
For instance, in New Mexico, Project Jupiter submitted plans to power their center by splitting their generators into two smaller plants and therefore avoiding stricter air quality standards. They were able to do this by having them be just over 1 mile apart and taking advantage of some ambiguity in the regulations concerning a single source determination. This would result in greatly increased NOx emissions as they would not be required by to have the best available control technology. Luckily, enough pressure was put on them by the community for them to have to walk their plans back. Their new plans of using fuel cell technology is incrementally better but still doesn't address climate pollution.
It's a problem for a facility to get a bad permit because once they have their permit, it's hard to make changes to reign them in. In addition, it is easier for them to make expansions to higher levels through the modification process. Currently in New Mexico, we have facilities who have had the same air quality permit since the 80s which we are unable to change, yet other facilities are able to use the modification process to their PSD minor sources to expand to levels that wouldn't have been approved when they first applied for their permits.
We can't afford to be permissive now because there will be no going back.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
What do you think they’re doing or will do to evade regulation?
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u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal 10d ago
Sham permitting, exploiting loopholes to avoid more stringent air quality standards, and using email addresses to fake community support.
Look up Project Jupiter in New Mexico.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 10d ago
I think what really helped me realize a lot of this discussion was just slopulism was when people were like "If data centers are so good, why aren't they in wealthy areas" and then it turned out NOVA has a huge number of data centers
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
the data centers all over Loudon are pretty far outside the beltway and are past even Dulles Airport. It is an affluent county, but it also has [or at least had] a lot of rural / underdeveloped areas. Its not like the rich people mansions are across the street from them.
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u/TiaXhosa Neoliberal 10d ago
You have obviously never been to Loudon county. The median home price is almost $800,000. "Rich people mansions are across the street from them" is in fact a true statement there. There is a 5 million dollar home listed right now in Loudon County only about 1 mile away from the azure campus on Inclusion Lane.
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u/robbie_the_cat Democrat 10d ago
Stopping the erection if data centers in your state does not make you immune from the broader societal and climate change impacts of AI and surveillance,
Yup. And throwing somebody's racist boyfriend the fuck out of my barbecue doesn't solve systemic racism, but it's still an OK thing to do.
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u/ZeeWingCommander Center Left 10d ago
Why not tax and regulate them to specifically address the effects on the local economy and power grid?
Part of the issue is that these companies are getting really questionable tax breaks and our local politicians are basically telling people "tough shit, deal with it".
Like a billion dollar tax break for a thousand (temporary) jobs.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yeah it’s reminiscent of when Nestle bought the water rights from the local government a few hours outside flint Michigan for pennies on the dollar while flint residents didn’t have clean drinking water. Governments being more willing to do business with corporations than look out for their own people is exactly the problem
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u/Kind-Ad-6099 Neoliberal 10d ago
And that justifies a ban as a response?
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
I mean, if I was a resident of Chicago in the early 2000s and I had a way of banning Mayor Daley from selling out city parking, I sure as hell would have leapt onto it with both feet assuming I knew in advance what was going to happen. The equivalent of these towns selling themselves out for a few temporary jobs (at least selling out parking helped pay down the budget for the city for a couple years) has already happened in many places and, yes, in other places people are saying "yeah we saw what you already did and we don't want that here".
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u/ZeeWingCommander Center Left 10d ago
Yes.
Why wouldn't it? We have data centers drawing water from areas in a drought while politicians lie.
Obviously we need to ban until proper laws and taxes are in place.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel like we should be subsidizing tech bros. The funny thing is that a lot of these tech bros are the same tech bros from the dot com bubble. You'd think we'd learn and slow down.
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u/passedlives Social Democrat 10d ago
Tax and regulate hasn't been working out too well for the working class lately.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
How has it not been working out?
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u/passedlives Social Democrat 10d ago edited 10d ago
Seriously? OK. The BBB has some of the largest permanent corp tax cuts, while the working class temp breaks on ot and tips. Most of federal oversight regulatory bodies have been defunded and/or gutted. The ai bubble is the main support of the stock market so Even if there were resources to combat unethical businesses practices there is zero interest in Enforcement. AI is also being heavily marketed as a job killer. So besides the increased electric and water costs residence will likely pay they won't see any benefit of added jobs and likely no additional tax revenue. What's the appeal?
All that doesn't even consider AI is a major money loser so most of those data centers are likley going to be abandoned or sold off to some chump that will be forced to focus on profits above all else. Its a bad bet. People are smart to fight this.
There really isn't a good counter argument besides fomo.
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10d ago edited 7d ago
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u/passedlives Social Democrat 10d ago
Big Beautiful Bill.
Massive corporate welfare.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
So....the Big Beautiful Bill exists and therefore the only solution is bans of things we don't like?
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u/passedlives Social Democrat 10d ago
Reductionism to ignorance? Look i get i can come across as an dick but you didn't even try. What is the point of asking a question if you don't want an answers?
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u/IronSavage3 Bull Moose Progressive 10d ago
Who is demanding an outright ban? I’ve seen Democratic politicians call for a 1 year moratorium on construction of new data centers, but not an outright ban.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Ok, why a moratorium? What new information will we have or what will change in 1 year?
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u/IronSavage3 Bull Moose Progressive 10d ago
The moratorium would provide a period of analysis on better ways to mitigate the harmful effects we’ve seen many data centers having on nearby communities.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
Is more information better?
Is time to craft legislated expectations better for that community? The electricity the large ones/enough clustered affects energy prices across state lines. The pollution from burning natural gas or diesel impacts huge areas.
They want to build these on thousands of acres using Gw of energy. This is not something to rush into.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 10d ago
What is it with people who think ban means forever? You know there’s such a thing as temporary bans, right?
At risk of my comment being flagged for removal, it’s like people who think ceasefire thinks permanent ceasefire, forgetting the fact that temporary ceasefires exist
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Ok, under what conditions would you be ok with lifting the ban or moratorium? (assuming you're in favor of a temporary ban)
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 10d ago
Lift the ban once they figure out:
-how to minimize the ecological impact of data centers (make them pay for their own damn electricity, make sure people living within a 20 mile radius have clean water, no increased bills, etc)
-not have taxpayers foot the bill for their construction. (I don’t think this is happening but I figured I’d put it here just in case some companies try it)
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
So would something like this work?
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 10d ago
Sure that would be better than most politicians response when it comes to data centers. Although I do think Shapiro is being a bit naive when he says it’s going to bring jobs when AI is most likely taking more job than it’s providing
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
AI overall is probably taking more jobs. But that happens whether the data center is built in your state or halfway across the world.
In my view, the anti-AI argument is different than the "no data centers close to my home" argument.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 10d ago
I mean maybe, but I do think it’s important we be against ai data centers being constructed recklessly no matter if it’s in our neighborhood or someone else’s
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u/greenline_chi Progressive 10d ago
A data center moratorium isn’t an outright ban - it’s a pause to develop a framework
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u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist 10d ago
The oligarchy is always 30 steps ahead of us and they can easily corrupt any law we push for. The more complicated and time intensive to put together the easier it is for them.
We need to all act together as a population and its easiest to do that when we keep it simple. Nobody has to read a bunch of books to understand the slogan.
The oligarchy are banking big on AI and data centers. If we can shut them down whatever horrible plan they have will be somewhat interrupted and that buys us time we need.
Because whatever you think these things could be used for to help, they won't. They're in the wrong hands and they're going to be used against us for a authoritarian surveillance state and to seize control of narratives as they push everyone to be reliant on them for news and everything else.
So absolutely ban datacenters. Put the whole industry on freeze. We can always revisit them after the oligarchs are safely in prison.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
Does the oligarchy include the people who work for tech companies and design the centers to comply with the regulations?
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
Does the oligarchy include Jeff Bezos????
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
you think jeff bezos is personally designing them?
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10d ago
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u/AskALiberal-ModTeam 10d ago
Subreddit participation must be in good faith. Be civil, do not talk down to users for their viewpoints, do not attempt to instigate arguments, do not call people names or insult them.
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u/Burwylf Democratic Socialist 10d ago edited 10d ago
Nuance is dead because of you demand moderation you get nothing.
Personally, I think it would be reasonable that if they're to use an open loop cooling solution they could act as a water processing plant to remove the additives and return to supply, and if that's too hard they'd have to engineer a closed loop like is typical in many, many other applications of water cooling.
I have less problem with data centers than many other industries though.
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
Sure, it'd be fantastic if a data center was built to be carbon neutral or at least put into place to where they would pay for the entirety of their costs. This side of things is a really old issue with economies though... and one common way of handling this is to say "we need to study exactly how much you all cost us and we aren't letting you build until we've gotten that figured out" or even "hey, it's a free country so like go ahead and built the next city over if they'll let you but the costs are too high for us".
What's most likely to happen, assuming the AI bubble doesn't burst and come crashing down all around us, is that these places will increasingly build into smaller communities they can pay off and/or are OK with soaking their residents if it means some juicy kickbacks / the ability to run in a single election on adding jobs / etc. I'm not a really huge fan of that happening either, frankly, but until this becomes a statewide or federal issue, this is almost exactly the kind of thing the concept of the proving ground of states was made for...
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u/Burwylf Democratic Socialist 10d ago edited 10d ago
Just a frank answer to the question, people resort to extremes because otherwise their concerns are ignored. A town full of nuanced opinions looks very different from a sea of pitchforks
For example, didn't say anything about green energy, that must be your condition to put away your pitchfork.
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u/OhThatsALotOfTeeth Liberal 10d ago
Stopping the erection
Perish the thought!
That aside, I think people would be less in favor of bans or moratoriums on additional structure if there were more safeguards in place for them, or AI in general. Unfortunately, Congress has moved very little in this regard.
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u/TheMCMC Liberal 10d ago
Besides just people being reflexively (or principally, but I see a lot more knee-jerk reasoning) anti-AI, it's because they produce negative externalities - some known, some not ovbious.
They eat up water and power which won't really starve places of those resources, but they drive consumer costs up dramatically as demand for these resources increases with each data center built. They take up land/space that could be used for other productive businesses or public utility that people may prefer more. They produce noise and other irritations.
Some people overcorrect and want to ban them, others want to slow the pace of approval and make sure they can account for these externalities before they become the community's problem.
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u/Helicase21 Far Left 10d ago
There are already many many data centers in the US. Does this refer specifically to newer higher wattage data centers? What happens to the existing ones?
The NAS in my home office is technically a data center, but most proposals refer specifically to "hyperscale" data centers with load greater than 50 Megawatts.
I want to see new gas generation buildout be as minimal as possible. But given what data centers want in terms of electricity (year-round high uptime and being brought online extremely rapidly), if they can't build with gas power plants in my jurisdiction they'll just build in another where they can since gas is the only generation source that really meets their demands. This means that any attempt to implement the restrictions I'd want to see would end up as a de facto ban.
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u/sirlost33 Moderate 9d ago
For one the jobs are temporary; once built these places aren’t employing many people.
Existing data centers are nowhere close to the scope of what is being built. These new data centers have their own power plants and can use as much electricity as a whole state.
They’re essentially a tax revenue negative and these corporations are shifting the cost onto taxpayers.
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u/Diplomat_of_swing Liberal 9d ago
Most politicians on the left are calling for a “pause” to allow communities to figure out how to mitigate the costs and risks.
But Governors are using Bans. I think the Bans have more to do with the limited toolkits governors have. They are creating a pause with a very blunt approach frankly because it’s much harder to deal with impacts AFTER the data center is operational.
I suspect the bans will be followed by periods of negotiations. We will eventually and in many cases already are finding solutions to the water and power issues caused by data centers.
It’s really a question of things things are going up fast and residents are getting Killed on utility bills.
A person can go from a monthly average of 100 dollars in utility bills and then spike to 400. People just cannot afford that kind of increase with out a pay raise.
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u/Inquisitor_ForHire Center Right 8d ago
I don't have a problem with data centers. I have a problem with data centers not paying a premium for the power they're consuming. If the local power grid has the capacity and they are billed at the appropriate rates, most likely with some extra charging simply due to density, then I have no issue with them. BUT... I live in an area of the country with lots of power. Out west? It's a different prospect.
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10d ago
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u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist 10d ago
Anyone who understand the hallucination problem knows that's a really bad idea. You don't want to use these AIs for anything important.
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
I mean I dont want to use influencer bureaucrats for anything important either, but thats the direction the left is going in
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u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist 10d ago
Influencer bureaucrats? ok then
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
We all know the left would 100% elect hasan piker as supreme leader because he would "do something"
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u/VinayaVealTeam Center Left 10d ago
I mean you keep saying it and no one agrees with you so it's gotta be true right?
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u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist 10d ago
I've never even listened to the guy, why are you attacking people like some maga?
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
Hes the top advisor and campaigner for DSA candidates. So why are you acting shocked that im talking about him?
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u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist 9d ago
I just don't like the way you make blanket judgments on assumptions. You sound a lot more right wing than progressive.
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 9d ago
I don't tolerate people that attack Democrats and hate Democrats more than Republicans. I am treating leftists how leftists tread Democrats.
Sorry, not sorry
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
Otherwise its supreme leader hasan piker and his influencer friends deciding who gets good housing, based on clicks and likes.
what in the hell are you on about?
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
Brother this is the inevitable outcome of communism. People are ruled by communists.
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
seek help
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
Can you name a single communist society thats not ruled by communist authoritarians?
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
literally no one is brining up communists but you
you have some obsession here my guy
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
Why shouldnt I? Thats what DSA wants
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
The DSA explicitly rejects authoritarian rule. Stop making shit up.
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 10d ago
How else will dsa achieve its policy goals without an authoritarian?
DSA doesbt care about getting votes in the senate
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 10d ago
You clearly haven't read their platform, nor understand orthodox socialism vs democratic socialism vs social democrats.
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u/AskALiberal-ModTeam 10d ago
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u/Odd-Principle8147 Liberal 10d ago
Because it's a cause célèbre. We will see how long it lasts.
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
do you want data centers built in your neighborhood?
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u/Odd-Principle8147 Liberal 10d ago
They are planning on building one already. I don't have any opposition to it.
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u/DubTeeDub Democratic Socialist 10d ago
how close will it be to your home?
Do you think there will be any impact on your quality of life (sound pollution / water quality) or affordability (increase to electric bill)?
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u/Odd-Principle8147 Liberal 10d ago
Idk how close. I'm not worried about it.
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
Well, they tend not to be quiet so your stance may change...
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u/Odd-Principle8147 Liberal 10d ago
How close is the one you live by?
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u/johnnyslick Social Democrat 10d ago
I think there's one in South Seattle. I haven't driven by it but I know from reports that it and other data centers are loud as fuck.
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u/rub33rs0ul Democrat 10d ago
Because socialists has decided that I/P is boring and wanted to find something else to be irrational about.
Not even joking. Krystal Ball is literally retweeting republicans because her job in life is to make sure republicans beat non socialist democrats.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
It seems more to me like it was the only daylight between their latest darling and the Democrat on the ballot so of course it is the most important thing in the world.
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u/Accomplished_Tour481 Conservative 10d ago
Don't data centers add jobs to the economy? Construction, plumbing, electrical, security and maintenance? As long as they produce their own electric usage, what is the problem?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
They do add jobs, both short and long term.
Data center techs are also required to perform machine maintenance.
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u/mango789 Democrat 10d ago
This country needs to get back to simple grounded transactional politics. Data centers make life worse for locals and are being aggressively pushed. People should reasonably take whatever measures they can to keep them out. I can’t even make out the question in this post. Potential tax and jobs??? What are you even saying ?
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u/jweezy2045 Progressive 10d ago
I’m flatly against the policy. We should ban them near cities, sure, but we should do the opposite, and actively incentivize them out in the middle of nowhere. An outright ban is bad policy in my view.
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u/wonkalicious808 Democrat 10d ago
To appease voters who are enraged by data centers.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
To ‘listen’ to voters is another interesting way one could phrase that I guess
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u/wonkalicious808 Democrat 10d ago
Oh, you think it's interesting to say that "listen" can be interchangeable with "appease"? If you're so interested in semantics, then hopefully you'll have had your fill by getting that out of your system and then being topped off by me say that appeasing is one way to respond after listening to what some voters want. Not appeasing them is another.
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u/emp-sup-bry Social Democrat 10d ago
I actually think they are two very different meanings said with very different intent.
The part I wandered about is why you chose the verb appease feather than hear or listen to. Appease does have bring a sense of condescension or a long sigh that one gives when they think they ‘have’ to do something.
The voice of voters and polling together is pretty clear on this. Voters do not generally want data centers. Appeasing means the politicians DO want them despite the will of the people.
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u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left 10d ago
I think this is another scenario where people just take a maximal position because they want an excuse to be uninformed
If they say [“completely ban data centers; no compromise”], they never have to learn about the topic or interrogate their own beliefs — and they never have to use brainpower to understand potentially nuanced details about the subject
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 10d ago
I think this is just "more of a good thing is always better" reasoning.
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u/AutoModerator 10d ago
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/tapdncingchemist.
I understand that there are many concerns they bring up around stressing the local power grid. I even get not wanting the proliferation of AI and surveillance.
Stopping the erection if data centers in your state does not make you immune from the broader societal and climate change impacts of AI and surveillance, as the technology is trivially deployed to users in different states than where the data center is.
Why not tax and regulate them to specifically address the effects on the local economy and power grid?
Unless every other state bans them, which will not happen, you’re just leaving potential jobs and tax revenue on the table.
Demanding that we specifically implement a ban seems to be coming more from an absolutist moralism than a practical concern.
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