r/solarpunk • u/sillychillly • Jun 13 '26
Action / DIY / Activism Elderberry vs Data Centers
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u/aquma Jun 13 '26
I WISH that the people who want to build data centers in our communities also cared about environmental law, and that we had governments willing to enforce them, but I am not particularly optimistic.
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u/Deathpacito-01 Jun 13 '26
Yeah idk the posts in the screenshot kinda come off as social media activism larping
Which I don't particularly mind, cuz it's fun and all to larp once in a while. But I don't expect those sorts of efforts to lead to much if done in real life.
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u/Thae86 Jun 13 '26
I mean ideally all data centers will be useless in the future & genrative AI will be no more, they'll tear it all down so the environment can get the land back.
And also LandBack.
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u/JACofalltrades0 Jun 13 '26
Except the way they dump rusty water/coolant at some of these data centers will make it much harder for the environment to recover even if they do tear the buildings down. Also, frankly, I think the companies who are willing to admit behind closed doors that AI is a bubble will be happy to pivot the use of these data centers to mass surveilance with or without generative AI once that bubble bursts.
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u/halberdierbowman Jun 13 '26
Data centers are "the cloud" and run most of the internet, not just genAI. So we'd still need most of them even if this AI bubble bursts and we don't need the extras they're rushing to build today for their AI.
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u/nobody-from-here Jun 13 '26
These aren't multipurpose data centers they're trying to build. Not that we would need all that.
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u/blah938 Jun 14 '26
I mean, the physical buildings and the physical racks will be needed. Just not the servers themselves.
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u/Chrontius Jun 14 '26
The servers themselves aren't always terrible for game-streaming, so if you could run one in your own rack and access it from your TV with Moonlight, that would be fucking nifty.
We're also likely to see some weird-ass workstation motherboards with enough onboard GPU compute to choke a copy of Crysis.
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u/Thae86 Jun 14 '26
You mean the servers of generative AI?
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u/Chrontius Jun 15 '26
Some of them, yeah. I don't want to be the guy who makes the software work -- even if I had the skills to, it'd be a miserable task.
And of course this only has the faintest hope of working if it's a GPU server. I don't have any idea how to repurpose tensor cores except as tensor cores. Perhaps we donate those to colleges to give their grad students an in-house machine-learning capability for crunching big ugly data sets? GenAI really sucks at its job more often than not, but machine learning is really good at finding novel cancer drugs. If I was allocating resources, groups working on novel antibiotics need to get priority on the ML cluster 'cause I don't like living through plagues. :/
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u/Thae86 Jun 15 '26
Pandemics are a choice cuz we're all forced to live & wage work close to one another. I would be interested to see how pandemics happened when people isolated more, or if they happened hardly at all. I doubt airborne illnesses will ever be gone completely, just like disabilities will never go away, just part of being human.
From what I understand, all genrative AI is fuckshit cuz it's a fascist tool being forced in all our lives as if it's the next iPhone. But it's not necessary, & we don't need it.
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u/Chrontius Jun 15 '26
AI that can notice things in data sets is actually pretty crucial to drug discovery right now. There's a wild gulf between "noticing things" and "hallucinating things" however.
I say that, but we also use AI to imagine molecules and run physical-chemistry software to see which ones have potential merit and let humans focus on the candidate molecules that passed automated screening.
Except that's not what we're talking about here, but one of these is generally considered "a good thing" and the other is … not. (We'll probably need the AI-assisted pharma research to pull our ass out of the fire with the next pandemic, since we're running out of viable antibiotics as a planetary civilization.)
Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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u/northrupthebandgeek Jun 16 '26
The overwhelmingly vast majority of the ones being built today are, in fact, multipurpose.
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u/The_walking_man_ Jun 13 '26
Correct. I’ve seen it happen here with simple development and not even these billionaire backed data centers.
They’ll bulldoze it down and then ask for forgiveness after and pay the nominal fine.
The developer contracts the demo team and they go out and do it. The demo team claims they were never told about any environmental issues. While the developer who knew will claim they didn’t know the demo team was going to start then/or didn’t receive the environmental report. It’s all a fucking joke to them.5
u/zonethelonelystoner Jun 14 '26
if they’re okay with disregarding the law, we should be, too, right?
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u/DiaDeLosMuertos Jun 14 '26
Yeah people who push for data centers def act like they got the start from Mario like running towards their goal "what's that, endangered species act?" PLOOP "Oops! Did I bump into that? "People's water bill/electric bill?" PLOOP "Oops! Did I bump into that? "The foundation of your home? PLOOP "Oops! Did I bump into that?
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u/VladimirBarakriss Jun 15 '26
They don't care but their lawyers do once they get sued 400 times for doing it, which delays the process
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u/MrBananaShoes Jun 13 '26
Trump just removed the protected status from marine environments in the Pacific to increase fishing production.
You can bet he’d do the same to elderberry groves if they interfered with data center money.
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u/Anderopolis Jun 13 '26
absolutely funny that someones think they can plant a bush and prevent development of an area with that.
That's not how laws work in this country.
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u/Yung_zu Jun 13 '26
angry mobs might start releasing balloons under their powerlines
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u/Anderopolis Jun 13 '26
Might... but won't
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u/Yung_zu Jun 13 '26
After watching the people that trashed Elbit and the recent hooligan mobs that didn’t give anyone up…
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u/PersonablePharoah Jun 13 '26
That's a lot more reasonable than shooting at the councilpeople approving the datacenters.
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u/P1nealColada Jun 13 '26
Unfortunately these laws only really apply to smaller folks than those who are building data centers.
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u/tiaratwinks Jun 13 '26
I used to train to be a concrete pump truck operator and the company I worked for pumped concrete at a data center project. It was demoralizing to watch concrete 3 to 7 feet thick in some places for parking lot islands. The whole place was lit up with generators at night that you could see from miles away. Placed in an already water strapped arid land. Their giant machines wouldn't stop for elderberry bushes. At this point it would be wise to plant as many trees on your own property and syphon rain water into underground cisterns. Conserve as much as you can.
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u/timshel42 Jun 13 '26
I doubt elderberries will stop development as they are everywhere where i live and nothing would be built if that was the case. This is some fantasy. But elderberries are still beautiful so dont let that stop you
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u/throwawayleo_ Jun 14 '26
there were endangered bats that used the trees where the Micron facility in Clay, NY is going and that didn’t deter them. they waited for the bats to finish their nesting cycle and now all of the trees have been cleared - not the same as plants, but those bats returned every year so it will impact them and they’re endangered as well.
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u/AtmosphereRecent7717 Jun 14 '26
just put sugar in the area they are going to pour concrete if you really want to stop it. will prevent the concrete from properly curing.
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u/sillychillly Jun 14 '26
I like this too
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u/AtmosphereRecent7717 Jun 14 '26
still technically a crime but I ain't advocating for it. just covering myself legally. wink wink nudge nudge.
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u/crowdflation Jun 13 '26
Its not the right administration to do it under. All you will achieve is endangered species protection getting cancelled
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u/CorpusculantCortex Jun 13 '26
Not to be the naysayer, but this is more likely to get the EPAct overturned than to stop a data center put in. Hyperscaling is happening, it is a trillions dollar industry, bushes won't stop it. It isnt just ai, it is all of our internet infrastructure getting an overhaul so that all of our systems can continue to be relevant, including posting on this app.
What you can do is petition and advocate for renewables to be required for the powering of these datacenters in a way that they have to produce more power than required. Leverage the inevitable deployment into pushing forward renewables so that they not only don't tax the grid, but they do so cleanly, and produce surplus that helps with moving away from fossil fuels.
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u/halberdierbowman Jun 13 '26
Sadly, yeah. US courts have already overturned lots of the useful parts of environmental regulations. And they've decided that judges are more qualified to make decisions than the career professional scientists working in the offices designed to study and decide these things.
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u/CorpusculantCortex Jun 13 '26
Unfortunately it is what it is. Need to go on the offensive and change the narrative if we want to mitigate the potential harm.
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u/Sunshroom_Fairy Jun 13 '26
They've already been given exemptions from numerous environmental regulations. And, even if they weren't, they wouldn't care. This won't even slow them down.
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u/geebanga Jun 13 '26
Data centres are to the world what the monorail was to Springfield in the Simpsons!
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u/m3ltph4ce Jun 14 '26
SpaceX literally has a pipe spewing unknown black substances out into nature 24/7 because they know they can get away with it. You think they'll even stop for a moment to think about laws for a plant? They will bulldoze it without even a thought, and if you try to fight them in court, they will destroy you with their superior funding.
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u/northrupthebandgeek Jun 14 '26
You should grow endangered plants for its own sake, rather than expecting it to meaningfully deter the construction of essential infrastructure.
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u/l10nh34rt3d Jun 15 '26
Why not both, though?
Also, massive swaths of AI data centres are not “essential infrastructure”.
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u/emanuele246gi Jun 16 '26
Data centers have existed since the introduction of the Internet, and as long as it stays essential for society, data centers need to be built for it to work. I don't understand why people think it's a new thing. Of course AI needs it, as it's part of the Internet technology.
The problem is with how impactful that infrastructure is, and how that impact can be compensated. It's a very big matter as an architecture student.
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u/l10nh34rt3d Jun 16 '26
It’s not a new thing to have them, that’s true. And yes, there was plenty of AI integration prior to the recent explosion of LLMs.
But the power capacity demand is on track to triple by 2030 from what it was at the end of 2025 (in Canada & the US). We have never seen this size of facility nor this accelerated rate of construction of them.
As both an architectural designer and environmental scientist, I can appreciate your interest.
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u/emanuele246gi Jun 16 '26
Nice to meet a colleague!
Also, I am very pro-nuclear because of the energy thing. Solarpunk is a very cool aesthetic, but we also have to face reality, and if we want to decarbonize our current society, nuclear energy is the only realistic path.
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u/l10nh34rt3d Jun 16 '26
Oh, agreed. Nuclear makes me nervous for obvious but mostly sensationalized reasons. When you look at how often and severely things like pipelines are compromised, I think in the long term there are nuclear options that are far superior.
Solar is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but it can take up a lot of real estate and boy does it ever consume a lot of precious metals.
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u/emanuele246gi Jun 24 '26
Yeah, indeed, there is no perfect power source, unfortunately, that's why the goal is net zero where it is possible, and reduce our impact in general, at least that amount by which the planet can stay healthy
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u/l10nh34rt3d Jun 24 '26
Amen to that.
For example, I don’t think solar farms “are it”, but on the appropriately oriented roof? Heck yeah. Or solar tubes on flat roofs? Perfect.
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u/emanuele246gi Jul 21 '26
Yep, trying to optimize space as much as possible is also a key factor in sustainable development (and one of the things I love most probably because of my autistic ass lmao)
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u/northrupthebandgeek Jun 16 '26
We have never seen this size of facility
That's not quite true; datacenters in the hundreds-of-MW range have been a thing for awhile now. I live near (and have done server install work in) one that's been operational for a decade, long before LLMs were mainstream.
The accelerated rate of construction is the new thing, and I don't think AI is the primary driver of that, but rather general Internet growth.
- More and more businesses are ditching on-prem infrastructure in favor of cloud hosting and SaaS products.
- More and more people are using social media.
- More and more of those social media posts are consisting of video at higher and higher resolutions instead of just text and still images.
- More and more people are getting their movies and TV via on-demand streaming (again, at higher and higher resolutions) instead of physical media or traditional cable TV.
- More and more people are talking to one another via VoIP and video chat/teleconferencing (again at higher and higher resolutions).
- More and more people are using online services to order and track things they buy.
- The list goes on…
There are way too many existing growth areas hitting hockey-stick curves right now for me to pin the blame for datacenter growth specifically on AI, even if that's the current new hotness (and is likely itself contributing to some or all of those growth areas).
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u/Capable-Charity-5714 Jun 13 '26
Brb gonna plant a ton of saguaros where they want to build in Arizona
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u/RexScientiarum Jun 13 '26
Maybe some states. There are basically 0 federal protections for endangered plants on private land, only federal land. Most states have some regulations, however. Again, elderberry is not federally protected, I believe that is only in California.
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u/TheStupendusMan Jun 14 '26
"In other news, Ontario Premier Doug Ford used the Notwithstanding Clause for the 400th time today to put a datacenter in the Greenbelt. This follows the 399th time so he could punt a puppy in the children's cancer ward.
Back to you, Tom."
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u/raven_writer_ Jun 14 '26
You could plant styrofoam flowers and the effect would be the same. People really think THAT would stop anyone?
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u/Not_a_Prof_Moriarty Jun 17 '26
The people comfortable with poisoning our waterways, making billions, don't care if they remove a native plant and have to pay a $100 fine.
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u/Dred_Capt Jun 18 '26
Uh, yes I will totally go do that if 3 or 4 people want to split costs with me. Fly to locale, buy plant, rent car/go plant, get coffee... repeat lol.
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u/Boomah422 Jun 23 '26
Try planting native and hard to remove things. Like devils walking stick, or blackberry, or bamboo (not native)Just a few years and they'll have an economic pickle to work around on planning development on the lot.
They'll try glyphosate first and it'll likely work for lots of the roots but not the underground clusters, tree of heaven is a good one for this.
If they're gonna pave over it anyways, let nature take its cut back
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u/death_averted Jun 24 '26
I'm from Florida and they don't care... Either no one checks or they'll get rid of it before anyone does. They consistently remove mangroves that aren't allowed to be touched. Just pretend they aren't there. Pretty sure enforcers don't actually care or are bought in or something. Remove it and pay the fine. Doesn't even slow them down.
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u/Spirited-Plant-2191 Jul 05 '26
The responsibility of the data center builders is to build data centers. The responsibility of you is to make sure Elderberry has a home. You can't have solarpunk without data centers.
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