Data centers

[Hpacres440p]

Well, our illustrious city council (minus one member with a spine) just passed sale of land to a data center company in a closed door special called council meeting. @farmerjan, I know Virginia has been overrun with the damn things. In the Waco area, (20mileradius) there are now 4 planned, one actively in construction.
Is there any upside at all to these monstrosities, other than the purchase price obtained for the land?

 

[Mrcopier]

Jobs?

 

[Hpacres440p]

Jobs?

Only 30 permanent on a 500 acre area. Dollar tree provides more jobs on 2 acres.
The construction crews will mostly be brought in-so will need temporary housing that will be unused after they leave.
Next?

 

[farmerjan]

They are being fought by several communities here lately. They supposedly do not provide many jobs after finished (as @Hpacres440p stated) they are supposed to use COPIOUS amounts of water that causes problems for surrounding land owners that had wells and all that... they also are supposed to just cause some higher temps because of the mass of the buildings but that has been speculative..

What I want to know is WHY do we need all these DATA centers???? What is being stored that was not somehow already stored in other places... like libraries???? I HONESTLY do not fully understand why we need to store so much data .... FOR WHAT ??????

 

[jltrent]

They are a large drain on local resources, and the local taxpayers will sooner or later foot the bill for upgrades. As said very few jobs. We have a lot of large corporations that for the little guy hard to imagine just how big and the demand they need. Compared to total the cost to use the centers is a good deal for them. Their storage will include everything about every human, their operations, the world operations, you name it. Information can be used for you or against you.

 

[Silver]

They are being fought by several communities here lately. They supposedly do not provide many jobs after finished (as @Hpacres440p stated) they are supposed to use COPIOUS amounts of water that causes problems for surrounding land owners that had wells and all that... they also are supposed to just cause some higher temps because of the mass of the buildings but that has been speculative..

What I want to know is WHY do we need all these DATA centers???? What is being stored that was not somehow already stored in other places... like libraries???? I HONESTLY do not fully understand why we need to store so much data .... FOR WHAT ??????

It’s for AI. It takes a ridiculous amount of computing power.

 

[bird dog]

They will be over built as the function they serve evolves into something not needing that much space and resources. Five years from now they will be turned into free housing for immigrants as the democrats will be back in charge.

 

[kenny thomas]

And Virginia just voted to give them huge tax breaks to build here when at the same time the people in most of the counties are fighting them being there.
Many of the legislators were fighting against the tax break but when the governor agreed to pass legal selling of Marijuana it all passed. But the leader of the democrats owns several businesses that sell CBD products so it was a trade off.

 

[Mrcopier]

Only 30 permanent on a 500 acre area. Dollar tree provides more jobs on 2 acres.
The construction crews will mostly be brought in-so will need temporary housing that will be unused after they leave.
Next?

Wasn't justifying it just a question

 

[shaz]

It’s for AI. It takes a ridiculous amount of computing power.

Cloud computing in general

 

[Hpacres440p]

They will be over built as the function they serve evolves into something not needing that much space and resources. Five years from now they will be turned into free housing for immigrants as the democrats will be back in charge.

Shoot, won’t have any water left by then. There is no “open room” space, so it will be another disposal cluster.

 

[Travlr]

They are being fought by several communities here lately. They supposedly do not provide many jobs after finished (as @Hpacres440p stated) they are supposed to use COPIOUS amounts of water that causes problems for surrounding land owners that had wells and all that... they also are supposed to just cause some higher temps because of the mass of the buildings but that has been speculative..

What I want to know is WHY do we need all these DATA centers???? What is being stored that was not somehow already stored in other places... like libraries???? I HONESTLY do not fully understand why we need to store so much data .... FOR WHAT ??????

All good questions. My questions as well.

And I have suspicions. I've been working with AI on a series of films. And if you don't take the AI easy answers and delve down into the missing context, it can be pretty scary. I have a feeling that AI will be directed to convince the majority of things that the AI overlords feel is to their benefit. AI is amazingly adroit at forming a consensus and creating propaganda... and directing human thought. Popular ideas can be sown and cultivated far more easily than most of us would like to believe...

 

[RDFF]

Let's go back to the days when good, respectful, personal debate of opposing views was appreciated, to help each individual ferret out the good from the bad, and to come to their own personal conclusions. AI will result in the masses simply falling in line and arriving at the foregone conclusion determined by the algorithms... which are controlled by the oligarchs. People will no longer be taught to "be their own man" and "make up their own minds".......... because they'll have conceded their autonomy to the AI generated concepts.

 

[greybeard]

All because people were too lazy to go to the local library..........

 

[mwj]

I think that a lot of the ones proposed will never be built. Most of the ones in this area seem to be for speculation and not the end users. The demand is all based on projected demand that is not based on hard figures. Look at the high flying tech stocks, sold on ''maybe we can'' instead of any past performance. A lot of folks will lose a lot of money.

 

[Ridgetop]

I understand that these data centers use a lot of energy too - look for electricity costs to go up. And is it the data centers or the AI plants that use all the water? Not to mention the problem with solar farm panels and old windmill blades that are not recycleable or degradable. Somebody is getting rich off all this but it is not the regular working person.

 

[kenny thomas]

I understand that these data centers use a lot of energy too - look for electricity costs to go up. And is it the data centers or the AI plants that use all the water? Not to mention the problem with solar farm panels and old windmill blades that are not recycleable or degradable. Somebody is getting rich off all this but it is not the regular working person.

Most of this is getting huge tax breaks or subsidies for doing it. The windmills and solar farms especially we the taxpayers are helping fund.

 

[Hpacres440p]

I think that a lot of the ones proposed will never be built. Most of the ones in this area seem to be for speculation and not the end users. The demand is all based on projected demand that is not based on hard figures. Look at the high flying tech stocks, sold on ''maybe we can'' instead of any past performance. A lot of folks will lose a lot of money.

Hope that’s the case.

 

[Hpacres440p]

I understand that these data centers use a lot of energy too - look for electricity costs to go up. And is it the data centers or the AI plants that use all the water? Not to mention the problem with solar farm panels and old windmill blades that are not recycleable or degradable. Somebody is getting rich off all this but it is not the regular working person.

The data centers are for the AI. So, to compound the water issue here specifically, we also have SpaceX test facility within 2-3 miles of the proposed data center complex. For noise mitigation, SpaceX uses water cannons, to the tune of 169 million gallons three years ago (with 3 stands and 3 water towers). They now have 4 of each. Most of the SpaceX water loss turns into steam.
Now they are wanting to add this complex of “up to” 10 small data centers which could use 30,000 gallons daily. They compare this to 10 small restaurants. Our town has 5500 people, and is on the edge of drought land. They aren’t installing new water meters due to water availability. Yet they want to add to the water burden to the tune of a million gallons a month (give or take).
They are proposing building their own substation. That won’t generate energy.
It makes no sense.

 

[Hpacres440p]

Speaking of the wind farms, the father of a lady I work with has one windmill on his land east of here. He has received a nice rent check from the wind company for a windmill that never turned, so never produced generation dividends. That wind farm is now blowing up several windmills and stopping the lease payments within the next 2 years.
So now older people who found a windfall from the lease checks will now lose them. I don’t know if they got to keep ag exemption during the lease terms, but if not, taxes will be outrageous while they try to reestablish Ag use. The exploded windmills are having to be cleaned up by hand with parts spread across whatever trajectory they took. I imagine the solar decommissioning will be similar and messier.
Where does all the money come from? Stockholders? Definitely not profits when they don’t produce.