Why not just require factories /data centers invest in solar/wind/renewables to cover their power usage.
Banning is so childish when there is easy solutions.
Banning is so childish when there is easy solutions.
I don't think it's necessarily a "backlash" to all the hype but the hype certainly made them a target
Something that should (with good governance) lower energy costs.
The people of Maine won't consider "We'll build something you don't like but we'll offset it by building something else you don't like" as a compromise.
https://www.mainepublic.org/climate/2026-04-07/maine-legisla....
https://www.maine.gov/energy/initiatives/renewable-energy/so...
And, yes, there are already utility solar and wind plants around. There are also chemical plants, prisons, and garbage dumps. That doesn't mean the people of Maine want to see more of those things.
Say what you want about resource extraction, it necessarily leeched far more wealth into local economies.
I personally think it's short sighted but I see why they're not a fan.
I mean, some do... this implies a terrible politician to not address the material concerns of Mainers though.
- A brief boost in construction jobs
- ~0 new jobs in the long term
- Increased electricity prices
- A slight chance of very slightly lower taxes, as data center taxes partially replace taxes on other stuff
It's not like the average Mainer is losing a lot from this decision. There's actually a good chance a data center ban is a net gain for the average Mainer materially, because the change in electricity demand (and thus prices) will outweigh all other effects.
No, but solar and wind farms certainly do.
And your "easy solution" has had a lot of research debunking its efficacy and a lot of holes in it.
https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/news/carbon-offsets-have-fa...
I guess at a certain point you're getting at a more fundamental question about the value of AI (plus technology and everything else) - what level of environmental tradeoff is acceptable? One thing I slightly lament about the discourse is that tradeoff is widely discussed in the case of AI, but not in the context of stuff we do. I suspect most people aren't aware that the water use associated with eating a burger dwarves a year of ChatGPT, that a long-haul flight wipes out the emissions savings of a couple years' veganism, or that renewables have their own impacts, like the demolition of Chile for copper.
What we _should_ be asking is where all the money we paid for infrastructure and upkeep went for the last two decades of decreasing power usage.
That still doesn't cover making the data centers provide value to the people who live there.
But what's an extra 500 acres between friends.
These approaches might very well result in the same outcome: fewer DCs, but it leaves the details up to dynamic market forces.
The Department of Energy has all the data available, so do a dozen different other private and public institutions. It didn't click for me till I ran some napkin math.
Water usage is also an issue. A continuous 1 gigawatt is enough to boil off 1.3 million liters per hour which over 24 hours equates to very roughly 90k residential users. If it isn't boiled but is instead returned lukewarm it will require many times that amount due to how large the heat of vaporization is. Compare to the entire state of Florida at "only" 23.5 million people.
Particularly since usage reports typically present all the numbers in the same chart or grid.
The comparison was intended for illustrative purposes. Residential usage provides something relatable and is the general standard for these sorts of discussions.
Even comparing to industrial most operations don't use anywhere near as much electricity or water. The new gigawatt class datacenters are in the same ballpark as aluminum smelters, but rather than melting metal they sink all that energy into water.
What's the math on that?
It's interesting to see the US mandate ethanol production the way they do, which could be argued to be a farm subsidy, and then balk at the land needed for solar installations.
1. That renewable energy development is supposed to allow a _reduction_ in fossil fuel consumption, not an increase in wattage used.
2. That investment should already be happening, not subject to some future plans of some holding company or billionaire investor. Keeping global warming at bay is no longer some kind of future concern; and we've begun to see some initial effects of it in recent years - drouts, fires, various kinds of biosphere degradation etc.
That investment should be happening, but it's not going to comes from companies that you ban from operating.
If on the other hand, believe in the rule of law, then creating a good airtight law that sets the stipulations that would be needed before building a data center is what lawmakers should be doing