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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states. Just NIMBY everything, NIMBY the power sources[1] [2], then complain about a lack of power so NIMBY any type of new industrial <anything>.

Now do this for housing, new sources of water anything a person younger than 40 would need and you basically get a state full of retirees..and oh would you look at that! [3].

Now the question is, why wouldn't all states eventually do this with the way our population pyramid is looking? It's basically rabid conservation and tragedy of the commons writ large.

[1]: https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2025-04-08/bill-removin...

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/maine-voters-reject-q...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

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It's the opposite of NIMBY. It's smart thoughtful policy and it is NOT a simple ban. Nobody bothers to read passed the title but the main piece of this legislation is the creation of the Maine Data Center Coordination Council.

Alongside it is a temporary (until Nov 2027) moratorium on data centers over 20 megawatts. This seems to be in place so they could establish a proper legal and environmental framework for building out data centers in the future.

This is exactly the kind of approach to legislation we should all hope our local representatives are competent enough to do.

Appointing a council of elders who will think through every imagined horror before approving a project (or a “framework”) is basically the textbook definition of NIMBY-ism.

Every NIMBY thinks they’re being optimally thoughtful (tm), except the answer is always the same, two years of environment studies, followed by a loud resounding “No”.

Why would they approve anything? They have no incentive to.

Do you think the EPA is "a council of elders"?

C'mon. Be reasonable for a second. Or at the very least actually read past the title before commenting.

This is actively seeking to reduce NIMBYism

> As part of the moratorium, Maine’s Data Center Coordination Council would study and oversee the environmental impact and electricity bill increases datacenters often bring to local residents and “consider data-sharing requirements and processes for proposed datacenters.”

https://www.404media.co/maine-datacenter-construction-bill-l...

I think you're much more likely to see actual populist NIMBYism if this bill was not passed

The EPA comparison is moot. Data centers don’t dump chemicals into the water or emit toxic gasses. A data center is not more or less resource intensive than your typical factory. All already regulated.

What you’re asking for is an EPA for “do I approve of what this data center is used for?”. Which is insane.

> Do you think the EPA is "a council of elders"?

Yes

What about the Department of Energy or Department of Education or Department of Commerce? Why not just do away with government in general. Let corporations do what they want

Yeah I think in a lot of cases getting rid of a government bureaucracy and replacing it with nothing would result in better outcomes for more people than continuing to let the government bureaucracy continue to exist and work counterproductively against good market outcomes because those good market outcomes impact a special interest group that's been able to gain poltical control of that bureaucracy. This is exactly what has happened with the Department of Education and it's a good reason why the Department of Education should be abolished (I'd go even further and abolish local public schools, privatizing all K-12 education)

Do Yimby’s actually believe in democracy or that markets should basically make every decision? Honestly starting to get a little suspicious.

If the whole voting population came together and said we’d like to pay ourselves $100,000 in straight cash today by borrowing it from future generations. Should they be able to do it in the name of direct democracy? Blocking all future growth due to aesthetic reasons is 10x worse, atleast the $100,000 could be meaningfully spent now.

This is the exact opposite of that though. This is people coming together and saying "lets put a temporary pause on new infrastructure until the research/science catches up so we make sure we don't screw things up for future generations". It's people prioritizing long term stable and healthy growth over short term profits and hype cycles

No NIMBY ever says “let’s just ban this!”, they always say “we need to study the issue more”. Almost always.

The science of hosting rack GPU servers in the middle of is unknown? Are you listening to yourself? Power and water usage is extremely well known. This isn’t a Nuclear Fusion site.

This is exactly what I mean though, if you can just keep claiming everything is an unknown you can successfully do nothing ever. The NIMBY mantra.

Spare me with the “temporary”, nobody will ever find the political will to actually approve data centers in Maine for the next quarter century, I can guarantee it.

Who decides things if not the entire voting population? There's nothing inherently wrong with your suggestion, if it's what everyone wants. We've been doing it for a century, see the national debt. But people like their kids, so we restrain it. People don't want a society full of desperation, so we restrain it. People want a strong nation, so we restrain it. It's not a crazy hypothetical, it's how the system works. Humans just aren't basic consumption machines.

Forget “democracy”. These stupid poor geezers need strong technocrats to guide them past their own ignorance.

Yeah I'm not buying it.

Look I live in a leafy affluent area and there's just no way in hell a data center would ever be built here. There will be lawyers.

Maine is poor.

The textbook definition of NIMBYism is as an acronym for "Not In My Backyard" aka "saying no to changes adjacent or close to me".

This is completely different than what you're describing (even if the end results are sometimes the same).

Is a data center worse than an iron smelter or aluminum refiner? The negative backlash is way out of proportion to the actual harm of a light industrial activity with minimal pollution. Put in requirements for responsible caps on electricity usage and ban "temporary" generators so they don't get a backdoor public subsidy on their power consumption. The market will sort the rest out.

> Is a data center worse than an iron smelter or aluminum refiner

It may not be worse, but it is more likely. There just aren't trillions of dollars being poured into new smelters across the country. If there were, then I imagine laws being enacted about them to.

I don't know if they're "worse" but both iron smelters and aluminum refiners are heavily regulated. It only seems logical to treat data centers the same

Data centers do not produce many jobs, and in return it will put more demand on our power grid which is one of the most expensive in the nation. Instead of building new large power consumers, we should be forcing CMP to connect up the tens of solar projects looking to contribute to our grid.

It's not like we actually hurt for a "Tech" industry. Southern Maine has a lot more "tech: jobs than you would expect for being an old as hell and poor state.

Per local job created? As bad as they are for the environment, local folks are working there, stimulating the local economy for a much longer period than specialists flying in, spinning up a DC, then leaving for the next one.

You've gotta read the room. People hate AI.

Smaller data centers which are widely distributed across the country is a better idea both for jobs and grid resilience.

Need that for new power plants too: more, smaller, local.

But I think hoping "local representatives are competent enough" is wishful thinking.

The council is commissioning studies and hiring experts. Its not like the politicians themselves need any relevant expertise. They just need to be competent at writing good legislation, structuring such institutions, and knowing how to listen to the experts they hired

Maine is far from being a nimby state, apart from the 30% expansion rule for houses <250ft from water, there is basically no zoning across the entire state and a fly by night hot dog diner could go up next to your million dollar cottage if it wanted to.

California on the other hand… but they are clearly far from becoming a “dead state”

> This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states.

This too is the beauty of federalism. You want to live in a dead retiree state? You can. You want to live in a bustling industrial district? You can too. As long as you do things through proper democratic channels.

> Now do this for housing

But this bill is not about housing. This response makes as much sense as responding to a new law legalizing marijuana and saying "now do this for heroin, rape and murder."

Data centers bring in less jobs than tourism. They don't grow the tax base.

All you get is ugly industrial sprawl.

Is your argument that we should ignore the will of the people? Because this is what the people of Maine want. Why exactly should Maine be forced to have data centers in it when its citizens don't want that?

We have rights and representative republics to restrain the will of the people for a reason.

The representatives proposed the legislation, and the people want this. This is democracy working as intended regardless of your preferred flavor.

Maine's economy is based on tourism and rich people (which tend to be older) wanting to live (and spend their money) there. You got to consider things carefully about what you do to the states economy with eyeysores like power lines and electricity-generation to feed datacenters.

The transmission line wasn't a power source for Maine. None of the power it carried would be sold to Maine.

Meanwhile CMP slow rolls connections to all the new Solar farms starting up trying to help our expensive power situation.

> It's basically rabid conservation and tragedy of the commons writ large

How is this like "tragedy of the commons"?

Are TX and AZ really dead retiree states…as an example of states recognized as more business friendly? I work in a heavily-per state-regulated industry. Some states have regulations that increase the cost to do business there, and so we will (1) never have offices there and (2) those states get products last if at all. I also see tons of jobs being created in TX and AZ.

Surely you understand how a data center is different from housing?

Its race to the bottom not nimby.

build the power source next door and charge them extra.

> This is a recipe for creating dead retiree states.

Good news: lots of choice.

Not wanting data centers and not wanting new housing are not the same thing, and conflating them is absurd and intentional dishonesty.

Sorry people aren't bending over backwards to help your AI start-up get VC funding, but maybe if y'all were a bit more honest, people wouldn't hate the infrastructure you're desperately trying to install in their backyard. Because it sure as shit isn't going in yours, is it?

I don't have a problem with NIMS -- which isn't the same as NIMBY. It's one of the reasons the US is a federation.

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