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Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

Like the panic over fracking, or nuclear, or electricity itself (cue the infamous newspaper comic portraying electrical lines as a giant spider shocking people below), it'll take time for the novelty of the anti-hype to wear off, and people will realize that datacenters aren't actually noisy, and they don't annihilate water in a matter-antimatter reaction nullifying its existence, and they don't run jet fuel turbines 24/7. But in that time, China is going to build 100x as many datacenters and Americans will then lament being left behind in the AI race (the way they lament not having high-speed rail like China does).

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Benn Jordan has a video about the issues data centers can pose to their local communities. The xAI data centers are actively polluting their communities right now and there are several credible articles about it. Ruining normal people’s lives and the environment for “progress” against another country is extremely short sighted.

Seems to be working well for China. They do all the “undesirables” that we can’t possibly have in our country. Primarily to push products we can’t live without.

They are getting wealthy off absorbing those externalities that come from production of consumer goods while we watch “Oww! My balls!” and drink Brawndo!

So are they (China) shortsighted? Or are they slowly winning in global influence?

You need to remember one is investing heavily in clean energy and expanding its capacity rapidly and the other one is not.

and the xAI data centers are uniquely dirty and polluting because they don't have sufficient grid connectivity and are running on generator 24x7.

This isn't a problem for the vast majority of datacenters, and won't become a larger problem unless the anti-civilization mindset blocks infrastructure investment that's eventually needed even if the datacenter isn't built.

As far as I can tell the xAI data centers are the absolute worst data centers for local impact and pollution.

There are credible reports of new build ('25 and '26) datacenters emitting loud turbine noise and drawing enough water to drastically reduce water pressure in a handful of communities. Nobody's talking about established DCs in Ashburn or San Jose.

Bad actors are ruining public perception. Either an industry group needs to form or self-regulate, or governments will do it for them.

Pesky Americans, with their rights and voting power!

> Like the panic over fracking

Fracking is absolutely not harmless. I posted elsewhere in this thread about how I have had family property damaged by fracking-induced earthquakes. This is in a region with no active faults, with no record of earthquakes before the fracking started, and the wells are tens of miles away, not next door. I certainly hope data centers are better than fracking wells because those things are a plague.

I'm sorry about your property. Can I assume this event led you to study the issue and conclude based on evidence beyond there being no record of earthquakes in the region (every region has a record of earthquakes, so I'm leaning towards no)

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