Comment by derektank | Hacker News Reader

Comment by derektank | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This headline seems misleading at best. There was, as far as I can tell reading both this piece and the original reporting in the WSJ[0], no community vote for or against data center construction. What appears to have happened is that Amazon simply followed the existing permitting rules for other industrial construction, “Amazon’s project was approved with a single signature—by the town’s community-development director—because it met zoning criteria set 45 years ago for industrial development along a freeway.”[0] The existing zoning laws did not require a public vote to receive a permit, so I don’t understand in what way a public vote was “circumvented”. It’s certainly fair for residents to ask for more input in general on permitting or zoning, and even to place explicit restriction on data centers going forward, but it seems like what people want is an ex post facto law, which is nigh universally bad law.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/how-amazon-built-a-data-center-i...

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and waiting to read an example. This might just be the first I’ve read.

> “…by adhering to local zoning rules set 45 years ago”

I live on Long Island NY. Here on LI and Upstate there are a surprising number of former industrial land and abandoned buildings. It’s the whole package—loss of jobs, years of post-industrial decline, lost revenue and old rules on the books. Ripe for a new industry which, like remote workers, doesn’t need to be located next to the larger communities where their work product is consumed. Gentrification or redevelopment of agricultural land into boiling data centers are the outcomes.

> “It didn’t bother them that a food-distribution center came to Gilroy …” Bozzo said.

It’s a dirty fight. All sides.

Amazon wants to build on cheap land, and not on parcels the cities want cleaned up.

I’m wondering why these data centers are such a nuisance. We’ve had data centers for years. Is it just the fast growth and number? And is there good public data on their sustainability regarding water and electricity and environmental impact? If cities have failed, it’s turning a blind eye from collecting this data.

Why people oppose datacenters:

Philosophical opposition to AI's impact on society.

Resource utilization: power and water.

Pollution: natural gas turbines on site and broadly the pollution of power generation, and noise pollution.

Subsidies to multitrillion dollar companies at the expense of taxpayers.

Impact on local community: traffic, construction, impact to surrounding home prices.

Lies about the benefits of datacenters: talk of how much money it might bring governments, while no dividends are paid to citizens impacted by the negative effects above.

---

If a datacenter was quiet, powered by renewables, water-efficient in a place without water supply insecurity, and funded by the builders instead of taxpayers, most complaints would be solved.

These operators are in such a rush to build that they are ignoring all decency and resident concern in many cases.

> Philosophical opposition to AI's impact on society.

I think this is the real reason, while the others don't make that much sense when we really think about it.

Large datacenters are normally limited to industrial zoned land, so they're "competing" for space with other industrial projects, and their externalities are typically mild compared to other industrial projects.

Most datacenters create little traffic, minimal pollution, and no bad odors. They do use substantial power and water, but they pay for it (though in certain cases the economics aren't perfect).

I'd much rather live near a datacenter than a dump, sewage facility, refinery, etc. etc.

>Subsidies to multitrillion dollar companies at the expense of taxpayers.

How does this square with the fact that one county in Virginia derives half of its budget from datacenters?

Half of a dollar is fifty-cents. A lot of work is necessary to put that figure into the framing of the benefits of data centers for communities.

"subsidies" implies the number is negative. Now it sounds like you're moving the goalposts from "datacenters are getting subsidized" to something vague like "they're not paying enough".

Well, if it happened in one place, it must be happening everywhere.

> “These operators are in such a rush to build…”

And take advantage of old laws never written to address the industry.

> I’m wondering why these data centers are such a nuisance. We’ve had data centers for years. Is it just the fast growth and number?

That's likely a big part of it.

AI data centers need an order of magnitude or more power than a cloud data center, and a lot more are being built.

Before with the lower power requirements and with slow and steady growth a data center project was handled by the utilities just like they handled a new factory or a new large shopping mall. The utility might need to add substation of some local transmission lines but it wasn't a big deal.

An AI data center uses so much more power that even if the utility has enough capacity overall to cover it, the AI data center needs that all at one site meaning quit a bit more new infrastructure needs to be built.

Now add in the number being built. The utility now is much less likely to have generation capacity to cover them, meaning the utility will have to buy electricity on the open market which is more expensive.

Another factor is that many AI data centers cannot wait for that and so find sources of energy other than the grid to tide them over for the several years it might take before the grid is ready for them. These sources are often not good for their neighbors.

Two things can be true: the construction can be technically legal and at clear odds with community opinion.

I mean, yes. Amazon can likely do this. But is this strategy really in keeping with its long term interests? I mean, look at the comments in the rest of this very topic. Do you want a communist insurrection? This is literally how you get communist insurrections. People are fucking pissed, and the bourge^M^M^M^M funding-focused growth-minded startup set here are throwing gasoline on the fire.

6 years ago when the work to build the data center started, nobody cared about data centers.

Should 6 years of planning be thrown away because data centers have recently become fashionable to hate?

So noise and pollution that makes it impossible to live in or sell your house is now simply 'fashionable' to hate?

I guess i don't understand why reneging on a binding agreement is the cool thing here. They went through all the requirements. If the requirements should now change that's fine. But hold yourself to the agreement you made. Or appropriately terminate it

Amazon is not exactly known for playing fair or treating their workers well, so trying to play it like this is somehow the little guy being oppressed here or something is pathetic.

Did it ever occur to you that politicians signing a 'binding agreement' may not be the same as public interest? That they are often paid to hide the full implications from the public? Do you understand that some people actually want to live and raise family in a livable environment?

I understand that Ayn Rand fans who do not have to suffer the consequences of that philosophy or 'futurists' who think purely in 'make AI go brrr is cool' do not understand this, but some people place value on other things in life besides this and yes, they do deserve a place at the table.

As generally a tech optimist, but also someone deeply aware of the awful trajectory modern tech is on, such as their waste, war on general purpose computing, ownership, privacy and repairability, I think a lot of this needs rethinking and perhaps of brute forcing your way to stripping people of their livehoods by polluting, straining the grid and depriving people of places they'd want to live in, slow down and consider if there's not a smarter, more efficient, more humane way to move forward.

Failing to do so may produce a backslash that will harm even the things we love about our space.

The 'contract' is not sacred above everything. Especially when that contract affects a lot more people than those who signed it as 'binding'.

Yep.

The "noise and pollution" of a datacenter are bordering on nonexistent. The same goes for water use concerns and more. The environmental concerns are extremely overblown - but NIMBYs really don't need much to get going.

So which data center do you call neighbor?

This is going to sound like I'm flipping sides in this thread: but yeah, absolutely. Otherwise people in Gilroy would have hated datacenters when the planning started and Amazon would have built in Fresno or wherever.

Really both sides are insane in this battle. People are angry about social change, injustice, perceived loss of status and are taking out those frustrations on totems like "Buildings Owned by Big Tech". Which is wrong. But it's equally wrong to ignore those concerns and try to align with their political enemies, which only makes this worse. (We saw exactly this thing happen with the vaccine madness just half a decade ago!)

To wit: we're all going to hell in a handbasket and this community is 100% as much at fault as the big data opposition front.

6 years of planning can be thrown away if the community is just now becoming aware of the potential impact.

It’s not on the community to adhere to the companies looking to make a profit while ignoring how their presence affects those around them. Quite the opposite really.

One hundred years ago when humans started pumping oil out of the ground and burning it, nobody cared about it.

Should a century of infrastructure investment be thrown away because cooking the planet has recently become fashionable to hate?

Yes. It should. Will it? No.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com