Comment by shagie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shagie | Hacker News Reader

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Water use is one of the causes that can unite the various edges of political divides. Rural and urban. Conservative and liberal. Many parts of the country have been experiencing drought conditions. I had Oregon up there - here's the current conditions there.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...

I don't see it so much as a "PR campaign" against it, but rather it is a populist issue that has broad appeal being against technology companies that are seen as the bad guys.

The data center build outs are not doing themselves any favors by going cheap (evaporative cooling), noisy fans ( https://www.npr.org/2026/09/17/nx-s1-5954414/residents-file-... ) and then being secretive about the "how much is there" makes it look all the more nefarious and underhanded.

The claims of "its taking our water" or "its raising our electric bills" or "its taking our (kids) jobs" or "its stealing all our art" are all things that have some grain of truth to them and easy to rally behind one (or all) of those reasons. The choice of water as the topic is easily the most visible and the one that can get farmers and city folk to agree on.

Going to closed cycle cooling, funding the reuse of waste heat for winter district heating, and such could go to mitigate the public outrage about them... but those aren't the cheapest ways to build them.

Thanks, gave me something to think about for sure.

Your suggestion on this is mitigation then?

Take an aluminum or concrete plant. I see it as a hard argument to give to these companies that they are somehow special and therefore should do more to their already low impact "factory" If we compared these to large scale steel mills for example. I agree with your point that mitigation can help public opinion but on the opposite side I don't see how you can make a reasonable argument to the builders that this is actually worth funding?

I believe the best argument would be "be good neighbors now before you're regulated and zoned out."

Consider Texas... one would think that they'd be one of the more business friendly areas.

https://www.businessinsider.com/greg-abbott-texas-data-cente... ( https://archive.ph/1bsVF )

> The AI industry is reaping what it sows, as far as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is concerned.

> Abbott said the sharp criticism Americans are lobbing at AI data centers is well-earned during an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

> "They basically dug their own grave for the problem that's been caused for them, and that's why they got the backlash they deserve," Abbott said.

> ...

> Abbott was initially an ardent supporter of AI data center projects in Texas for their economic benefit. The giant server warehouses can generate jobs during construction and provide tax windfalls to local communities. However, Texans from Abilene to Sulphur Springs have taken hard stances against them, forcing Abbott to change his tune.

> Abbott has introduced new standards for AI data center projects in Texas, including instructing the state's utility commission and electrical grid operator to protect residents from infrastructure costs. He's also suggested a ban on data center developments in rural Texas, and that projects must undergo an audit before moving forward.

Its a "this is going to hit construction" and if its done now trying to mitigate things or if it is going to be getting local city councils getting thrown out until there's one that can pull the permits... or a governor who needs to make a stance to get elected.

Those regulations requiring mitigation are going to happen and it's a "do it now as new construction or be required to do it in three years" as retrofits. New construction and making an effort to mitigate it will likely be the less expensive way over the next decade... but its not the cheapest way to build it today.

Hard to argue against this.

In a world of perfectly rational actors you could say "it's still better than the coal plant" but your point is true for the real world and makes much more sense.

Clearly it's the cost AI leaders will have to pay after spending years telling everyone they will die and lose their jobs. They wanted the publicity and with it comes what they sow.

Suprised and glad you responded.

I'm not against AI data centers in principle. And I do believe that the water argument is incorrect in some areas. However, I do understand the argument that can reasonably be made for data centers in some places.

I'm personally more concerned about grid stability, power infrastructure upgrade costs being passed on to existing rate payers before the data center turns on a light bulb, and the impact that direct power consumption has on alternating current quality.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-applia...

An earlier comment was "one broken pipe?" ... consider one downed power line.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/one-fallen-power-line-expo...

> A power line went down outside of Washington, DC, this week. Normally, the grid would only need a few seconds to recover from such an event. But this one took more than 10 minutes because data centers stopped drawing over 3 gigawatts’ worth of power nearly simultaneously.

> The event caused voltage across the PJM grid to spike from Northern Virginia to Chicago, according to data collected by Ting Labs, a startup that runs an IoT sensor network out of people’s electrical sockets.

> The event didn’t cause a blackout, but it did cause lights across the region to flicker. The incident demonstrated the effect that data centers can have on the grid — an outcome that experts believe will become more frequent.

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