re: Now that Climate Change has been declared a hoax, here is the next fake shiny object hoax

Which is all fine and well, and a known potential future of where it's going. Question is if all we are giving up worth it??

The land mass these things are taking up isn't a small. Many have had issues with how windmills, solar panel farms, etc have destroyed nature and wasted farm land, etc. for years. Now it just got moved to data centers.

Let's not ignore how the bill gates of the world are pushing more and more farm land removal with data centers and faux foods. It's not coincidence imo.

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The land mass these things are taking up isn't a small. Many have had issues with how windmills, solar panel farms, etc have destroyed nature and wasted farm land, etc. for years. Now it just got moved to data centers.

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Fair point, but at least these things do something that can't be done by more traditional means. Many of the problems folks have with wind and solar farms include their space utilization, their literal ecological harm (which is, frankly, worse than the known harm caused by fossil fuel utilization) and relative inefficiency.

Now, having said that, we will need alternative means of power once fossil fuels are exhausted. Personally, I think the main source will be nuclear fusion (or highly efficient, modern and much cleaner traditional nuclear fission). AI data centers will likely drive a revolution in that area (and energy production/effiency/transmission, more generally), even if they do not retain long-term value on their own. Those resources might be more easily repurposed (i.e. traditional computing needs) than massive solar and wind farms.

(You and I are not particularly far apart, I don't think, I'm just not as alarmed as you are - I don't want to make an enemy unnecessarily.)

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Let's say we're talking about a mid-range data center. That's going to take in ~20k-30k gallons per day if it's a closed-loop system

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So an average residential swimming pool.

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The biggest problem with data centers isn't any perceived environmental impact.

It's the fact that they gets millions in tax breaks while adding essentially no long term employment or general benefit to the community they are in.

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The poster "amuse" is probably heavily invested in data centers.

Cities are giving these data centers billions in tax abatements along with pushing them through local city councils that have signed NDA's before the townspeople even know about it.

Even in a closed loop water system...the one not far from here will initially use 8 million gallons of water and need, according to them, 1 million more per year.

Here is a thread that has much more info:
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/ai-data-centers/123173302/

Mass surveillance centers

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So an average residential swimming pool.

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A little more than that (the average residential pool is 15k-20k gallons) for a mid-range data center with a closed loop system. For the same data center with an evaporative system, it's more like filling ~10-20 residential pools every day.

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200,000+ gallons a day to irrigate 50 acres of farm land.

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True, but...

-You aren't irrigating every day. Even if it's a dry growing season you're only irrigating during that portion of the year (depending on location and crop).

-With irrigation, some of the water goes back into the ground (30%-70% depending on crop, soil type, etc). With evaporative cooling, it doesn't. Anywhere from 75%-80% evaporates back into the atmosphere with the remaining amount being discharged to some form of waste treatment center to remove the mineral backup left behind by the evaporation. Once it's been fully treated, it's released back into lakes streams, etc. but that is only a very small fraction of the water taken out of the system.

-With farm land you're getting resources for a product (cotton, wheat, corn, lettuce, etc). With data centers you're only warehousing the ability to amass and compute information. One is a tangible product with definite concrete uses and benefits, the other is an intangible with only potential uses and benefits.

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Bull shite first, second if they didn’t build them here we get shite. No growth, no billions in payroll taxes nothing. You people aren’t worth convincing. It’s coming, frick your panican bs. If y’all had your way we will all be speaking Chinese

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Right, we don’t get the sales tax revenue if they are never here. Instead we forego the tax revenue, we use the land in a manner that has colossal impact on everyone around, but provides next to nothing actual benefit to the people impacted, and creates next to no long term employment.

Any other industrial use would be vastly superior.

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What is all this “long term” benefits you greedy frickers seek? 5 years of construction per project is as long as it gets you stupid mother frickers

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They’re talking about the impact after the building is done for the people living around one.

I don’t know how this is hard to understand.

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Let’s see. An extra 2 million a month in county tax revenue. Depending on WHAT Parish, that could be +15-30% increase in yearly operating budget. HUGE! They usually offer an up front infusion of 100-150 million dollars right off the bat to spend however the county politicians to secure local infrastructure, needs, etc. These centers are constantly needing upgrades, repairs, maintenance (from the outside and local), so the local hardware store, gas stations, hotels, food industry, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, contractors, equipment rentals, car dealerships, mechanics, tire store, banks, housing, lawn care, are just a handful off the top of my head.

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Data centers do not need that many employees and most within it are going to be imports from around the country or abroad. Sure, a few contracts may trickle down for maintenance but a lot of the maintenance of these outfits will require more than just your normal handyman or electrician.

As for the tax revenue, I imagine - as we many things like this - a substantial amount of it will go to maintaining public infrastructure for the center. Besides those tax dollars will wag the dog anyway. They’ll always get what they want above what the citizens want. Furthermore, even if it makes the schools better the dozens of employees and a few service contracts for the already existing upper-middle and upper class is not moving the needle. My wife works at a well funded school too but the outcomes are not any different than if it were poorly funded. The parents make schools systems at the end of the day. Bad parents = bad kids = bad schools. If these places aren’t employing literally the whole city in well paying jobs then I feel pretty safe in assuming the local impact is minimal. The skilled labor contractor and car dealer types will get a windfall and everyone else will not see much from it.

tldr: This isn’t the scenario where one to three factories in a town pre-NAFTA could support 10-30k population city between the large factory worker base and all the surrounding industry that can support it locally.