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Posted on 08/31/2026 9:31:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In popular mythology, America is the land that innovates while Europe regulates. America gets on with things while Europe prevaricates by allowing Luddites, environmentalists and all kinds of naysayers to call the tune.
There is some truth in that, which is why the growth in the US economy has outstripped that of Europe this century. It’s also why America has a near monopoly in the tech sphere that now shapes our age.
Now, however, America, like Europe, finds itself consumed by a popular war against data centers. Given that these centers are the beating heart of the modern economy, just as the coal mines were the lifeblood of the industrial revolution, this presents a very big problem.
Unless it can be resolved, an eager China may very well seize the advantage and get ahead in a technological revolution that, until now, has been led by America.
Over the past few months, there has been an explosion of protests about data centers as well as legislative moves against them. As Robert Bryce reported in our last issue, the first seven months of this year saw 274 cases in which the construction of data centers across the US was either banned or subject to severe restrictions. Until this year, developers had few problems building them wherever they wanted. Now, we see increasing hostility from local residents and politicians.
New York State has passed a one-year moratorium against new construction. In Maine, legislators tried to block the building of large centers altogether, until their bill was thrown out by Governor Janet Mills. Even Loudoun County, Virginia – which is known as the world’s data-center capital – is looking at new restrictions.
There are a number of reasons for the resistance. Data centers bring noise and urbanization without, crucially, creating much in the way of employment. But above all they are voracious consumers of power and water. While it might be tempting to think the current industrial revolution is much cleaner than the original one, with its boilers and smokestacks, the energy consumption of data centers is extraordinary, and is growing rapidly.
Every time AI bots are upgraded, their need for power leaps to a new level. According to McKinsey, 5 percent of last year’s US electricity consumption came from data centers. Google is said to use as much energy as a city of 250,000 people.
Moreover, the rush of data centers comes just as Americans are seeing their fuel bills rise. Data centers are not the only cause, of course – there is also the small matter of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies used to pass.
At the same time, it should not come as a surprise that people make a connection between their soaring bills and the construction work down the road: the installation of data centers is competing with domestic demand and pushes up prices for everyone.
Vice President J.D. Vance has addressed the issue. If developers want to build data centers, he says, they are going to have to address the issue of local power supplies. The federal government, he claims, will make it easier for them to combine construction of data centers with the construction of power plants.
Some have suggested that the centers provide a prime opportunity for renewables. Wind and solar plants might suit the image of a fast-growing 21st century, but sadly those who are in the business of operating data centers are generally less keen. They need access to reliable power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Without a leap in battery technology to allow large quantities of energy to be stored at far lower costs, local gas plants are more realistic. But that does leave the issue of water consumption which, in some locations, may prove a bigger problem.
The obvious places to put data centers are in the desert, where they will annoy the fewest people. But desert areas have an acute shortage of water and present the biggest risk of the machines overheating.
It may turn out that these are transitory issues. Over time, it is quite possible that the trend in energy consumption by AI models will be reversed. It is perhaps a good thing that there is some pressure on Big Tech over energy consumption now, because it will incentivize developers to look for ways of improving the efficiency of their technology as well as its performance. This is one aspect in which China may be outpacing America, with DeepSeek claiming that its large language model can operate at one tenth of the energy consumption of its US competition. And if AI starts to consume less power, then water, used for cooling, will become less of an issue.
Even so, if America is to continue to be the world leader in AI, it is vital Americans learn to live with data centers. Democracies do not have the advantage that Chinese industry has in being able to foist its plants on the population, regardless of the level of civic opposition.
To win public affection, the data-center industry is going to have to accept that it can’t simply plug its plants into the existing grid; it is, as the Trump administration insists, going to have to become a significant supplier of power, too. That will not guarantee the US eternal success in the tech sector. But it would move an important obstacle out of the way.
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Having said that, some of the criticisms of data centers, particularly their high usage of electricity, are valid.
We are going to have to have these tech companies use safe nuclear power (which does exist) and power their DC's themselves.
I know from past experience in Texas (particularly during the winter storm of 2021) that the grid as it currently is can't support all of these new DC's.
I have yet to have it explained to me how Data centers will improve my life.
The only argument I hear is, "if we don't do it, China will."
But what is the "it" China will do?
I want to be on board for data centers but I'm not sure what it is they do. Other than store a bunch of zeros and ones.
Thank Jane Fonda and Hollywood for convincing the world that there is no safe nuclear power. That’s what it’s going to be up against.
If corporations are left unchecked, the capital investment for the new power plants needed to run these facilities invariably comes at the expense of local rate payers.
Your electric rates will go up. Your water rates might go up. Your property taxes might go up. What's in this deal for you? Probably nothing but higher costs. Data centers are not big local employers and the skilled tradesman needed to build them are not locals either.
The hostility towards new data center projects is poorly articulated but is well-founded.
It is all good fun and games if the corporations are paying up front for their own electric plants or grid upgrades or water facilities. That is what the locals must insist goes into these project plans.
Water rates won’t be affected. The cooling system is a closed loop, like your car’s radiator. People somehow got the idea that DC’s consume an endless supply of fresh water.
Whose duty is it to explain to you anything about data centers or anything else.
Data centers aren't an AI phenomenon–they're the plumbing of the entire internet and have been for decades. AI is just adding a new, much thirstier, power-hungry tenant.
The internet is already heavily reliant on AI and, even without knowing it, if you use the internet, you are using AI.
AI's biggest impact on your life won't feel like magic–it'll feel like friction disappearing. Faster answers instead of endless searching, cheaper access to expert-level help, health issues caught earlier, less time on tedious stuff like forms and scheduling.
You're already using it more than you think; it's just going to quietly get better at doing things for you.
Data centers will be like shopping malls .They will fade away in 10 years because Elon will be bringing everything from out in space to the earth. The ghost of Nicolie Tesla is alive and well.
This is partially true. There are numerous methods used for cooling datacenters dependent heavily on the environment where they are commissioned. Data centers in the American southwest will use evaporative cooling. Data centers in the southeast will use traditional HVAC/CRAC/CRAH. Data centers in very cold climates may use free cooling where outside air is dehumidified and passed directly into the raised floor area.
Liquid cooling schemes are becoming more common, because the hardware running high end AI programming generates an enormous amount of heat. Immersion cooling is expensive, because it requires a specific dielectric coolant, but direct-to-chip and RDHx cooling will pump freshwater from either utility-provided or well-provided sources through radiators on the hardware itself or in the server racks, and the hot water will be dumped back into the environment.
This is similar to nuclear power generation where large heat exchangers are submerged in water pumped from local sources like lakes, rivers, or oceans and hot water is exhausted back into those same sources. We see it, for instance, in west Florida's Crystal River power plant where the Gulf water temperature is impacted by the outflows. This is great for manatees that love the warm water, but it's also resulted in algal blooms due to the incessant warmth. If they start tapping into aquifers, for instance here in Florida, you'll drain the cold fresh water and pump back in hot water which has been correlated to rapid erosion of the limestone substrate that makes up Florida's base.
So yeah, pump hot water under the state, sinkholes increase, well water quality disintegrates. As someone who relies on the freshwater aquifers under our feet, I'd rather not. It's bad enough that entities like Nestle have polluted our aquifers with sulfur.
The only Chinese propaganda here is that they are against us having data centers. They are for us to have central control of all life activities.
Those ‘ones and zeros’ are the backbone of the internet and power the apps on your smartphone. Data centers enable Zoom meetings, online food deliveries, video streaming, instant retail stock trading and more. If data centers went dark, so would the modern economy.
flamberge wrote: “Your electric rates will go up. Your water rates might go up. Your property taxes might go up. What’s in this deal for you?”
There’s a lot in it for you. For example:
In Loudoun County, Va. if the county tax revenue from data centers disappeared, homeowners would need to pay $5,800 more a year in property tax for the same government services.
Teachers in Louisiana’s Richland Parish this year received bonuses up to $50,000 thanks to tax revenue from Meta’s AI data center.
I guess you don’t use the internet too much. The internet relies upon data centers. Without data centers the modern economy would go dark. Data centers power the apps on your smartphone. Data centers enable Zoom meetings, online food deliveries, video streaming, instant retail stock trading and more.
Data centers could become the next dot com bubble. Much of what you're hearing is hype driven by AI developers to attract investors. Right now, every AI development firm is burning through money with little in return.
It was Kevin O'leary who started the 'WE HAVE BUILD DATA CENTERS OR CHINA WILL WIN' hysteria.
Basically the issue with 'China winning' comes down to China can always produce everything cheaper so US data centers will have to charge more than Chinese data centers which means most people will use the less expensive Chinese data centers.
They are free to oppose the hell out of them regardless of what Trump says
Fortunately only the most gullible seem to be buying it
So they use water. Place them all along the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers from Keystone Lake in OK to the Mississippi. Lots of lakes there.
“there is no safe nuclear power.” That movie also cause people to fear a common coal fired plant. Lost of locals came out against ours as they feared it would blow up and take the whole county with it! It has now been in operation since 1978.
In the movie They could not get into the control room to shut the plant down!
I worked in a coal fired power plant and know a dozen ways to trip the unit off line without going into the control room.
Jeez, don’t get me started on the stupid fears over coal fired plants. Especially given all the money spent on successful exhaust scrubbers just to have the plant shut down anyway by the know-nothings.
The propaganda Screed is in full force today. Kilmeade is on fox Pushing the agenda For data centers. He continuously pours cold water on any idea That they might consume water or power. Never mind the light pollution the noise pollution or the heat plume. Any power station of such magnitude As is required to run a data center Would undergo extremely close scrutiny in every way. Data centers Undergo absolutely no such considerations in any way. They have suddenly appeared in communities under cover of darkness and cloaked by confidentiality agreements with local officials Who report nothing to the community except this is good for us. Look at our new school look at our new hospital look at our new this or that. Never mind that it is the same 30 pieces of silver.
A new data center in the trans Pecos area, A learning data center or training data center, Is to be constructed fueled by chevron, built by Bechtel.
There is no fighting this They are determined we’re going to have them and we will. Clearly many are thoroughly convinced there’s gold in them hills Even though Where it may be and how it is to be extracted Is a vague idea
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