Posted on 05/10/2026 3:56:44 AM PDT by fruser1
In the town of Festus, Missouri, a community of 14,000 people near St. Louis, residents have ousted four city council members who backed plans for a massive AI data center, replacing them with candidates who openly opposed the project.
At a packed City Hall meeting following the election, newly sworn-in officials were greeted with cheers - while the city's mayor Sam Richards, who still supports the development, was met with boos and jeers from the crowd.
'You're next!' one resident shouted, underscoring how heated the fight has become.
At the center of the dispute is a proposed $6 billion data center spanning roughly 360 acres, designed to support the growing demands of artificial intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
This AI boom is reminding of the dotcom bust, these monoliths will be inefficient at the beginning and will be overrated in the long run. 100% agree with your comment.
360 acres, eh? Whose family farm, family property, has been seized by the government under the plundering emminent domain fraud?
All this AI stuff, brings to mind the bad guy and his appropriated island hangout, with all those racks of equipment, Skyfall I think it was.
If that town is anywhere near Tornado Country, not only the present power demands, but when storms strike, how large would that center’s Uninterruptable Power Supply be?
I suggest a reclaimed old fighter jet engine refitted to run on gas (propane,etc) for their power requirements.
Calvary cemetery in Maspeth Queens is exactly 360 acres. It is the resting place of over three million departed persons, so it’s doing something useful…
Seinfeld’s Christmastown I presume
“The proportionally high power requirements makes me think AI technology is not actually mature yet. It appears that the hardware has not caught up w/the software, so to say.”
You are absolutely correct in this statement. I’ve been a mere peon in the tech industry way before it was a ‘thing’ (yeah, I’m old, LOL). I admire it’s abilities and am not against AI at all. However, the technology is NOT there to make it efficient just yet. It has a lot of potential. But sudden expansion just because it’s the money making ‘in thing’ without securing efficient power sources and security is immature and dangerous, IMO.
If one looks at the proposed CAPEX by these major “players” and compare that to projected future earnings the math doesn’t work. The losses on EV programs have been huge, but when compared to these AI plans they are insignificant. Remember the Dot Com bubble? Remember the 2008 financial crisis? All this AI CAPEX will be done with borrowed money. Think it will ever be paid back? I don’t.
I’ll wait for someone else to post the first photo of Festus.
You’re right about this. There’s definitely a bubble forming like the tech bubble of the late 90’s.
Some big players will emerge and most of the weak large language models will be relegated to the dustbin.
It’s pets.com all over again.
“I tell ya, country clubs and cemeteries are the biggest wasters of prime real estate!”
Al Czervik, Caddyshack (1980), Rodney Dangerfield’s character,
a six billion dollar data center in a small town would result in the elimination of all property taxes to every citizen in the town.
They are selling these things poorly
And it will suck up all the water and electricity.
If you think the power (and water for cooling) requirements are high, wait until you see what they are for quantum computing centers.
Neither of which provide any significant amount of local jobs, as they are lightly staffed, and all the productive, renumerative work is performed off site.
I am not against either, but communities need to understand the costs and weigh them against the meager, local benefits.
Personally, I think that data centers should be required to develop and build the water and power infrastructure required (including getting all the approvals and permits) as part of getting to build the data center.
The way it works now, the developers of data centers seek areas where the water and power infrastructure exists, and once built, the demands of the data centers, plus the existing requirements of the community exceed the available capacity.
Absolutely not. They will raise property taxes “because the data center makes the property more valuable.”
The greed of the tax collectors knows no bounds. They deserve an epic comeuppance for the ages.
I think of that quote occasionally when passing a club or going into 470 acres of cemetery (Greenwood, Brooklyn) in what is now prime location. It must drive them nuts.
What is Seinfelds Christmas town? I thought I’d seen all the shows.
Andwill they use national pa4k land for these centers? Betting no! theyll take other peoples land for them instead!
Dont worry, windmills will supply all the power n3cessary /s
360 acres? That ain’t $h!t.
They want 62 square miles here in Utah for one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.