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Posted on 07/20/2026 7:15:56 AM PDT by lasereye
When New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a one-year moratorium on new large-scale data centers via executive order, it became the nation's first statewide ban.
It will likely be popular. Polls find widespread opposition to data centers, and the objections seem to be growing. Around 70% oppose the construction of a new artificial intelligence data center in their area, with 48% strongly opposed. Only 27% favor it.
Even in Texas, the energy-rich state with the most data centers, Gov. Greg Abbott has called for a ban on new developments in rural areas.
The panic surrounding data centers is highly reminiscent of the panic surrounding hydraulic fracturing. Like the fracking ban in New York, also based on junk science and scaremongering — not to mention, initially a "moratorium" — the policy will backfire.
The economic case for data centers is indisputable. A single hyperscale facility brings in billions in capital investment, creates a slew of high-paying jobs from construction to engineering and ensures local governments are flush with tax revenue.
Big Tech bogeymen such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta upgrade local infrastructure and create secondary economies, often in struggling areas. Long term, these companies offer self-sustaining economic activity that the magical "green" industry never did or could.
In Loudoun County, Virginia, home of the largest concentration of data centers in the country, studies found revenue from AI infrastructure accounted for 95% of the county's operating budget. That revenue has funded a $100 million plan for new schools in the county of 455,000 residents.
Because energy price spikes have coincided with the data center debate, one of the major concerns you hear from people is that their utility bills will go up. The data doesn't bear this out.
States with fast-growing electricity rates, such as California, have few data centers, while states such as Virginia, which lead the country in data center energy consumption, have seen electricity prices increase at the national average.
There's considerable evidence that data centers have eased electricity rate hikes over the past decade, as companies took on a growing share of the utility costs, reducing the demand on residents.
AI infrastructure requires massive amounts of continuous power. Data centers are driving a rapid expansion in power generation. The solution to high energy demand isn't to build fewer data centers. It's to generate more energy.
Trepidation over AI also surely plays a role in concern over data centers. That's a perfectly legitimate and important debate for society to have. The most emotional and effective attacks on data centers revolve around environmental concerns.
The other day, popular WNBA player Sophie Cunningham asked: "So how do we save our farm land and stop all these dumb data centers?"
Save farmland? Data centers are predicted to use around 1,400 square miles of land by 2028. Farmland already uses 1.4 million square miles. There's more than enough land for farms and data centers.
If anything, data centers might save farming communities. A large, self-perpetuating data center project in Farmville in rural Prince Edward County, Virginia, for instance, will optimize the land mass used by a small farm to the tune of a $5 billion investment into that community.
Data centers consume somewhere around 2% to 4% of total freshwater withdrawals, a tiny fraction compared to agriculture or manufacturing, mining or basically any other major industry. Nationally, data centers consume significantly less water than golf courses.
Not long ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) produced two jars with brown water at a congressional hearing, alleging that it was what "drinking water" looked like in Morgan County, Georgia, where a Meta data center project was underway. Scary stuff.
Except, earlier reports found only four households in the country had been stuck with sediment-clogged, brown or dry taps.
Brown drinking water was not widespread, as Ocasio-Cortez had claimed. More importantly, construction projects that burst wells on occasion aren't unique to data centers but rather to construction of all types.
In a major solar project in upstate New York, crews accidentally struck an aquifer while drilling not long ago. Does Ocasio-Cortez believe we should put a moratorium on solar panel projects?
If you care about the environment, you should also note that data centers facilitate considerable efficiencies elsewhere, such as remote work that reduces commuting emissions, better supply chain organization that cuts waste, and cloud computing that's far more efficient than having everyone running their own servers.
The effective voices against data centers, after all, are the same Luddites who've spread environmental apocalypticism to stop modernization projects such as pipelines and power plants and fracking. Most of their arguments don't hold water. That doesn't mean they're not winning.
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Many of the new data centers provide their own on-site electricity generation. People pop up to make suspect claims that data centers caused electricity prices to shoot up where they live. When I ask a few questions about where they live, what data centers allegedly caused the price increase etc, they don't answer - or if they do answer, they don't seem to know what they're talking about (or are lying). I had a back and forth with one such person a week ago. I'm still not sure whether he was stupid or just lying.
AOC is a drug addict
I believe it is useful for some scientific/health applications, but the whole LLM aspect - whether it is Grok or whatever - is annoying as hell. I'm sick of not being able to opt out of it. So, anything that throws a monkey wrench in the AI/LLM juggernaut is fine by me.
Nothing like throwing jobs away, seems idiots in charge are good at that. AOC stopping Amazon, Gov. Nutcase bans fracking, drilling, AI centers and wood burning pizza joints. It’s ok to poop on the sidewalk though.
“Meanwhile, the Chinese face no such constraints in building data centers,”
I think the Chinese will end up using our data centers before too long, if it’s not already happening.
Number Six: Where am I?
Number Two (not identified as yet): In the village.
Six: What do you want?
Two: Information.
Six: Whose side are you on?
Two: That would be telling. We want information...information... information!!!
Six: You won’t get it!
Two: By hook or by crook, we will.
Six: Who are you?
Two: The new Number Two.
Six: Who is Number One?
Two: You are Number Six.
Six (running on the Village’s beach): I am not a number; I am a free man!!!
Two: [Laughter]
Go Luddites!
Me too. I am forced to use this crap every day. Disclosure: 25+ year software engineer by trade and admitted luddite.
In the end they will find a way to do it without the need for the massive data centers.
To me Data Centers are a “brute force” approach.
1. The constant noise — 24 hours/day — is a problem for nearby residents.
2. Once these things are built, they hardly employ anyone. For economic impacts, I would rather have one medical center or Toyota manufacturing facility in my town than a hundred data centers.
It will eventually be embedded on every device.
Read your own words bro.
“Many of the new data centers provide their own on-site electricity generation. People pop up to make suspect claims that data centers caused electricity prices to shoot up where they live. “
That means, by your own words, that NOT ALL of them generate their own power, therefore people making these claims, may in fact be correct.
Right,left. They have all soiled their pants because of Chicom propaganda.
You mean like Skynet, VIKI, Mother, HAL, Jarvis, and Ultron. Sci-Fi usually becomes real and you can’t put the Genie back in the bottle.
These people are the same people who bitch about high unemployment rates in their area. There is nothing to prevent these companies from constructing centers outside of the US. That exports all of the jobs that could be realized in the construction of the centers plus the on-going jobs working at the data centers. Also, to the extent that these centers build with the future needs in mind, any excess energy produced in the interim could be used by the local power companies to reduce brownouts and electricity rates.
God bless the Luddites. ☺️
To me, AI “assistance” feels like having to sit through a teacher repeating something for the third time because the stupid kids don’t understand it. Actually, it’s worse because the clutter caused by all the AI “summaries” actually makes it harder to dig down to the actual information.
They can build them next to the tech executive’s mansion
Data Center = Facility used to collect enormous amounts of data on every individual, their spending habits, their recreational hobbies, their everyday activities, so that companies can track your every move, thought and desire.
In reality, that is what most people are thinking when they hear “data center”. I think the vast majority of people in this country are tired of being electronically monitored 24/7/365.
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