Data centers raise nearby temperatures by up to 4 degrees in Phoenix
asmedigitalcollection.asme.org244 points by cwwc 4 hours ago
244 points by cwwc 4 hours ago
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ...
*BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter maxed out when i saw a Tesla with a "End Data Centers" bumper sticker on it. This is just the latest popular panic, isn't it?
We’re building data centers in the U.S. at an unprecedented and increasing rate [1]. Is it so hard to imagine that something which was fine at one scale may begin to cause issues at some massively higher scale?
If I drink one glass of wine per day, it’s probably fine. If I drink three bottles per day, I’m gonna start having problems.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/monthly-spending-data-cen...
Yeah, but when we account for that scale, and look at resource usage, datacenters aren't topping the charts, or even really getting in the top 5, for anything.
You have people who eat meat at every meal losing their mind over water usage and people who set their AC to 68 panicking over energy usage.
Eating meat fills my belly. Setting my AC to 68 keeps me cool. A data center costs my community money, damages the environment directly and indirectly, and further enriches a few already rich people.
Can you spot the difference?
> Eating meat fills my belly.
So do many other things which use less water.
The estimates I've seen place the water consumption of water at such a low level that a whole month subscription consumes roughly as much water as 1-120 grams* of beef.
> Setting my AC to 68 keeps me cool.
What, is 70 not good enough?
Air con, and basically all things connected to the power grid, also "costs [your] community money, damages the environment directly and indirectly, and further enriches a few already rich people."
* yes, one to one hundred and twenty, there's that much uncertainty in the estimates for the AI.
When Amazon gets to run an offgrid power plant for a new data centre that's permitted to release more co2 than any other single power plant in the US[1], you'll pardon me for wondering what the rush is and why it becomes literally everyone else's problem as a result.
Build the data centre, sure, but if it takes you five years to build out the grid and sufficient generating capacity in a non stupid way in order to do that, sorry, but that's by far my preferred route to get there.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-cente...
Rush may be FOMO. Even as one who likes using AI, I think the economics is an investment bubble and mostly avoid it.
I can't read your link, paywall, but my question regarding Musk's infamous polluting DC, I wonder why it had to be built near so many people. It's not like there's going to be a need for a huge pool of workers to commute to it.
Because they aren't really people unless they could afford a DC of their own. When you view half the world or more as NPC then it becomes trivially easy to ignore the needs of others.
I fear you may be correct.
On the other hand, how does that combine with his apparent narcissistic need to be seen? Is his need so simple it can be met with "line go up"?