>What I don't understand is why communities want to block the data centers.
Noise, pollution, energy costs (which you cover in your comment!) and water usage / contamination. I don't want more of those things. I don't want a bunch of strip malls of golf courses in my community, either.
Both of these are complaints about gas turbines rather than data centers.
Data centers can pretty easily do the opposite by offering to curtail load during energy supply shortfalls, both through region shifting and by temporarily operating backup generators, which allows the grid to add more renewable generation without having intermittency issues, and thereby operate fewer gas turbines.
Obviously you have to actually do it that way, but that's the point -- the focus of noise and pollution concerns should be directed towards how power is being generated.
> water usage / contamination
Do the math on what percentage of any given region's available water is consumed by data centers. Compare this to e.g. agriculture. This one isn't even a plausible concern, it's manufactured outrage.
> energy costs
Energy costs are supply and demand. The econ 101 explanation is generally pretty accurate for supply -- if there isn't enough supply then prices go up. This is why NIMBYs screw everyone (including themselves). If you can't build more of something then you have to pay more for whatever already exists.
Demand is more complicated. Econ 101 usually applies in the immediate term, higher prices don't increase supply instantaneously so an immediate increase in demand tends to create an immediate increase in price. But then you can increase supply, and what does that do?
You now have higher volume, more economies of scale, more units to amortize fixed costs over. The ultimate effect of an increase in demand is usually a reduction in the unit price. The exceptions are the things where supply is highly inelastic, like land (as opposed to housing units), which is not the case with power generation.
Unless NIMBYs or captured regulators are preventing supply from increasing. In which case you should be focused on fixing that.
>Do the math on what percentage of any given region's available water is consumed by data centers. Compare this to e.g. agriculture. This one isn't even a plausible concern, it's manufactured outrage.
Is it more than zero? I need to eat (although I do wish we all paid more for cleaner and more ethical food) but I explicitly don't want data centers.
I think this compares to pesticide to control malaria vs. herbicide to to prevent me from noticing two kinds of grass. Both put poison in the environment, but spraying for malaria has a clear benefit to outweigh its costs. But spraying herbicides so my lawn "looks nice" is really only a downside. What are the benefits to more data centers?
>Unless NIMBYs or captured regulators
If we're just doing ad-hominen we need a name for your group. Do you have any suggestions?
This is like complaining that Fox News offices use water in their restrooms because you don't like their reporting. It's transparently not about that.
> I need to eat
Do you need to eat alfalfa grown in California rather than the midwest?
> What are the benefits to more data centers?
Large loads that can be curtailed during supply shortfalls via region shifting or operation of backup generators allow the grid to use a higher percentage of renewable generation without having intermittency issues.
> If we're just doing ad-hominen we need a name for your group.
NIMBY and regulatory capture are both descriptions of behavior rather than group identities.
>This is like complaining that Fox News offices use water in their restrooms because you don't like their reporting. It's transparently not about that.
If Fox news were trying to put a huge bathroom next to my property I certainly would care, though.
> Do you need to eat alfalfa grown in California rather than the midwest?
The only alfalfa I have right now is made of little pellets that I give to my chickens.
> Large loads that can be curtailed during supply shortfalls via region shifting or operation of backup generators allow the grid to use a higher percentage of renewable generation without having intermittency issues.
I don't see how this is a benefit to building more data centers. This sounds like an explanation of how you might mitigate their impact.
> NIMBY
I'm not interested in this term until you'll happily accept a carpet factory next to you that poisons your water for years. There is TONS of stuff that no sane person would want in their back yards.
Noise, pollution, energy costs (which you cover in your comment!) and water usage / contamination. I don't want more of those things. I don't want a bunch of strip malls of golf courses in my community, either.