here is my personal take: i worked for Wells Fargo for five years in "real data centers"; ones that were planned and approved by a longer and thorough process. the data centers of 2026 typically go through a mickey mouse approval process that is a quick rubber stamp. this process creates environmental and grid problems and seems to offer little if any real value to the community. the wells data centers did not appear to have any of these issues.
Judging from the comments you received on your youtube video there is a phenomenal amount of ignorance about data centers.
When I have discussed this with people online they don't seem to understand that they're already using data centers. When I participate in a facebook group and point out that they're using a medium that owns over thirty data centers around the world and is building more it doesn't register.
They don't understand that data centers already permeate most of our lives, whether it's a credit card transaction or streaming pornhub. I wonder how some of those commenters might feel if they knew about the latter and the trail that it leaves.
There's also this persistent bizarre meme that a data center is just someone else's computer, which is an incredibly simplistic concept. I wish my own computer had one tenth of the capability of a data center, both in terms of computing, power and cybersecurity.
There's a lot more heat than light here. I think that the way things are pointing the most prevalent solution will be an SMR and closed loop cooling.
That's not to say that certain geographic areas may have variations on the theme. I live in Texas and have been following the various fights, especially between Dallas and East Texas as well as the concerns in West Texas. They are two very different problems and the solutions will involve different implementations.
Dallas wants to draw water from East Texas, and of course East Texas does not like this concept at all. Additionally, when you consider the problems with permitting, easements, rights of way, constructing the pipelines, et cetera, it may not be economically feasible. But bend over because another pissed-off billionaire wants to move his business to Dallas.
In West Texas there is no adjacent water supply. The aquifers are stressed. It is ranch territory and livelihoods depend on water for the livestock. It's not just higher water bills; it's whether or not you slaughter your livestock. A solution for that area will be very different from Dallas.
Houston has a different set of circumstances. It has a refinery industry that runs 24/7. It's also near a source of salt water. So Houston has a problem with energy requirement around the clock, but also has access to water for desalinization. That's a totally different set of problems.
This is a dinner table conversation and somehow the facts need to be laid out for that conversation without spin. Expect pushback because all solutions are compromises. People may agree that something has to be done about data centers, but they won't necessarily agree about the implementation of that concept.
The water issue can be overcome with intensive recycling. The heat produced could be repurposed through co-generation techniques.
I believe that data centers should not be connected to the grid.
Make it law that they have to be totally self reliant for their power requirements.
We know that the companies that own them will not give one shit if their power consumption raises costs for domestic consumers, and in their minds, they are far more important than some Yahoo freezing in the dark.
I think heat repurposing is a great idea. In colder climates (Finland, Denmark, Ireland) data center heat is already used for domestic heating.
In warm climates absorption chillers are feasible. You could run the waste heat right back into the data center's chiller.
Germany's Energy Efficiency Act requires new data centers to prove use of at least 10% of waste heat starting July 2026, rising to 20% by 2028.
Gneuton is using data center waste heat to distill wastewater including stormwater and oilfield wastewater.
Desalination. Seawater only needs to reach about 40–50°C for low-temperature desalination.Many data centers already sit in coastal cities near effectively unlimited seawater.
Cloud&Heat has already paired a facility directly with a desalination plant driven by server waste heat.
LNG regasification is a possibility. You need heat to vaporize liquefied gas back to usable form, even in warm climates.
The fundamental problems are you have to price the heat and find a buyer close enough to pipe it.
This leaves out the volume of data centers. Are more than five thousand necessary, and for what purpose? These things smack of a surveillance state rather than a tech expansion.
They have very little to do with government -- which has its own and doesn't ask for local permission to build them -- and much to do with all of us.
These comments we're writing will be stored in multiple servers. News sites keep local storage in thousands of servers -- it's how you can click an article and it comes up instaneously.
Literally everything we do, and we do it more and more, streams through multiple data centers. Your streamed movies, emails, AI questions, searches.
I'm sitting in home where we have two computers, three phones, two iPads, two music streaming boxes, one Apple streaming tv and two others that are connected directly to the internet since I stream my tv from YoutubeTV not directly from cable. My car gets streamed music and maps.
Temporary or permanent jobs? Construction, certainly, but how many long term local jobs are generated by a data center? There are 1 million sf centers with 50 employees.
here is my personal take: i worked for Wells Fargo for five years in "real data centers"; ones that were planned and approved by a longer and thorough process. the data centers of 2026 typically go through a mickey mouse approval process that is a quick rubber stamp. this process creates environmental and grid problems and seems to offer little if any real value to the community. the wells data centers did not appear to have any of these issues.
Judging from the comments you received on your youtube video there is a phenomenal amount of ignorance about data centers.
When I have discussed this with people online they don't seem to understand that they're already using data centers. When I participate in a facebook group and point out that they're using a medium that owns over thirty data centers around the world and is building more it doesn't register.
They don't understand that data centers already permeate most of our lives, whether it's a credit card transaction or streaming pornhub. I wonder how some of those commenters might feel if they knew about the latter and the trail that it leaves.
There's also this persistent bizarre meme that a data center is just someone else's computer, which is an incredibly simplistic concept. I wish my own computer had one tenth of the capability of a data center, both in terms of computing, power and cybersecurity.
There's a lot more heat than light here. I think that the way things are pointing the most prevalent solution will be an SMR and closed loop cooling.
That's not to say that certain geographic areas may have variations on the theme. I live in Texas and have been following the various fights, especially between Dallas and East Texas as well as the concerns in West Texas. They are two very different problems and the solutions will involve different implementations.
Dallas wants to draw water from East Texas, and of course East Texas does not like this concept at all. Additionally, when you consider the problems with permitting, easements, rights of way, constructing the pipelines, et cetera, it may not be economically feasible. But bend over because another pissed-off billionaire wants to move his business to Dallas.
In West Texas there is no adjacent water supply. The aquifers are stressed. It is ranch territory and livelihoods depend on water for the livestock. It's not just higher water bills; it's whether or not you slaughter your livestock. A solution for that area will be very different from Dallas.
Houston has a different set of circumstances. It has a refinery industry that runs 24/7. It's also near a source of salt water. So Houston has a problem with energy requirement around the clock, but also has access to water for desalinization. That's a totally different set of problems.
This is a dinner table conversation and somehow the facts need to be laid out for that conversation without spin. Expect pushback because all solutions are compromises. People may agree that something has to be done about data centers, but they won't necessarily agree about the implementation of that concept.
The water issue can be overcome with intensive recycling. The heat produced could be repurposed through co-generation techniques.
I believe that data centers should not be connected to the grid.
Make it law that they have to be totally self reliant for their power requirements.
We know that the companies that own them will not give one shit if their power consumption raises costs for domestic consumers, and in their minds, they are far more important than some Yahoo freezing in the dark.
Other than that, have at it, I say.
I think heat repurposing is a great idea. In colder climates (Finland, Denmark, Ireland) data center heat is already used for domestic heating.
In warm climates absorption chillers are feasible. You could run the waste heat right back into the data center's chiller.
Germany's Energy Efficiency Act requires new data centers to prove use of at least 10% of waste heat starting July 2026, rising to 20% by 2028.
Gneuton is using data center waste heat to distill wastewater including stormwater and oilfield wastewater.
Desalination. Seawater only needs to reach about 40–50°C for low-temperature desalination.Many data centers already sit in coastal cities near effectively unlimited seawater.
Cloud&Heat has already paired a facility directly with a desalination plant driven by server waste heat.
LNG regasification is a possibility. You need heat to vaporize liquefied gas back to usable form, even in warm climates.
The fundamental problems are you have to price the heat and find a buyer close enough to pipe it.
Once built jobs inside DC should be Perm
& MI Data Center has link for audio.
This leaves out the volume of data centers. Are more than five thousand necessary, and for what purpose? These things smack of a surveillance state rather than a tech expansion.
They have very little to do with government -- which has its own and doesn't ask for local permission to build them -- and much to do with all of us.
These comments we're writing will be stored in multiple servers. News sites keep local storage in thousands of servers -- it's how you can click an article and it comes up instaneously.
Literally everything we do, and we do it more and more, streams through multiple data centers. Your streamed movies, emails, AI questions, searches.
I'm sitting in home where we have two computers, three phones, two iPads, two music streaming boxes, one Apple streaming tv and two others that are connected directly to the internet since I stream my tv from YoutubeTV not directly from cable. My car gets streamed music and maps.
That's just one well-connected household.
what bothers me most about the data centers is what it is doing to the price of computer memory.
Data Center worries from what I saw onlline
Effect water
effect power .
Otherwise Boom for jobs locally
One video showed brown water post Data Center install
Temporary or permanent jobs? Construction, certainly, but how many long term local jobs are generated by a data center? There are 1 million sf centers with 50 employees.
You forgot that godawful noise they make.
I heard some make noise BUT heard any on tape online
They hate them due to
Lack Education
Indoc
Media
alone or more would be welcome
Once changed we can proceed
No, left wing nuts who have given up on the global warming scare need a new crusade. This is their new crusade.
unlike many left wing issues, this one seems to have some basis in fact.