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More on AI Data Centers

Author: Victor Sample Vic Sample: MT43 News Treasurer

More on AI Data Centers

Victor Sample

On the topic of AI data centers (actually, all massive data centers), the public is increasingly anti-data centers. Polls show that people are very vocal against data centers not only in their neighborhood but anywhere.

There have been 2 articles recently about data centers using massive amounts of water (millions or even billions of gallons) in drought-stricken areas. The residents in those areas have been put on water restrictions even as the data centers consume massive amounts. In one case in Alabama, not only was the data center using massive amounts of water, but they were misreporting how much water was being used, thereby not paying for the water.

In Butte, anti-data center sentiment recently caused the cancellation of plans to expand a data center west of Butte near Rocker. On “local” television news and in news articles, I have seen many people expressing concerns and speaking against the data center proposed for Broadview, MT (north of Billings near Lavina).

I just read that the owner of the Bonner Industrial Center just pulled his name from paperwork for a new data center in Bonner due to public opposition. Without his name, the project at Bonner is effectively dead.

There are 3 main concerns about the large data centers: electricity, water, and noise. The data centers are focusing on assuring that they will pay the cost of the increased electricity - although it's not clear they are offering to pay the cost of new electricity-generating facilities. The good news is that Congress is considering a bill requiring the tech companies to pay for upgrades to the electrical grid.

They really haven’t been addressing the water or noise issues. A large data center in Utah is touting they will bring in natural gas and generate its own electricity – apparently forgetting that using massive amounts of natural gas will cause the cost of natural gas to increase. Of course, generating their own electricity won’t do anything for water usage and certainly not for noise.

Chipmaker Nvidia has just announced they have created new computer server chips that use a totally different cooling method (much like antifreeze) that doesn’t rely on water. However, it will be a long time before there will be enough of these chips manufactured to be used in large data centers AND they are much more expensive. Will the data centers actually switch to much higher cost computer chips or stick to water-cooled chips?

Many of the data center projects are announcing "closed loop" water cooling systems in order to assure the public they won't be using large amounts of water. However, a "closed loop" data center in Cheyenne discharged "fill and flush" water into the water reuse system, causing Cheyenne system to he shut down for 4 months.

The contactor building the data center and Meta (Facebook) were fined. In addition, the Board of Public Utilities announced a permanent ban on accepting industrial wastewater from data center fill-and-flush or closed-loop operations into the city sewer.