Comment on Tucson City Council votes 7-0, unanimously to kill AI Data Center

• Fredselfish@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Then why the fuck do they keep wanting build them in the middle of the desert then?

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  • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Cheap land, dry air is good for evaporative cooling, and many arid areas have a surprising amount of ground water. It ultimately comes down to being the cheapest option, not the smartest or best option.

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    • Vandals_handle@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Externalization of cost, the environment and community bears the cost instead of the corporation. Privatize the profits, externalize the costs.

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    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      So how long to the billionaires have that entire city council replaced with people who are in their pocket and will vote for its passing?

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      • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        In the states? 1-2 years tops.

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  • roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Demand, ain’t much of it in the desert. Also, easy to manipulate governments.

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  • Taldan@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Because the local and state governments in those deserts keep promising them unlimited water for nearly free

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    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Then local governments need be strung up. Tar and feathered and hung from the largest tree in the state.

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  • Fidgetting@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Two more reasons not yet mentioned:

    It is close to a population center (Phoenix) keeping latency low to customers. Getting customers off the public Internet quickly and into your private network fast is best for a lot of reasons.

    Cheap and abundant solar power. Data centers are extremely power hungry and power lines are expensive so companies like Amazon almost always secure abundant power rights before building. Google built their first data center in The Dalles Oregon because an aluminum smelter had gone belly up and left a bunch of capacity unclaimed in a local hydroelectric dam.

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    In addition to the other answers;

    America’s deserts are tectonically stable and don’t experience natural disasters. If you want your data and/or compute running in two regions for redundancy, somewhere in the desert is a good choice for one of your DCs.

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    • Vandals_handle@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Maybe in AZ or other states but CA deserts are not tectonically stable.

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      • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I know. Was looking for a term to separate the two areas. Not like the San Andreas fault is stable!

        How could I have dialed that in better?

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• toppy@lemy.lol ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think evaporative cooling is more effective.

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  • 3abas@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Right, that’s what they said. For a closed loop, because it’s less “effective”, you need a much larger system. It’s more expensive to build and requires a much larger footprint and corporations like Amazon would rather save a penny than do anything to reduce their harm.

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