I could see a reasonable statewide zoning law but a statewide ban? You’ve got to be kidding. Tech is one of California’s biggest industries. We’re just going to NIMBY the problem onto someone else?

I think Tennessee took a small step in the right direction: datacenters must pay for electrical system improvements they need. In theory no impact to the existing customers. However o believe they forgot the part about adhering to energy and pollution regulations (in case red states have any). They shouldn’t be allowed to set up coal burners for example.

Just like anything else, datacenters don’t have to be a bad thing. The bad part is our economic system letting them externalize the costs onto everyone else

What happens when they get built anyway. Would it be legal to burn them down.

Because a lot places voters voted to not allow them and they get built anyway.

You can be sure Monterey Park didn’t have any data centers to begin with. They aren’t exactly in every town. And there’s no shortage of towns ready to line up for data center money. I’m sure this town will be fine.

Hamilton with a population of 570 000. So the data center would employ about 4%. Sure.

Just to be a pedant, I know you meant MW not mW.

I'm happy for them to waste 10mW but paper straws vs 10MW of bs... well I think we know what we prefer.

Holy shit! That's amazing! Great job Hamilton!

Speaking from experience here, there are vastly more people employed just to build datacenters than there are to fully staff one. Hundreds of engineers, consultants, general contractors and construction laborers to build the datacenter versus maybe a dozen people at best to staff a football field sized datacenter. If datacenters go away those builders will still have jobs because they'll just pivot to building schools or hospitals or whatever else is needed at the time. Heck, even the IT guys who work on the racks could pivot and find another role somewhere else.

The only people who will be out of a job when the AI bubble pops are the hucksters pushing it.