I think about this WRT data centers in general. It seems to me that they are not likely to be more intrusive than power plants and we've been siting them for decades. Of course no one wants a coal plant or nuclear plant next door. Why does that have to be?

And IMO the data centers could be built that are much less intrusive in the neighborhood. Perhaps they could blunt some of the complaints by covering the buildings and parking areas with solar panels. I suspect the answer here is that the companies building data centers are putting every possible dollar into data and compute capacity and as little as possible into mitigating the factors that lead to complaints.

Industrial sites: On the shores of Lake Michigan in Illinois there used to be a steel mill - US Steel's South Works. It's abandoned and is designated a "quantum park" (Illinois Quantum and Microelectronic Park.) Neighbors have extracted an agreement from the governor to not build a data center there. It seems to me that a data center would be much less objectionable than a steel mill. (I worked at a steel mill in the 70s and they are nasty places.)

Just north of Rockford IL there is a plan to build a data center which is drawing objections due to the impact on "quality of life." I can't speak to that but it looks like it would be situated in what is now farm land. Several farms would probably be bought up to make this, if it happens.

I think there are two motivations to build data centers in space, despite the technical challenges:

* Outside of any regulatory boundary, though I'm not sure how much that matters if they're selling their services within a regulated area. * No neighbors to complain.

That is disheartening. They couldn't build around it? It seems particularly malicious.