Texas data center boom could erase decades of progress on air quality(www.texastribune.org)

40 pointsby hn_acker3 hours ago4 comments

parineum3 hours ago
The trendy desire to blame data centers for everything is nauseating. Data centers aren't poluting the air. Power plants are.
Since Texas has been leading the nation on renewables because it has a fairly free power market amd renewables are the cheapest power available, I'd expect this surge in demand to be eventually replaced by more renewables. In the meantime, extra capacity comes from old plants that can be spun up quickly.
- officeplant2 hours ago
  >Data centers aren't poluting the air. Power plants are.
  Currently for Datacenter's to move forward in Texas they must have some local power production so you see some of the newer upcoming ones featuring 20+ portable gas turbines on site. Others feature mixed solar/portable gas turbine.
- deaton2 hours ago
  Data centers often come with their very own natural gas turbines right outside to provide power the grid can't supply. This is what happened at xAI's data center in Memphis.
- alphawhiskyan hour ago
  The trendy desire to blame obesity for preventable death is nauseating. Obesity doesn't kill people. Heart attacks and cancers do.
  FFS.
- sippingabonedry2 hours ago
  It's election season, and data centers are being thrown around ads continuously to scare the olds into voting.
  It's one bridge away from selling them Old Glory robot insurance.
  "Data centers are everywhere and they consume old people's medicine for fuel."
- LogicFailsMe2 hours ago
  Natural gas is better than coal. Natural gas exhausts can be sequestered. But since we can't even break the coal habit let alone embrace renewables and clear the path for nuclear as needed, good luck! Stupid meatbags.
  Love to know who this actually triggers and what's inaccurate about the above? Coal is super good and clean? Natural gas emissions can't be sequestered despite numerous examples of exactly that? How dare I even suggest nuclear? Or is it just downright America-hating unpatriotic and letting the evil drag queens win? Genuinely curious.
FergusArgyll2 hours ago
Alternative headline:
Decades of progress on air quality could erase jobs
- tablarasa2 hours ago
  That this feels like such a representative statement is disheartening. Remember, in a functioning free-market (behold. bow.) negative externalities, like socializing the burden of reduced air quality resulting from for-profit enterprises, are considered inefficient (boo. hiss.) and deleterious. Even people with jobs have to breath air.
- wood_spirit2 hours ago
  It is also a regular criticism of data centers that they don’t bring jobs to the area. There are some contractors who come in from externally to build the center and that drives up local rents and shopping bills (influx of high earners mean prices go up to extract that money) temporarily which is bad for residents and then when it’s built they move on?
  - expedition3217 minutes ago
    This is why people won't protest against a refinery or steel plant. Those provide jobs- in some cases for a hundred years.
- watwut2 hours ago
  The promiss of AI is to kill all the jobs.
sippingabonedry2 hours ago
Another article full of weasel words. Lots of could's and if's.
- officeplant2 hours ago
  sippingabonedry is a great username for the current datacenter rollout.
2 hours ago
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