Data Centers

[steve_bank]

In the late 80s I lived in thee Idaho Silver Valley in the panhandle. Silver mining. It was super fund cleanup site. The Town of Kellog which had a smelter had its topsoil scraped and put in a berm along the higjhway. Arsenic contamination.

The whole area was contaminated by mining waste.

If as some predict the market falls out for AI, all the data centers will have to be cleaned up. Electronics is toxic waste.

We never learn.

 

[Ford]

Here in my city (Chandler, AZ) there was recently a fight over a data center. Most of the leadership was behind it, but the citizens said "no you fucking won't." One of the leading candidates for mayor ran partially on a "no data centers" platform.

It's not that we're against growth. When I moved in, there was cornfield just around the corner that's now a mall. We've got tech jobs (Intel has a campus here, and we're the original test market for Waymo robo-taxis) but having giant buildings that just suck up power and water and don't provide any jobs is something the residents clearly don't want.