Mandan Data center pushback

[guywhofishes]

Where are you going to find 200 to 1000 acres in one chunk of non ag land in ND near a community large enough to house this type of build? I totally understand why people dont like whats going on, but largely I think its because they dont understand the upsides of AI in our future and they are scared of losing jobs or they are misinformed, which is probably at least 50% of the people freaking out right now. Have you noticed on facebook how the majority of people posting anti ai stuff and comments are women? Do you think thats a coincidence?

Repeal the 19th amendment!

 

[camper]

This topic has turned into Ground Hog day again, just like every other political or controversial thread. Can’t we all just get along? How about a group hug?

 

[Lycanthrope]

Much like the whine of the turbines and the flicker effect from blades passing in front of the sun, these "minor effects" from wind turbines sure seem to get under the skin of those shouldering the effects. I am not necessarily opposed to a data farm, unless of course I am within earshot of the 60-80 decibels they often produce. Or the jump in electric rates often associated with them. The traffic while under construction is surely annoying and hard on the local roads and county road budgets. Suffice to say, I sure don't want to subsidize or live near one. Hell, I barely like living near people.

Why these can't go, or get incorporated into existing industrial zoned areas is a bit of a mystery to me. It seems like they almost enjoy slapping them up next to housing. Also, sound insulation works. I wonder if they've heard of it. We have a server room at work where the noise is downright annoying to be around. Thankfully, once you close the door it's pretty quiet and doesn't really bother anyone.

The actual buildings arent that big, compared to the properties they are buying lately. I think they are buying larger properties to reduce the noise issue, but then people freak out because they bought 500 acres instead of 50, its a no win thing, because the people protesting data centers vehemently are mostly running off emotion.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Repeal the 19th amendment!

100%

 

[Lycanthrope]

Yeah, screw all those dummies that are afraid of losing their jobs. As long as they gargle pouch like the rest of the AI dickriders, they'll get their universal living wage just like daddy Elon promised, right?

I have to agree with the gentleman from Flasher. I agree with you 99% of the time on a wide variety of topics, but I'm afraid you have hitched your wagon to the horse that will take you straight into the ravine.

As for noticing what women are talking about on facebook, I have not. As a grown man with self respect and dignity, I do not have a facebook account.

its not avoidable, there might be new jobs to replace them, but you cant stop AI or progress, if they arent built in the US, they will be built in china, or Venezuela or somewhere else. Its better to have local control than end up under the thumb of countries that hate us. Yeah, its the same people or organizations funding them, but at least when they are local, we have some influence over the direction things go, vs having none.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Lycan I vary rarely disagree with you and I wish I could be the optimist about these data centers that you are. I guess the main reason I worry that my worst fears may come to pass is the people behind them. And by this I mean the zuckerburg, bill gates, larry fink, klaus schwab, musk, larry ellison and unfortunately you can throw trump in there too the way it seems. If you take them at their words, by things they have actually already said its hard to swallow that these are for our own benefit. These are the same types who have said "we will own nothing and be happy", that we will live in 15 min cities, that we will have to learn to live will being spied on that if we are doing nothing wrong we have nothing to fear. Also that the earths population needs to be reduced by 90 for earth to survive. That by 2030 no one will own a car. So forgive me for being a cynic when the very same people who have publicly said these things in public all seem to have the biggest hard on to get these things built. Its really not that hard to connect the dots.

some of the poeple behind AI freak me out also, especially Sam Altman... Ive watched hours of interviews with him and he presents well, but theres something off about him that I just dont like. however, none of them freak me out as much as china does, and they arent far behind in this AI race, unfortunately.

 

[Jiffy]

Anything China is doing we need to be head and shoulders better at.

THEY are the enemy

 

[measure-it]

Mark my words: the infiltration of Muslims & Chinese into the workings of the U. S. will/are be a huge problem!

 

[guywhofishes]

 

[KDM]

Mark my words: the infiltration of Muslims & Chinese into the workings of the U. S. will/are be a huge problem!

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think muslims comprise a large number in Federal, State, and local govts. voting for these issues and I would submit that there are even fewer chinese folks voting for these issues as well. Seems to me the "enemy" is a bit closer to home than either of those groups and look suspiciously caucasian to me. That's just me though.

 

[Maddog]

suspiciously LOL
I love your choice of words.

 

[guywhofishes]

if your girl:
- drinks a lot of water
- causes drama
- remembers everything
that's not your girl, that's a data center

 

[OL Deadeye]

Kinda like insurance rates to cover the transvestites.

Or in Minnesota to cover up all the Crime of Auto theft and Home Burglaries

 

[lunkerslayer]

 

[lunkerslayer]

Repeal the 19th amendment!

The 19 is about to come full circle

 

[eyexer]

After a few years off on this site I ventured back on. Ah data centers. Let me tell you some first hand experience. The company I worked for built the states largest data center. It was actually the largest in the country at the time, it’s possible it still is. This was built just north of the Trenton turn west of Williston. This was shoved down our throat by our elected county officials under the guise of all the jobs it was going to create and how beneficial it was going to be for the residents. During the initial press conference one county commissioner, whom owns an IT company, was asked about the noise. He said no worries, I visited one of this companies sites in butte MT and noise wasn’t a concern. So it was rubber stamped. Now for the nitty gritty.

First off the site is located directly adjacent to a housing development. The residents there were not even aware the property had been rezoned to commercial. Not a single one claims to have been notified of the potential zoning change which the county is required to do. In the end when the lawsuit was filed the county has never been able to provide proof of the rezoning process.

Initially this project was slated for 42 buildings that are 30’x350’. They were setup to be done in 9 building increments in which permitting would be done in those increments. One of the conditions in the conditional use permit for this operation were decibel sound limits. I don’t recall what the limit was but they’ve never been close to meeting those limits. After two increments/phases were completed (18 buildings) the county would no longer issue any more permits because they were so far out of their decibel limits. The county tried to shut the operation down over sound but the REC refused to do it and said they would need a court order. This was most likely due to fear of litigation and loss of about four million bucks a month in electrical sales.

Now let’s get into the nuts and bolts of this facility. Every building houses roughly 4,000 computers. Every single computer in every single building are crypto mining machines. That’s right, not a single machine capable of storing data. It’s strictly a crypto mining facility disguised as a data center. I believe this is likely the case in the majority of these so called data centers. Pretty hard to sell the public on crypto mining facilities once they know the damage they cause. Data Centers sound much more benign and they make you think you have to have em.

Each building in this facility uses the same amount of power as 25 city blocks in the city of Williston. Currently this facility uses 2.5 times the power the city of Williston uses. We were promised our electrical rates wouldn’t go up. Well needless to say we saw a pretty significant price increase this past spring. REC said it had nothing to do with these centers and that it was due to member demand lol. Well sorry to tell them but this center is a member.

These buildings are open are buildings. They have an intake side and an exhaust side. The exhaust air leaving those buildings is roughly 125 degrees. Did I mention how loud they were? lol. So in the end the county was sued by the residents surrounding this facility. In turn the county threatened to sue the owner of the facility if they didn’t buy these homeowners off at a very large sum. The company agreed to do that. The county would have been toast in the suit for numerous reasons. It was truly a taking without compensation. But then this same group of clowns in the county commission approved another facility northeast of town around epping/springbrook. You can’t make this crap up. And guess how many full time jobs the bitcoin facility in Williston provides? A total of 7. The construction jobs were short lived, 18 months. And at least half of the money spent on contractors went to out of state companies/employees.

In all honestly you could probably put an end to these facilities by just outlawing the mining of crypto in these facilities. Force annual inspections by forensic IT teams

 

[Weekender]

I'm not going to go into much detail, but just to make things clear.. There is a big difference between crypto mining facilities and a hyperscale data center.