I agree. On all points. It is a small effect.

However, 400kwh times 500+ cars in a town does begin to approach datacenter territory. My place is 16mw. My point is that other uses are ignored in the discussion of rising usage.

30 years ago, most houses in my town had 100 amp service. Now almost all have 200. I had to upgrade mine when I purchased it in 2015. Also, many folks here have mother-in-law suites, which means two kitchens and often an additional laundry room. Most forego gas and have all electric appliances and heat. Power usage is way up all over. Our society is moving forward and uses more than the projections of the 1980s. Power generation projects rarely get approved by locals all over. Especially nuclear. We have painted ourselves into a corner.

And a rapid move to electric cars and the revoking of solar and wind incentives.

As someone with actual experience working in datacenters, this shit needs constant maintenance and repair. You can’t afford to pay for my travel expenses to reboot a server.

Or bend down.

We are known for building big ones fast. You just need to know how and execute with care an skill. Good people are expensive, and we pay well. So we charge more. And our customers know we hit all of our targets, so they are happy to pay.

The waste heat is difficult to use as it’s not that hot. We don’t have steam coming off the servers. They have to stay cool, after all. The water is significantly cooler than many domestic water heaters.

Gas turbines are a fucking nightmare. A move of despair. When our hens are running full bore during tests, we are well under 60dB. Our groundskeeping crew is significantly louder. And modern diesel is nothing like the majority of old trucks on the road today. No odor, no smoke, low-sulfur fuel, etc.

It can be done responsibly. We do it everyday. But trade secrets and NDAs keep us from speaking outside of anonymous forums like this.

We do invest in local electrical capacity.we always build more capacity than we use.

We do. Less local resistance=quicker build=more money sooner.

I can’t wait until this legitimate concern over environmental issues meets up with the reality on the ground.

I work at a DC. We have closed-loop water cooling. We have the same amount of water as a single residential swimming pool in our pipes. It is RO, de-ionized and hyper pure, purchased and brought by a tanker truck. It was filled once, more than a year ago and no more has been “used” since. The toilets use far more water than the servers.

Other companies DO abuse the environment. We would welcome legislation requiring this practice (and others) to make it a level field. There is no need for any DC to behave badly.