Red state residents lead growing rebellion against data centers that Trump loves

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 8:09 AM

RocksInMyHead said:
No, because the complaints I'm seeing aren't really about immediate, neighborhood-level impacts.

Per the OP:
But many red state residents are becoming increasingly angry about data centers' intrusion on their rural communities.
That's according to a Tuesday article by the Washington Post's Evan Halper entitled "The data center rebellion is here, and it's reshaping the political landscape," which reported that residents in deep-red states like Indiana, Oklahoma and elsewhere are showing up in droves to public hearings solely to speak out against proposed data center construction. The Post zeroed in on an ongoing conflict over a planned data center in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, where Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has championed the project.
"We know Trump wants data centers and Kevin Stitt wants data centers, but these things don’t affect these people," Trump supporter Brian Ingram said. "You know, this affects us."
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright admitted that the data centers are unpopular as they have been tied to higher utility costs in adjacent communities

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 8:20 AM

rambot said:
Well okay but the...the other point is that the other data centres were smaller and didn't have the same kind of impact on their community as these new ones would.

That is kind of THE point.

I have only ever heard "NIMBY" being brought up to discredit an argue but I think their argument is valid.

But those data centres, on the whole, were MUCH smaller and so their impacts, though already a strain, is simply going to be amplified in new communities. IOW, AI data centre's impact, though previously great, is getting greater

But the complaints in the context of what was posted in the OP are basically the definition of textbook NIMBYism.

Opposing the development of real-estate and/or infrastructure projects because it is close to them, that they would otherwise tolerate or support it if it were built farther away and didn't have any negative impact on them personally.

The OP noted that these oppositions are coming from deep red rural areas in Indiana and Oklahoma.

Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but I'm going to to out on a limb and suggest that rural republican voters in those areas gripes aren't stemming from climate change concerns.

Their concerns are more akin to that of people who don't want new Section 8 housing built two blocks away from their house.

Tuur · Saturday at 8:23 AM

JustaPewFiller said:
BUT - after they are built, they are not really bringing any long-term jobs into these rural areas. It takes between 5 to 100 people to run one

In a rural area, that’s pretty good. You then also see an increase in “support” businesses for those employees. This holds true for any sort of new business.

rambot · Saturday at 10:39 AM

ThatRobGuy said:
But the complaints in the context of what was posted in the OP are basically the definition of textbook NIMBYis

Ok. This seems to be the most important argument for you to make.
You seem to be using NIMBYism to, discredit or disparage these people in some way. Am I understanding that correctly?

Say it aint so · Saturday at 11:25 AM

Tuur said:
What we don’t need are a bunch of self-proclaimed elites who consider us fly-over country telling what to do.

“Rates go up, rates go up.” Here’s a newsflash: building and upgrading transmission for solar panel fields does, too, to the tune of about six million a mile. And we’re going to need new generation just from growing population. I run figures every year, and even with dropping energy use per consumer, energy use increases.

If cities don’t want data centers, then let them zone against them. That’s them and their business. Just let them feel the same toward us.

(The emboldened) Which is one of the points of the OP. Trump et al are trying to prevent local governments from regulating them and anything else Ai.

wing2000 · Saturday at 11:49 AM

Matt5 said:
AI data centers are just warehouses with huge energy consumption. So the problem is the energy. They should be generating their own power.

...they already are.

Tech companies are building data centers with their own private power plants, a risky bet that will increase carbon emissions and other pollution.

The GW Ranch project approved on 8,000 windswept acres of West Texas will look like many of the other data centers that have sprung up across the country to support Silicon Valley’s ambitions for artificial intelligence. Dozens of airplane-hangar-size warehouses packed with computing hardware will consume more power than all of Chicago.

But it’s missing one standard feature: The mammoth project, recently green-lit by state environmental regulators, won’t need new power lines to deliver the electricity that it guzzles. GW Ranch will be walled off from the power grid and generate its own electricity from natural gas and solar plants installed on site.

Dozens of sprawling off-grid data center projects are planned across Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Utah, Ohio and Tennessee, according to a review of regulatory filings, permits, earnings call transcripts and other documents by the energy industry research firm Cleanview. Several are already under construction.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/02/19/data-centers-power-grid-ai/

wing2000 · Saturday at 11:57 AM

ThatRobGuy said:
It's a reasonable concern, but it's only a concern people seem to have once it starts to impact them personally, which was kind of my point lol.

...of course. That is human nature....
It's also a reason there is a housing shortage in many cities. Existing residential neighorhoods resist mult-family housing when they perceive it will impact their quality of life or home values.

Hans Blaster · Saturday at 2:32 PM

chevyontheriver said:
IF they had a 50% generation rule there would be a coal train a day pulling up to their facility. And coal dust blowing off the coal heap. And even MORE water used, depleting local wells.

Oh, but they could solve all of that with solar. NOT! These places need constant and reliable power. Because they need constant reliable power the rest of us will get the fluctuating and interruptable power. So when they tell you they have invested in clean solar power it is more than likely they paneled over a bunch of farmland AND THEY STILL need coal or nuclear plants to keep their chips swimming in reliable base load Amps.

Oh, but they could solve it with tiny on site nuclear plants. Tell me about it. The only thing I know is everybody will be paying more for electricity so these places can keep all of their data on us in ready RAM.

People just need to have the "AI" do their "thinking" for them in day light hours only. Perhaps the internet would get less stupid that way.

Landon Caeli · Saturday at 6:11 PM

I know data centers are actually reading my mind, and sending that information into outer space to the aliens. That's why I wear a tinfoil hat.

Ps. My electricity bill quadrupled.

Landon Caeli · Saturday at 6:15 PM

Anyone seen any good podcasts lately?

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 6:34 PM

wing2000 said:
...of course. That is human nature....
It's also a reason there is a housing shortage in many cities. Existing residential neighorhoods resist mult-family housing when they perceive it will impact their quality of life or home values.

That's why I mentioned that as a comparable example, the NIMBYism we normally see is with regards to building Section 8 or affordable housing adjacent to people's neighborhoods.

This is just a different flavor of the same mentality.

"I don't want my home's value to drop by 30%, so they need to build that apartment complex somewhere else"
and
"I don't want them building that datacenter near my house, it'll ruin the scenery and make my utility bills go up by 30%"

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 6:39 PM

rambot said:
Ok. This seems to be the most important argument for you to make.
You seem to be using NIMBYism to, discredit or disparage these people in some way. Am I understanding that correctly?

Not disparaging them, just saying they have a blind spot.

When we discuss NIMBYism typically, it's in the context of people saying "We need to build more affordable housing to address the shortage and homeless problem", but then saying "Whoa, I don't want that cheap apartment block being built near my home, it's make my home value drop and then I'll have to worry about my kids playing outside with all the junkies running around"

In this instance
It's people who love the outgrowths of AI (whether they realize it or not) and the things that data centers provide, but don't want it in their neighborhood because it'll ruin the scenery and make their electric bill go up. They love the ability to work remotely, get 2-day shipping from Amazon, and have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, and being able to access streaming service (much of that lives on the back of datacenters and AI), but they want that infrastructure in someone else's neighborhood and not their own.

SimplyMe · Saturday at 8:44 PM

chevyontheriver said:
You tell me it didn't happen and then you tell me it did. OK. I haven't lived in a locale where that happened (or didn't happen, or whatever).

If that is what is read, you appear to have a comprehension problem.

RocksInMyHead · Saturday at 8:52 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
Per the OP:
But many red state residents are becoming increasingly angry about data centers' intrusion on their rural communities.
That's according to a Tuesday article by the Washington Post's Evan Halper entitled "The data center rebellion is here, and it's reshaping the political landscape," which reported that residents in deep-red states like Indiana, Oklahoma and elsewhere are showing up in droves to public hearings solely to speak out against proposed data center construction. The Post zeroed in on an ongoing conflict over a planned data center in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, where Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has championed the project.
"We know Trump wants data centers and Kevin Stitt wants data centers, but these things don’t affect these people," Trump supporter Brian Ingram said. "You know, this affects us."
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright admitted that the data centers are unpopular as they have been tied to higher utility costs in adjacent communities

I'm not seeing anything in that quote about neighborhood-level impacts. A data center doesn't need to be in your neighborhood in order to make your utility rates go up. It doesn't even need to be in your state.

Landon Caeli · Saturday at 8:54 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
I'm not seeing anything in that quote about neighborhood-level impacts.

I heard you're looking for some data.

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 8:55 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
I'm not seeing anything in that quote about neighborhood-level impacts.

But many red state residents are becoming increasingly angry about data centers' intrusion on their rural communities.

RocksInMyHead · Saturday at 8:55 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
It's people who love the outgrowths of AI (whether they realize it or not) and the things that data centers provide, but don't want it in their neighborhood because it'll ruin the scenery and make their electric bill go up. They love the ability to work remotely, get 2-day shipping from Amazon, and have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, and being able to access streaming service (much of that lives on the back of datacenters and AI), but they want that infrastructure in someone else's neighborhood and not their own.

All of those things existed long before the AI boom.

ThatRobGuy · Saturday at 8:59 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
All of those things existed long before the AI boom.

Correct, and the datacenters that support those things were negatively impacting people in other communities in the same way that these folks are expressing concerns about.

What? You think Google and Amazon had hamster wheels running their search engines and 2-day shipping logistics?

RocksInMyHead · Saturday at 9:08 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
But many red state residents are becoming increasingly angry about data centers' intrusion on their rural communities.

"Intrusion" is a very vague word that can mean many things. Having read the actual article, the main concerns are about water usage, electricity rates, and loss of farmland, which aren't really neighborhood-level issues. And those issues don't magically disappear if everyone is fine with having a data center in their backyard.

ThatRobGuy said:
Correct, and the datacenters that support those things were negatively impacting people in other communities in the same way that these folks are expressing concerns about.

What? You think Google and Amazon had hamster wheels running their search engines and 2-day shipping logistics?

As I already pointed out, AI-centric data centers are significantly more power-hungry (and thus more water-hungry as well) than more "traditional" (for lack of a better word) data centers, and they're being built at an absurd rate, with somewhere around 3000 planned or already under construction in the US (roughly doubling the current number of operational centers). US data center power consumption is forecast to triple (or more) in the next few years. This sort of rapid expansion should make anyone nervous, especially given the state of the US power grid.

FireDragon76 · Saturday at 10:04 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
That's why I mentioned that as a comparable example, the NIMBYism we normally see is with regards to building Section 8 or affordable housing adjacent to people's neighborhoods.

This is just a different flavor of the same mentality.

"I don't want my home's value to drop by 30%, so they need to build that apartment complex somewhere else"
and
"I don't want them building that datacenter near my house, it'll ruin the scenery and make my utility bills go up by 30%"

The difference is that Section 8 actually helps vulnerable people. It's unclear how much public benefit comes from large data centers. A quarter of OpenAI's compute is used to produce videos that mostly amount to AI slop, and OpenAI itself admits it's business model doesn't produce real revenue.

I make some songs using Claude and Suno but most of the songs on Suno are little more than slop with little thought or care rooted in real artistic sensibilities. Alot of AI generated content is like that, especially when people use AI to replace actual effort. I don't produce a song just because I'm bored, but because I'm genuinely inspired to make something, I have a vision of what that should look like in the end. I use a simple Claude or DeepSeek model to generate a rough draft based on a prompt or discussion about my artistic goals or some theme or idea, then I go over the actual text and use a model again to propose changes to a few lines or verses that don't feel quite right (sort of like a thesaurus), so that there's a sense of coherence and depth to the lyrics. Many people on Suno don't even bother doing that, you can get songs that appear fluent but have little artistic merit or grounding in anything substantive, and people churn these out one right after the other.

For much of general LLM use, it's similar. Most hardcore users right now aren't necessarily businesses, but private individuals looking to produce fanfic, pulp fiction, and smut, which is probably one reason OpenAI's userbase took a hit recently (it instituted more content controls in the wake of lawsuits, and will no longer generate highly explicit or violent content).

We hope the site problems here are now solved, however, if you still have any issues, please start a ticket in Contact Us

Red state residents lead growing rebellion against data centers that Trump loves

Part of the IT crowd

Part of the IT crowd

Well-Known Member

Senior Member

Well-Known Member

E pluribus unum

E pluribus unum

Call Me Al

Average Human

Average Human

Part of the IT crowd

Part of the IT crowd

Senior Veteran

God is innocent; Noah built on a floodplain!

Average Human

Part of the IT crowd

God is innocent; Noah built on a floodplain!

Part of the IT crowd

God is innocent; Noah built on a floodplain!

Well-Known Member

Similar threads