While Meta has a non-binding promise to build more renewable energy, the Louisiana Legislature passed a new law that adds natural gas to the definition of green energy, allowing Zuckerberg and others to count Entergy’s gas turbines as “green.”
As much as I prefer burning gas over coal, conflating it with zero(-ish) emission energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear is bad.
> The project entails more than 2 gigawatts of computing capacity—Zuckerberg said it could eventually expand to 5 gigawatts—programmed to train open-source large language models.
Given that the human brain takes much longer to "train", I wonder how the energy efficiency pans out — comparing the two.
The major tech companies are all scrambling to snap up cheap energy right now. The result is that we are dumping a whole lot of additional carbon in red states and adding a while lot of additional extremely expensive per MWh sources in blue states. In both cases, the winners will be tech company shareholders and the losers will be the people who actually live in these communities who will end up with dirtier, more expensive power.
I'm not super-familiar with Louisiana, but my general impression is there's a lot of climate/weather events that are gonna impact power reliability. Hmmm.
I'll never understand why tech companies choose some of the locations for their data centers. Considering a big thing with data centers is "keeping stuff cool", you would think they would build them in the northern states, closer to Canada versus the hot sticky swamp.
I always told myself if I ever became a "tech billionaire" I'd buy out a random abandoned town somewhere, setup high speed internet, and turn a ghost town into a high tech town, cause why not? You could easily become mayor and approve some reasonable projects. Sell extremely affordable housing for the buck (close to actual cost).
I do often wonder if it might be worthwhile to shove a bunch of server farms into a few abandoned mines, if you setup the appropriate infrastructure in said mines to protect your data centers.
Reliability is king. Why not just buy 50 sq mi of ranch land in Arizona for a data center complex, install a solar and battery storage system and eliminate electricity concerns for the next 20 years? Using LFP or sodium-ion batteries for storage effectively eliminates fire risk.
Have there been any formal studies looking at OpEx ROI for offgrid carbon free generation + storage for data centers? Exiting the grid and vertically integrating on site generation eliminates a lot of risk when dealing with an external utility.
FAANG has the market cap to drive down costs for reliable carbon-free generation and storage, like Alphabet is doing[1].
Microsoft is demonstrating water-free cooling solutions[2]. As long as there's a fiber backbone nearby, FAANG can slash energy OpEx and not worry about the rest of the grid. Or natural gas prices.
I am amazed that it appears that Meta did not ask for tax breaks for a $10B project. Seems like they absolutely could have 'bid' this out among competing locales.
The ecological and societal costs of data centers are hidden from the FAANG companies. It's very important to be well informed about it so society can regulate it. This podcast series, "Data Vampires" is really informative about the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm-sqZXTqq9oIG_d0P7aT...
You can find it in your favorite podcast player. Everybody should listen to it.
Great podcast, highly recommend it. Paris Marx is writing a book now on data centers. Between him and This Machine Kills it feels great to finally find some high quality tech journalism.
Yes I'm sure "Data Vampires" is an unbiased evaluation of empirical evidence.
Datacenters are not appreciably different than other industrial operations in the scale of their water usage and I'm more curious about how this meme spread than about how evaporative cooling works.
Since it's over 3 hours total, here are the specific examples of "ecological costs" from this podcast:
* Data centers consume a lot of water. The example they start with is Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon, which used 355 million gallons of water in 2021. This amounted to 29% of all water consumed in the city (they did not bother to mention that the city's population is only 15K though).
* In 2023, hyperscale data centers used 66 billion liters of water in the U.S.: 3x the volume from ten years ago!
* They quote estimates that ChatGPT consumes 500 mL of water for every 10-50 user prompts (or 10-50 mL per prompt, which again sounds less dramatic).
* In Ireland, data centers collectively draw "over 20% of national electricity," which outstrips the total energy usage of all urban homes in the country.
* In Cerrillos, Chile, local residents blocked Google's plans to build a data center after discovering the scale of water use it would require (169 liters per second and its a drought-stricken area or something).
* The power consumption of data centers is enormous and places a very high load on energy grids worldwide. No specific numbers mentioned though.
My impression is that this is a clear example of a politically-biased podcast with an alarmist and accusatory tone, where none of the facts presented are particularly damning in the grand scheme of things.
In data centers with large water consumption, most of the water (90%) is used for evaporative cooling (letting hot water turn into vapor to carry away the heat), with the remaining 10% going to humidification systems (maintaining 40-60% humidity inside to prevent static electricity buildup, basically evaporation as well).
Let's take a moment to recognize what a dream "ecological cost" evaporating water is compared to old-time industries and the real environmental problems people have had to deal with. Old-timers in Cleveland can tell you how, until the 1970s (before the first serious ecological protection enforcement), the Cuyahoga River running through the city would CATCH FIRE and BURN Bible-style because of all the unprocessed, oil-based waste being dumped by plants and factories along its course. It is an unfortunate reality that many key industrial processes of our civilization dissolve dangerous and toxic compounds with water.
Also, the cost of evaporation cooling is not fundamental to data centers. You can change things around with some known engineering solutions and the costs for it would not be a deal breaker. For example, in Belgium, they built a two-loop water cooling system that can use industrial waste water (or even seawater in principle).
If you absolutely must, you can also build a fully closed-circuit liquid cooling system (think big fridge). The thing is that some water drawn from municipal system in a little city in the middle of nowhere isn't a problem.
As for high power consumption and "climate change impact," none of this is specific to data centers.
(And, this whole mindset about climate change in this podcast is just so 2010s. No, energy consumption is not inherently bad and sinful. No, the math of solving climate change with consuming less, putting on a sweater and saving does not work. A society that does not prioritize building for plentiful, cheap, (and yes,clean) energy is doomed to stagnate and wither economically. I see even most leftist people change their mind about this over the last few years, tired of never-ending green washing. If only political orthodoxies were able to change with the times...).
Access to very cheap power in the MISO region is likely one of the top driving factors for this location. It extends partially into Texas and I've found that my rates are sometimes as little as half of what ERCOT customers are paying.
The #1 thing that makes MISO so cheap is the fact that it has the heaviest coal generation mix (>40%) out of all US regional grid operators. Any talk about natural gas or renewables pales in comparison.
No. Meta is spending $10B to build its largest data center in rural Louisiana.
I guarantee you that a lot of that $10B will be spent out of state. This is yet another corporate handout with the thin veil of "technology investment" Louisiana loves.
Myth: It has computers, therefore we are investing in technology and hi-tech jobs.
Fact: This will be built by out of state contractors, staffed by mostly out of state workers, and far less than anyone expects or claims. And will essentially transfer local resources out of the state while making those resources more scarce for residents.
Louisiana let EA run their QA from here to severely underpay people and pay fewer taxes. They courted IBM to do the same with Salesforce jobs. And now Meta gets to exploit the state to enrich another out-of-state corporation.
Translation: Meta is wasting their money and destroying an already struggling community and the environment to be participating at something at which they are both hopelessly late to and hopelessly behind in.
Can't wait for their stock to crash and Zuck to be out.
Louisiana is so historically corrupt : meta chose Louisiana because they can pretty much do what they want and the parishes (counties) like Richland where this is being built are so poor they couldnt care less about any environmental or quality of life setbacks. as a reminder , Louisiana is home to the cancer alley.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
29 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 61.1 ms ] threadAs much as I prefer burning gas over coal, conflating it with zero(-ish) emission energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear is bad.
Given that the human brain takes much longer to "train", I wonder how the energy efficiency pans out — comparing the two.
I do often wonder if it might be worthwhile to shove a bunch of server farms into a few abandoned mines, if you setup the appropriate infrastructure in said mines to protect your data centers.
Have there been any formal studies looking at OpEx ROI for offgrid carbon free generation + storage for data centers? Exiting the grid and vertically integrating on site generation eliminates a lot of risk when dealing with an external utility.
FAANG has the market cap to drive down costs for reliable carbon-free generation and storage, like Alphabet is doing[1].
Microsoft is demonstrating water-free cooling solutions[2]. As long as there's a fiber backbone nearby, FAANG can slash energy OpEx and not worry about the rest of the grid. Or natural gas prices.
[1]https://dataconomy.com/2024/12/11/why-googles-800m-bet-on-cl...
[2]https://datacentremagazine.com/news/how-are-companies-pionee...
https://www.opportunitylouisiana.gov/news/meta-selects-north...
It is bounded by Fortenberry Rd on the N, LA183 on the E, US80 on the S and Jaggers Ln on the W. It overlays Burn, Wade and Smalling roads.
https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/blank-5
It has 6 reviews and a 3.7 rating on Google. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pxXR5zxfiiBDDNrB7
construction website: https://www.richlandparishdatacenter.com/
It's a pretty piss poor location to invest a boat load of money without putting servers in actual boats.
You can find it in your favorite podcast player. Everybody should listen to it.
Datacenters are not appreciably different than other industrial operations in the scale of their water usage and I'm more curious about how this meme spread than about how evaporative cooling works.
Vampires might be a loaded term, but it might also apply as a conclusion of an unbiased study.
* Data centers consume a lot of water. The example they start with is Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon, which used 355 million gallons of water in 2021. This amounted to 29% of all water consumed in the city (they did not bother to mention that the city's population is only 15K though).
* In 2023, hyperscale data centers used 66 billion liters of water in the U.S.: 3x the volume from ten years ago!
* They quote estimates that ChatGPT consumes 500 mL of water for every 10-50 user prompts (or 10-50 mL per prompt, which again sounds less dramatic).
* In Ireland, data centers collectively draw "over 20% of national electricity," which outstrips the total energy usage of all urban homes in the country.
* In Cerrillos, Chile, local residents blocked Google's plans to build a data center after discovering the scale of water use it would require (169 liters per second and its a drought-stricken area or something).
* The power consumption of data centers is enormous and places a very high load on energy grids worldwide. No specific numbers mentioned though.
My impression is that this is a clear example of a politically-biased podcast with an alarmist and accusatory tone, where none of the facts presented are particularly damning in the grand scheme of things.
In data centers with large water consumption, most of the water (90%) is used for evaporative cooling (letting hot water turn into vapor to carry away the heat), with the remaining 10% going to humidification systems (maintaining 40-60% humidity inside to prevent static electricity buildup, basically evaporation as well).
Let's take a moment to recognize what a dream "ecological cost" evaporating water is compared to old-time industries and the real environmental problems people have had to deal with. Old-timers in Cleveland can tell you how, until the 1970s (before the first serious ecological protection enforcement), the Cuyahoga River running through the city would CATCH FIRE and BURN Bible-style because of all the unprocessed, oil-based waste being dumped by plants and factories along its course. It is an unfortunate reality that many key industrial processes of our civilization dissolve dangerous and toxic compounds with water.
Also, the cost of evaporation cooling is not fundamental to data centers. You can change things around with some known engineering solutions and the costs for it would not be a deal breaker. For example, in Belgium, they built a two-loop water cooling system that can use industrial waste water (or even seawater in principle).
If you absolutely must, you can also build a fully closed-circuit liquid cooling system (think big fridge). The thing is that some water drawn from municipal system in a little city in the middle of nowhere isn't a problem.
As for high power consumption and "climate change impact," none of this is specific to data centers.
(And, this whole mindset about climate change in this podcast is just so 2010s. No, energy consumption is not inherently bad and sinful. No, the math of solving climate change with consuming less, putting on a sweater and saving does not work. A society that does not prioritize building for plentiful, cheap, (and yes,clean) energy is doomed to stagnate and wither economically. I see even most leftist people change their mind about this over the last few years, tired of never-ending green washing. If only political orthodoxies were able to change with the times...).
The #1 thing that makes MISO so cheap is the fact that it has the heaviest coal generation mix (>40%) out of all US regional grid operators. Any talk about natural gas or renewables pales in comparison.
I guarantee you that a lot of that $10B will be spent out of state. This is yet another corporate handout with the thin veil of "technology investment" Louisiana loves.
Myth: It has computers, therefore we are investing in technology and hi-tech jobs.
Fact: This will be built by out of state contractors, staffed by mostly out of state workers, and far less than anyone expects or claims. And will essentially transfer local resources out of the state while making those resources more scarce for residents.
Louisiana let EA run their QA from here to severely underpay people and pay fewer taxes. They courted IBM to do the same with Salesforce jobs. And now Meta gets to exploit the state to enrich another out-of-state corporation.
Can't wait for their stock to crash and Zuck to be out.