mesa

Data centers are creating ‘heat islands’ and warming the land around them by up to 16 degrees | CNN

The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.

Scientists have found an alarming environmental impact of vast data centers

The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.

CNN
Mar 31 at 6:03pmWeb
Show threadXLEMar 31

The findings are particularly alarming, the scientists say, because AI data centers are set to boom over the next few years

Citation needed, CNN. This is a good reason not to build them, but right now, data center construction is stalling:

Only 5GW of data center construction is actually in progress globally at this time, despite somewhere between 190GW and 240GW supposedly being in progress.

…and may this trend continue.

Premium: How Much Of The AI Bubble Is Real?

I’m turning 40 in a month or so, and at 40 years young, I’m old enough to remember as far back as December 11 2025, when Disney and OpenAI “reached an agreement” to “bring beloved characters from across Disney’s brands to Sora.” As part of the deal,

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At
Show thread[deleted]Mar 31
They are basing it on all the component manufacturers who said everything they produce for the next two years will be going to data centers.
Show threadXLEMar 31
I want to say CNN should know better than to just trust them at their word, but it’s CNN…
Show thread[deleted]Mar 31
I think multiple large memory and storage manufacturers publicly saying the same thing is about as reliable as it can get.
Show threadXLEMar 31

Promises in the AI space are a dime a dozen. If you’re referring to the “letter of intent” that doesn’t actually mean RAM is changing hands…

It all sounds as conclusive as the other things listed from that same link, including the $1 billion Disney loudly promised OpenAI, and quietly dropped.

Premium: How Much Of The AI Bubble Is Real?

I’m turning 40 in a month or so, and at 40 years young, I’m old enough to remember as far back as December 11 2025, when Disney and OpenAI “reached an agreement” to “bring beloved characters from across Disney’s brands to Sora.” As part of the deal,

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At
Show threadTollana1234567Apr 1
plus oracle is cannabalizing its own staff to afford some more data centers, slashed about 30k jobs.
Show threadKongarMar 31

Years ago, I was driving through NY city-ish. We pulled over in a rest area and I saw a sign about turning your engine off. I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, as did many other people apparently as their cars were idling. Then I got out of my car. I was wrong. The heat was insane. I couldn’t wrap my little head around it. I started doing the engineer math thing because it didn’t make sense.

Doesn’t surprise me at all these massive data centers are creating little heat domes. The cars were bad enough, and they are a fraction of the energy.

Show threadKairosMar 31
100% of electricity burned turns to heat save light that leaves earth. Gigawatt data center? That’s ~650,000 1500w space heaters.
Show threadExcessShivMar 31
Isn’t the largest data center currently something like 100MW? So “only” 0.1GW…65.000 space heaters is still insane though.
Show threadKairosMar 31
Oh. I originally put megawatt and thought that was too small so I just incremented the metric exponent.
Show threadmushroommunkMar 31
That currently exist? I believe Colossus is pushing 150MW and aiming for 300. But Gigawatt centers are on the way
DOE unveils 10-gigawatt Ohio data center, gas-powered energy plan

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a public-private partnership with SoftBank and AEP Ohio to develop a massive artificial intelligence data center and power complex at a former uranium enrichment site in southern Ohio. The project announced Friday includes a planned 10-gigawatt data center and up to 10 gigawatts of new power generation, most of it fueled by natural gas, along with billions in grid upgrades. Officials say the initiative will create thousands of jobs and support AI growth while keeping electricity costs down. The secretaries of energy, commerce and interior visited Piketon on Friday for the project announcement.

AP News
Show threadExcessShivApr 1
I mean, it’s a bit disingenuous to use a GW example in relation to the article, when the largest currently in operation is 0.15GW
Show threadexpatriadoMar 31
we were asked 400MW for a new data center, we told them 100MW is the max we could provide for now, and increase later, we have a new natural gas plant soon to enter operation to replace two retiring coal plants, but looks like we’re postponing decommission targets to keep demand
Show threadwonderingwandererApr 1
The planet is fucked.
Show threadCethinApr 1
I’ve had a pretty longstanding belief that a lot of the AI push is to inflate energy demand, as we increasingly add more renewables. In order to keep dirty energy “creating revenue” we need an energy sink to offset any added energy. I think this was crypto, and then NFTs. Those both faded away as soon as the AI stuff started being pushed. I don’t believe this is totally a coincidence.
Show threadEinskjaldiApr 1
You can have a complex of multiples though and they to congregate near each other for short interconnection.
Show threadexpatriadoMar 31
i work for a large power company, we have a data center customer that have as many equally sized cooling towers as one of our nuclear power plants.
Show threadtehn00biMar 31
Pretty soon you’ll just have nuclear plants just to power data centers.
Show threadClockworkOtterMar 31
Didn’t Microsoft try to pay for a nuclear plant to be recommissioned just to power a data centre or something?
Show threadteyrnonMar 31
There have been several data centers that have bought nuclear plants, including Three Mile Island, they’re going to fire that bitch back up, also the Regulators have been disempowered. Propublica on the last part if I recall.
Show threadTollana1234567Apr 1
something tells me Datancenters power needs will exceed that of old nuclear plants, since they are tyring to expand.
Show threadbridgeenjoyerMar 31

Nuclear plants to power data centers to make ai slop to make more need for data centers to feed us ai ad slop…when does it fucking end?

I hope some vigilantes start taking action against these damn wastes of space.

Show threadBanMeMar 31
The disease is late stage capitalism, the symptom is a mad dash to trade our natural resources for energy and pollution. The mad dash will continue as long as we’re bleeding humanity to keep the shareholders high and dry.
Show threadtehn00biApr 1
Have you seen the movie Bugonia? I’m nearly convinced that CEO’s are all human looking aliens that are determined to destroy earth and enslave humans. #tinfoilhat #downtherabbithole
Show threadTollana1234567Apr 1
doubtfull since it takes 10+years to get one fully operations, plus all the regulatory stuff you have to get there, and billions of dollars up front, something tells me AI isnt going to last that long.
Show threadCethinApr 1
You’ll need the same number of cooling towers for the computers too. All the energy created by the reactor will turn into heat, essentially doubling the amount of cooling needed.
Show threadNaiaApr 1
I don’t know why they don’t use geothermal cooling, especially with the footprint these things have. Compared to everything else it wouldn’t increase the cost that much, depending on how they do it, and even if it didn’t cover all the cooling needs it would cut down a lot of it.
Show threadCethinApr 2
I have no idea, but I suspect geothermal cooling doesn’t work as well at this scale. I suspect heat in the ground spreads far slower than the air moves. Since these are running 24/7, this means it’ll reach an elevated equilibrium temperature that will be higher than if a residential house did it. I guess if the footprint is large enough it’d be fine, but that’s probably really expensive.
Show threadNaiaApr 1
Come to think of it, you would think power generation would perceptively increase the temperature in the surrounding air and while I have heard of nuclear plants making bays or rivers a few degrees warmer near the plant I don’t think it’s even been described as this bad.
Show threadtehn00biApr 1

Putting on my ME hat. Power systems are designed to extract the most amount of energy of their fuel sources. This leads for waste heat to not be significantly above ambient temperatures as they have extracted about as much as they can from it.

I assume now many high end servers are now water cooled, so that probably improves their cooling performance of their system, vs the older ways of aisle cooling and having hot and cold sides of the rack.

But unlike power stations, I don’t think the data centers have incentives or the ability to extract much useful work from their waste heat, so I’m sure they are dumping it as fast as they can plus the waste heat from all the secondary systems, cooling, water pumps, etc. are just compounding the local air temps.

Show threadExcessShivMar 31
There’s 33kWh worth of energy in a gallon of gasoline, and they use 0.3gal/hour when idling, so cars are pumping out 11kWh of heat just sitting there…that’s a surprisingly large amount of heat.
Show threadEheranMar 31

33 kWh/gallon * 0.3 gallon/h = 10 kWh/h = 10 kW

But units aside, that is really nothing. The car itself already has about 3 m² area or about 3 kW of sunlight. The issue is the CO2 (globally) and pollution from the car (locally, causing smog etc.).

Show threadExcessShivApr 1
I rounded a bit (before I miscalculated), there’s 33.7kWh in a gallon and they use 0.35gal/h on average, so they actually use 11.8kWh just idling
Show threadNoTagBacksMar 31
I’m not sure what you guys are worried about. All that extra heat will just dissipate into the atmosphere and eventually radiate into space. It’s not like there’s anything in the atmosphere that would interfere with this cycle… right?
Show threadPennomiMar 31
And we would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling fossil fuels, and cows too!
Show threadbridgeenjoyerMar 31
And the smoke from the peasants fires will make stars !
Show threadTollana1234567Apr 1
couldnt be those pesky gases that likes to trap and reflect heat could it?
Show threadtidderuufMar 31
This is perfectly timed because WA states legislature ended their session this year and decided not to take up the topic of regulating data centers. Even better knowing that the PNW just had the warmest winter in history, record low snowpack and nearly every month a new mega data center is opening.
Show threadBitflipMar 31
Its not enough. Donate fire to a nearby data center today to improve its temperature! 
Show threadparaphrandMar 31
That’s a lot of degrees. Wow.
Show threadImgonnatrythisMar 31
AMERICAN DEGREES!
Show threadSwitorikMar 31
Big brain moment. If we stop monitoring it, then problem doesn’t exist.
Show threadteyrnonMar 31
You sir, just got a job in the nuclear regulatory c.ommission.
Show threadEndlessNightmareMar 31
Worked for COVID amirite?
Show threadrabberMar 31
As a lifelong datacenter tech it really sucks seeing what monster this has all become. And I don’t know what else I would do to pay the bills.
Show threadconfusedpuppyMar 31

I used to work in automation within the auto industry. Once I became aware of the damage I was doing by being an enabler, that shit began to eat away at my mental health. I knew I had to make an exit plan when all of my day dreams while working there involved Molotov cocktails.

I don’t envy anyone who has to deal with that kind of mental load. Knowing the harm you’re causing while wanting the opposite but still needing to survive the next day, week or month.

Show threadvinylMar 31
This is very similar to Rainworld lore
Show threadAntaeusMar 31

Sigh… wasting power, wasting nand chips, hard drives and for what? Aiding climate change.

But at least we can have a hallucinating chatbot.

Show threadbridgeenjoyerMar 31

No bro llms are good bro they’re so efficient bro trust me.

I need 10 trilllion more bro and it’ll be so good i promise.

Show threadjefferyjeffersonApr 1
Yeah, it’s so much more efficient and climate friendly to have people in offices managing data instead of computers.
Show threadAntaeusApr 2
I don’t say that, but yeah (lol)
Show threadReygleMar 31
What’s the long/short term on burning them to the ground
Show threadteyrnonMar 31
How could they accidently be destroyed? So we could prevent it?
Show threadReygleMar 31
“Whoops” scenario thought experiment please
Show threadreksasMar 31
plug the cooling vents of those crapfactories
Show threadteyrnonMar 31
Blow the water mains.
Show threadramenshamanMar 31
Make a drone that can land on the roof, drop some thermite to melt a hole down into the data center, then have it lower a small EMP device into the hole and fry their whole system.
Show threadLumpyPancakesMar 31
Would be nice if they built them in cold climates and piped the heat to houses and buildings like the steam era of old.
Show threadkkjMar 31
Tax them enough to install geothermal heat pumps in the surrounding homes.
Show threadEinskjaldiApr 1
No one uses in ground heat pumps, especially not existing units where you have to dig up the yard, but regular air source heat pumps are still good enough by far.