Astro Hacker News - Residents furious as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan

krunck |next [-]

These are projects designed to serve the US military in it's future wars against China and other "threats". Note that "other threats" includes the American citizenry. You'll be - probably already are - targets of continual AI propaganda and manipulation to keep you compliant and keep paying your taxes to support this waste.

RiverCrochet |root |parent |next [-]

When AI takes all jobs, how are the taxes gonna be paid?

rchaud |root |parent |next [-]

Same way it always has for empires throughout history - expropriating land and resources from the weak and giving it to the strong. And of course, borrowing money to finance more looting and pillaging.

triceratops |root |parent |next |previous [-]

If AI does all the work, why even collect taxes?

TitaRusell |root |parent |next [-]

Why are we still keeping these useless "citizens" around?

ElevenLathe |root |parent [-]

Once they're fully depreciated we can use our ICE gulags to turn them into dog food. A big savings for imperial shareholders!

estimator7292 |root |parent |previous [-]

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collingreen |root |parent |previous [-]

They aren't. Nobody in power is so dumb they haven't thought of this yet - the scary idea is that those people in power don't think this is a problem, which implies the normal folk like us are either on our own or actively exterminated.

If the billionaire class doesn't think they need taxes or a workforce then what does that look like? If the population goes from 8B to like 5K + robots for the drudgery then all the problems go away - no more war, no more climate change, no famine, no large logistics problems.

I continually worry that these people in power see the rest of us as a nuisance to optimize away.

RiverCrochet |root |parent [-]

Why can't this happen now without AI?

- Certainly the current population level isn't needed to support the current number of billionaires. Isn't there about 1000 right now? I probably eat more than 2 or 3 of them.

- What happens in 100 years when the billionaires have kids and their kids have kids?

collingreen |root |parent |next [-]

Yeah I don't think AI is required for above, it just pushes the question of what's going to happen if huge swaths of jobs go away. Parent asked who is going to pay taxes in that world. I'm simply saying there's a version of this where "they" don't care because there is no intention to keep the current social order of a large tax paying lower and middle class.

floren |root |parent |previous [-]

> Certainly the current population level isn't needed to support the current number of billionaires. Isn't there about 1000 right now? I probably eat more than 2 or 3 of them.

That's a good attitude, if we all set out to eat more than 2 or 3 billionaires they'll be in our stomachs and out of our hair before you know it!

salemh |root |parent |previous [-]

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pzxc |next |previous [-]

The data center project is by Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary and will consume 9GW, more power than the entire State of Utah currently consumes

nradov |root |parent |next [-]

It's not going to consume 9GW because it won't actually be built. There is no financing. The entire project is a scam.

https://youtu.be/RWoV0EXxa7c

snypher |root |parent |next [-]

>The entire project is a scam.

OP said that already when they mentioned Kevin O'Leary.

SilverElfin |root |parent |previous [-]

It may still be built by someone else. Many PE firms are starting to built land portfolios for where a data center can be easily built. So the current owners of the project could just resell it to those with financing.

Arnt |root |parent |previous [-]

Ah, when your write things like that, do you really think they'll come true?

If no: why do you write them?

pzxc |root |parent [-]

Yes, I really think the data center will consume that much power because that's the design

Yes, I really think that it will get built, because the people building data centers are throwing money/favors at politicians to get them approved

Arnt |root |parent [-]

The size of the building applied for is generally weakly related to the effort required for the application.

If you have some land, getting approval to build six buildings is often not much more work than getting approval to build one. So why not apply for six even if you only have a tenant for one. If it's the same amount of paperwork and the land is cheap (maybe you can lease the land to the farmer you bought it from).

This doesn't apply in places where land is expensive, of course. Central Amsterdam, downtown Manhattan, etc. In places like that you'd want to use your building permits PDQ.

water-data-dude |next |previous [-]

"O’Leary said the extra electricity demand won’t raise residents’ energy bills as new gas-fired generation will power the facility."

I really, really doubt this.

AnimalMuppet |root |parent [-]

So it will raise their gas bills, not their electricity bills. That's not much of an improvement...

Ancalagon |next |previous [-]

This feels insane. Does this feel insane to others?

em-bee |root |parent [-]

when i imagined huge data centers i was thinking the size of a football stadium, one like that for each AI business. twice the size of manhattan goes way beyond i ever imagined. the scene of skynet coming online flashed before my eyes when i read about the size.

rolph |next |previous [-]

heres a FAQ re:the site:

https://www.boxeldercountyut.gov/647/Stratos-Project-Fact-Sh...

heres a site mapfromthe FAQ:

https://www.boxeldercountyut.gov/644/Stratos-Project-Map

it strikes me that a swath of the salt ridge adjacent to the salt lake bed is desired.

the proximity to current naturalgas distribution infra, suggests a mulligan,made out of natural gas welling.

if there is a large salt dome and gas deposit, theres the revenue and free utilities.

HeyLaughingBoy |root |parent [-]

That URL makes me shudder: an entire county full of Box Elder bugs!

ChrisArchitect |next |previous [-]

Previously:

Utah greenlights 9GW AI campus using over twice state electricity

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47932941

Utah data center: Projected daily heat equivalent to 23 atomic bombs

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058221

SilverElfin |next |previous [-]

They should be furious. These tech companies are doing whatever they want, without a care for how it impacts others. SpaceX does it by polluting night skies. The others do it by polluting the planet. Things like light pollution and noise pollution really do matter. But it’s also a lot more direct than that, like people whose water supply loses pressure (https://www.gadgetreview.com/data-center-drains-30-million-g...) or turns brown (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48111599) after a data center is built near them.

astrange |root |parent [-]

Entirely fake. Or rather, the water issue is caused by there being /a construction project/, not because it's a data center.

tt24 |previous [-]

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collingreen |root |parent |next [-]

After watching everything the luddites predicted come true this insult might not hit like you want it to.

tt24 |root |parent [-]

Like what?

collingreen |root |parent [-]

Like artisan families unable to continue the craft. Like factories funneling community wealth into the hands of a few capital holders. Like dangerous working conditions maiming workers and children. Like a disenfranchisement of skilled labor leading to worse wages, worse hours, and less prosperity.

I'm no expert on the luddites but these are the standard things the movement was saying, from my laypersons colloquial knowledge.

tt24 |root |parent [-]

> Like artisan families unable to continue the craft

Not sure what this is referencing

> Like factories funneling community wealth into the hands of a few capital holders.

Idk how this relates to present day

> Like dangerous working conditions maiming workers and children

same

> Like a disenfranchisement of skilled labor leading to worse wages, worse hours, and less prosperity.

Same

> Like a disenfranchisement of skilled labor leading to worse wages, worse hours, and less prosperity.

Same. No evidence for any of this

|root |parent [-]

toasty228 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Still better than techno fanatics who think "everything new is progress" and "progress is always good"

tt24 |root |parent [-]

Disagree

explodes |root |parent |next |previous [-]

They have a right to be concerned about increasing power bills

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

They have a right, if not an obligation, to be concerned about water consumption and pollution, especially in an already drought stricken area, near a drying, poisonous lake.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jersey-residents-cant-ev...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/us/great-salt-lake-utah.h...

They have a pretty good reason to be upset about adding an extreme amount of heat and CO2 in an area where the tourism for skiing and snowboarding plays a huge role in tourism for the nearby counties, despite lowest snowpacks on record year over year.

https://www.abc4.com/news/northern-utah/box-elder-data-cente...

https://www.ksl.com/article/51477142/utah-breaks-record-for-...

Also as a citizen, I would be furious is my elected officials ignored the locals in favor of 2 other officials' pressure and opinions.

https://www.abc4.com/news/northern-utah/box-elder-county-com...

https://www.aol.com/news/ve-never-felt-threatened-box-033934...

tt24 |root |parent [-]

Get mad at power plants not producing more power then

> They have a right, if not an obligation, to be concerned about water consumption and pollution, especially in an already drought stricken area, near a drying, poisonous lake.

Same

> They have a pretty good reason to be upset about adding an extreme amount of heat and CO2 in an area where the tourism for skiing and snowboarding plays a huge role in tourism for the nearby counties, despite lowest snowpacks on record year over year.

How do they add heat and co2? Just produce more clean energy lol

> Also as a citizen, I would be furious is my elected officials ignored the locals in favor of 2 other officials' pressure and opinions.

Why should locals have any say whether I buy some land and build a building that houses computers in it? I'd prefer officials ignore local's opinions as much as possible, we'd have more housing and cheaper compute by now

explodes |root |parent [-]

They are going to power this exclusively with natural gas.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/oleary-sa...

It would be nice if they were required to build the clean energy but they are not.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/utahs-dat...

tt24 |root |parent [-]

Why is the power distributor failing to supply a customer with sufficient clean energy?

estimator7292 |root |parent |previous [-]

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