Full title: Microsoft is using wetlands and native gardens to ‘camouflage’ 20-plus data center sites by blending them into nature — critics blast the ‘biomimicry’ effort as ‘lipstick on a pig’ amid a 20-year gas power deal
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you mean camouflaging so it doesn’t get identified to be vandalized, sabotaged or protested from, much like they did with some corporate farms to hide abuse.
all this to power windows 11 AI slop, and some government mass surveillance tech.
Bruh. Attack the actual problems. there really are enough of them. No need to attack the only good point.
I wished every industry would “camouflage” their factories like that.IIRC Microsoft built huge wind farms south of Chicago off of i55 to help power their data centers a couple decades ago, part of their carbon neutral plans or something similar.
Since when does toms hardware give my computer aids? Oh how the mighty have fallen.
A tale as old as time. Forestry has been doing this forever: clear-cutting where the public can’t see it and keeping forests near roads pristine.
Once again: the problem isn’t Microsoft or the datacenter builders. It’s the governments approving these projects in the first place. Regulation is the only fix. Companies will rape and pillage unless we collectively choose to stop them.
This is one of my critics of wilderness areas (I love them otherwise). Without having a place for people to be apart of and with the rest of the natural ecology of an area it’s too easy to see avoiding active harm as an optional charity instead of a needed part of maintaining a living biosphere
Your sentence structure gave me an aneurysm.
Me too
The problem is Microsoft. It’s also the datacentre builders. It’s also the governments.
All three are a fucking problem
I mean, yes but?
Create a system that incentivizes people or groups to pursue profit ahead of environmental concerns and that’s what you’ll get. POSWID and all that.
Directing anger at Microsoft or a datacenter builder is a very convenient way for those in power to deflect blame away from those who created the system in the first place.
The only real, systemic solve is to fix the incentives through taxation and regulation.
Anything else is futile.
I disagree, all three must addressed whether individually or collectively. In today’s America, there is little distinction between corporation and government, especially in the tech sector.
Regulation through government won’t do jack shit because the politicians writing those policies bury lots of grey areas and confusing language in there, because they’re bought and paid for by the very tech companies those laws should regulate.
TL;dr laws and regulations won’t do shit even though verbiage will be cleverly written to seem so.
So there’s no hope and nothing to be done. Just go build that bunker in the woods and wait out the apocalypse.
they also dont put up for votes by the public in thier states too, so its extra layer of secrecy.
They won’t be camouflaged for long once the pollution starts to kill off the vegetation…pretty sure we have seen this scenario exactly before in the 60s & 70s…
Once they’ll built they’ll start to argue that they pollute anywhere so might as well stay there…
And still build as many as they can anywhere.
Their MO seems to be do whatever it takes to get started then finish
Yah its the whole move fast and break things mentality, and then ask for forgiveness later. Sometimes you don’t even have to ask for forgiveness…its fucked up.
Data centers aren’t heavy industry. They do emit some minor pollutants but not excessive amounts. You make it sound like there is an open sewer pipe oozing black sludge.
They will generate huge amounts of heat, both from the generation of the power they will use and from their actual running.
Yes. But that’s going to create winds and convection, not pollution. Less so if cooled evaporatively or using said wetland as a heat sink(unlikely). They might even be good for the water table.
They might even be good for the water table.
What. Half the hue and cry is because they’re a huge waste of water unnecessarily because economics.
The renaturation might be really good. I don’t know how the site looked before.
Yeah, but this article describes Microsoft exactly not doing that.
They might even be good for the water table
You do know that when water evaporates the wind carries it away, right? And most of the time very far away from where it originally evaporated.
The renaturation not the evaporative cooling.
It specifically mentions gas power. The air will be polluted and living things breathing that air will suffer. “AI” data centers are waste generators and planet heaters. The goal is to further wreck the environment and kill most of us. The rich think they can survive it somehow. It is unacceptable.
Power plants typically connect via the grid, hence aren’t local to the data center. Changing over is trivial. All industry generates waste and consumes energy. That’s not their purpose and framing it as such makes you sound like a raving lunatic. Destroying the environment isn’t profitable. Same goes for killing everyone. You have a warped perception of reality.
Power plants typically connect via the grid, hence aren’t local to the data center. Changing over is trivial.
But they don’t have to, and they don’t generally ask, just do.
You must not be following the news. Many data centers get local power from on premises gas turbines and more than a couple are doing so illegally. Put ‘ data center gas turbine’ into your favorite news aggregator and there’s hundreds of articles about this.
Destroying the environment isn’t profitable.
Then they wouldn’t be clearcutting the amazon rainforest.
Cutting wood is profitable. Creating clear cuts isn’t.
Not being forced to follow environmental regulations (hence destroying the environment) is significantly more profitable than following them.
Or do you think op is talking about companies who produce literally nothing but harm to the environment?
A 20 year gas deal is probably THE dummest fucking thing you can do. Shit isn’t getting cheaper.
Ah, but it is likely that the deal is locked in place with some kind of price guarantee. Meaning they’ve guaranteed that they’ll buy for 20 years, and in return they get a certain price. I doubt they’ve managed to get it for a flat price for 20 years, but it’s likely a curve that’ll be beneficial to both parts of the agreement.
And then any other parties not part of the deal that also need this gas, those who don’t have 20 year contracts on fixed prices, they get to carry the burden. :)
The only way to avoid negative environmental consequences I’ve seen implemented is Japan using geothermal vents in the ocean.
They harvest the heat for energy, and the ocean (that would get heated up anyways) for cooling.
The net effect is an artificial reef and spreading the heat out further in a temperate zone that facilitates biological growth.
I don’t think there’s any scenario that actually works on land. Maybe out in the middle of the desert powered only by solar and using an absolutely massive heatsink that dumps it all over night when the desert is cold. But the cost for that would be insane.
Yah but that requires coastal development or in the vicinity of the coast, with increasing sea level rise, that is just going to require these things to be made like giant doomsday bunkers able to survive a life extinguishing event. I still question the need for these data centers.
Yah but that requires coastal development or in the vicinity of the coast
There’s this new thing called “boats”…
And data cables can (and do) run along the ocean floor, they don’t even need to connect to mainland, they can join an existing cable.
I still question the need for these data centers
We needed them before AI and well need them after…
Finding an environmental positive way to have them is worthwhile. Arguing that it’s expensive literally just means you’re putting a price on our planet. Which is especially stupid since the billionaires are the ones keeping those savings.
Quit fucking simping for billionaire techbros. Even if you don’t realize it’s what you’re doing, it’s what you’re doing. Fuck their profits the planet matters more.
There’s this new thing called “boats”…
Yah sorry nobody serious is putting a data center on a floating boat/vessel. Maybe submerged, but not on the surface.
Jesus…
That’s honestly what you thought?!
I meant that geothermal vents are rarely on the shoreline anyways, and a bot is what’s needed, not coastal facilities.
I mean damn dude, you actually thought putting a fat center on a boat is what I was suggesting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Natick
And they’re trying to put datacenters in space, too. On a boat would be less unusual.
Well it wasn’t clear what you were saying, sorry. Yah copy that, that could work, but why not just keep the vents on the seafloor…no boat is needed.
but why not just keep the vents on the seafloor…no boat is needed.
…
Yes, you can not “move” a geothermal vent from the ocean floor, and especially not onto a boat…
The boat is what’s needed to sink the equipment deep to the ocean floor.
I think the real problem is, you don’t know what a geothermal vent actually is.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/deep-sea-hydrothermal-vents/
The entire reason these are perfect is it’s near boiling water surrounded by deep sea near frozen temps. You don’t get that anywhere near a shore. And even if you did, doing it 20 miles or 200 miles from any shore is the same amount of effort.
But I got to tap out here
Complete nonsense spin attempt by Microsoft.
