Polls reveal local utility hikes and noise drive US data center protests, not anti-AI sentiment— beliefs and political affiliation had minimal impact on AI data center views
Bipartisan resistance seems to come from reported and observable impacts at other sites.
Data centers are unpopular among U.S. citizens right now, with projects facing resistance and moratoriums across the nation. While we’ve seen over a hundred protests against the developments happen simultaneously, researcher Andy Masley wanted to answer one question: what is driving the pushback against these projects? Is it big tech? AI skepticism? Or maybe even China? But after reviewing data from multiple polls, his answer seems quite simple: the “object-level local environmental and economic harms” that have been widely reported in the media.
Multiple data center sites owned and operated by different hyperscalers have found themselves in hot water with the people surrounding them. The biggest issue that caught the attention of the public is the massive amounts of electricity that these developments use, requiring grid operators like PJM Interconnection to expand their infrastructure to service AI data center needs, which costs billions of dollars. Unfortunately, the capital expenditure for these upgrades has typically been passed on equally to all users, with ratepayers seeing price hikes of up to 76% on their utility bills.
It has gotten to the point that President Donald Trump had to make tech giants, AI hyperscalers, utility operators, and state governors sign a “ratepayer protection pledge” so that AI companies “pay their own way” when it comes to their electricity needs. But this move was too little, too late to halt increased electricity costs to the huge swathe of the American population that PJM Interconnection serves. Oregon is the only state, so far, to have passed a law that requires sites using 20MW or more to pay for their own share, with PGE, the state’s largest power provider, hiking data center bills by 30% while also cutting residential costs by 1.3%.
There have also been reports of two data centers in Georgia and another in Wyoming causing water issues in the surrounding neighborhoods. This includes low water pressure due to excessive consumption, a drop in quality with muddy water pouring out of taps, and water discharges that contaminated a city’s reclamation water supply. Aside from those, there are also problems with noise pollution, like the site that generates noise 24/7, as if “someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room,” and air pollution from mobile turbine generators and dedicated natural gas power plants.
All of these are “object-level” concerns, meaning these are specific issues that exist, have happened on other sites, and are directly observable by other people. However, Masley also points out that some of the coverage of these issues was either overblown or only showed the concerns of the residents, without putting them into the context of the actual project and comparing them with other existing data centers in other areas. Because of this, many people have become fearful that the issues found in other developments will automatically apply to the data center being proposed in their community.
Some data center developers also aren't helping to assuage fears. Some are pushing back against moratoriums and bans, and have begun suing local jurisdictions. One town in Pennsylvania listed 43 specific demands that the developer called “too difficult” and pulled out of negotiations before applying again, with the council calling the move an attempt at “approval by tantrum.”
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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Bigshrimp That makes sense. Higher energy costs and noise isn't something people enjoy. Also causes a heat island where the AI data center is and increases climate change due to the increase of resources required to run them and more pollution.Reply -
Spock_rhp Higher energy costs indicate a failure at the level of state law and the public utilities commission. "Significant" additions to the utility load should be forced to carry the marginal cost of the added power and NOT receive any benefit from existing sources of low cost power . -- grandad .Reply -
Zaranthos If China can hack most of our government for years and basically get away with it they can easily influence our media, social media, and activist groups. We're far more vulnerable to outside influence than we're willing to believe and some naive article citing polls that by their very language often skew the polls negatively towards AI data centers is far from proof of anything other than polling is easily manipulated.Reply
We're most certainly being influenced, the motivation is absolutely going to be designed to slow our AI progress, and the only question is how effective and widespread that influence is. It's extremely easy to spread any narrative you want on the internet and can be done very cheaply, especially in the context of the kind of money being invested in AI combined with the importance being placed on it by governments.
Ultimately it's unlikely to be very effective as projects will just change locations if they have to and the real bottleneck will likely be other things like availability of skilled labor to build the data centers or fab contracts that can produce enough of the technology needed to even fire up the data centers to the scale envisioned.
AI is so quickly becoming a can't live without tool it simply makes no sense to stop developing and advancing it. If it's not literally in your back yard and guaranteed to cause you real long term problems and just moving isn't an option then opposition to data centers is probably just stupid. -
Jabberwocky79 Reply
No desire to get into a political debate or anything related to China, but to the point quoted above - I think the loudest voices ARE coming from people who are in the vicinity of a data center and are being directly affected - OR - under threat of a new data center being built in their neighborhood. And no, the vast majority of people can't "just move" for an infinite number of reasons - family obligations, career location, property costs... I mean, have you looked around at the economy lately? I can't help but feel your take is very obtuse.Zaranthos said:
AI is so quickly becoming a can't live without tool it simply makes no sense to stop developing and advancing it. If it's not literally in your back yard and guaranteed to cause you real long term problems and just moving isn't an option then opposition to data centers is probably just stupid. -
GenericUser2001 It seems to me that there needs to be better coordination at putting these data centers in places that are already zoned industrial rather than greenfield developments. I mean, the whole rust belt area should have plenty of unused former factory land that would be a just fine place to place these operations. That said, I have even seen people get weird and want to block data center development that was literally doing this, in my local area there were people protesting a plan to knock down the ruined shell of an old factory that is literally only has the local airport, farm equipment dealership, & Pepsi bottling plant as neighbors.Reply -
Bigshrimp Reply
China has around 500 active data centers in their country. The USA has over 5000+ active data centers in their country. That's quite the difference in infrastructure alone and you have to question that stark difference and the whole narrative about the difference in AI progress between both countries. Why does the USA need 900% to 1000% more data centers to compete with China in AI? Seems a little extreme...Zaranthos said:If China can hack most of our government for years and basically get away with it they can easily influence our media, social media, and activist groups. We're far more vulnerable to outside influence than we're willing to believe and some naive article citing polls that by their very language often skew the polls negatively towards AI data centers is far from proof of anything other than polling is easily manipulated.
We're most certainly being influenced, the motivation is absolutely going to be designed to slow our AI progress, and the only question is how effective and widespread that influence is. It's extremely easy to spread any narrative you want on the internet and can be done very cheaply, especially in the context of the kind of money being invested in AI combined with the importance being placed on it by governments.
Ultimately it's unlikely to be very effective as projects will just change locations if they have to and the real bottleneck will likely be other things like availability of skilled labor to build the data centers or fab contracts that can produce enough of the technology needed to even fire up the data centers to the scale envisioned.
AI is so quickly becoming a can't live without tool it simply makes no sense to stop developing and advancing it. If it's not literally in your back yard and guaranteed to cause you real long term problems and just moving isn't an option then opposition to data centers is probably just stupid. -
HuntersCrackpipe Nobody accused these yokels of being smart. Go watch these city council meetings, if you thought qAnon was way out there you haven't seen anything yet! 9/11 attack conspiracies, drone attacks, gas pipes blowing up, dead eagles, cancer, bunions caused by Data Centers, accusing Nebius of owning Flock and working with Microsoft and the FBI to surveil people. These people need help, real help.Reply -
Zaranthos ReplyBigshrimp said:China has around 500 active data centers in their country. The USA has over 5000+ active data centers in their country. That's quite the difference in infrastructure alone and you have to question that stark difference and the whole narrative about the difference in AI progress between both countries. Why does the USA need 900% to 1000% more data centers to compete with China in AI? Seems a little extreme...
We have Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft which use the bulk of the data center capacity before and after AI. We also have more capitalist competition that will drive more usage and some will argue is an advantage or a disadvantage. Even ignoring that glaring reality I would say who cares? I use AI daily now directly, and I'm probably using it all day long indirectly in my IT role because AI now enhances nearly all technology now. -
Zaranthos ReplyJabberwocky79 said:No desire to get into a political debate or anything related to China, but to the point quoted above - I think the loudest voices ARE coming from people who are in the vicinity of a data center and are being directly affected - OR - under threat of a new data center being built in their neighborhood. And no, the vast majority of people can't "just move" for an infinite number of reasons - family obligations, career location, property costs... I mean, have you looked around at the economy lately? I can't help but feel your take is very obtuse.
Locals are being used as tools for the anti sentiment. Sure there are examples of data center locations that aren't good for some people living next to them, I won't argue that point because in some cases it's valid. I see far more instances where people are just irrationally stirred up about data centers like they're going to destroy farming, housing, electric rates, and consume all the water. Most of that isn't true, or is so wildly exaggerated it's absurd.
To go back to the polling, which like much polling is pure garbage. I could run a poll and get near completely positive data center opinion by doing the poll differently. Inject a tiny bit of education, or a knowledge of the material question into the equation. First ask the person you're going to poll to name 2 positive accomplishments made possible by AI. Right there you would find that most people polled wouldn't even be able to name 1, let alone 2. Then I would poll with a question like "Given the fact that AI has helped solve problems like the 50 year protein-folding problem contributing to a 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry unlocking huge progress in biology for mankind, cut years off new life saving antibiotics research, improved weather forecasting to help with early warning for storms and flooding saving lives, and many other benefits to humanity, do you have a favorable or dis-favorable opinion of AI data centers that are clearly needed for the continued benefits to humanity?" Now, did I inject bias into the question or education, and do you think my polling question would get anywhere near the same results as just a blind question to random people who can't even answer a simple question about the subject material?
Most of the negative sentiment on data centers is driven by ginned up nonsense or pure ignorance. Outside influence is very real and like piss in a pool you can't look at the pool and know if someone pissed in it, or if it was one person or a dozen people who did, but if you're swimming in the pool you're usually more exposed to it than you think. The internet and media are both far more polluted than your average swimming pool. -
USAFRet Reply
And then you have the other side of the "AI" thing, peoples direct experience, where a person has to explain to the Amazon AI bot 3 different ways that part of the order was missing.Zaranthos said:To go back to the polling, which like much polling is pure garbage. I could run a poll and get near completely positive data center opinion by doing the poll differently. Inject a tiny bit of education, or a knowledge of the material question into the equation. First ask the person you're going to poll to name 2 positive accomplishments made possible by AI. Right there you would find that most people polled wouldn't even be able to name 1, let alone 2. Then I would poll with a question like "Given the fact that AI has helped solve problems like the 50 year protein-folding problem contributing to a 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry unlocking huge progress in biology for mankind, cut years off new life saving antibiotics research, improved weather forecasting to help with early warning for storms and flooding saving lives, and many other benefits to humanity, do you have a favorable or dis-favorable opinion of AI data centers that are clearly needed for the continued benefits to humanity?" Now, did I inject bias into the question or education, and do you think my polling question would get anywhere near the same results as just a blind question to random people who can't even answer a simple question about the subject material?
A human on the other end would have seen what the problem was immediately.
The larger aspects of "AI" are all well and good. But when the current faulty implementations are being shoved down peoples throat, its not hard to see why they are skeptical.
But this is like a non-dog person trying to explain to a dog person why they don't want to interact with their creature. Not loving the dog, any dog, is simply outside their realm of believability.