Voters in 10 States Restrict Data Centers in Midterm Ballot Wins
2026-11-09T02:49:11Z
In 40 of 41 local ballot measures, voters approved restrictions or outright bans on data center construction, water use, and power demands, often with 70% or more support. While AI growth has spurred massive electricity requests—like a 40% jump in the UK—studies show data centers contribute only a small share to residential price hikes, with farms using far more water nationally. Critics highlight few local jobs despite billions in tax breaks, and figures like Vitalik Buterin suggest efficiency gains could ease tensions without halting AI progress.
If any elected leader opposes data centers or the reindustrialization of America, just say you support them in Chinese. Make every reply below their posts in Chinese.
They will eventually go insane.
I know this is a predictable opinion from me but I don't agree with the strong emotional reaction against the anti-data-center movements that I've seen this week.
As I see it, algorithmic progress means that whatever you would be able to do with more and bigger data centers in 2 years, you will be able to do with the data centers we have today in 4 years - probably sooner. So nothing remotely apocalyptically bad will happen from even extreme levels of success by anti-data-center people.
Meanwhile we need all the time we can get to better harden the world against both already-visible cybersecurity issues and any bio and other risks soon to come. Science applications are bottlenecked by many things other than AI, so slowing AI down by one year will slow those down by much less than one year.
Given this, a slowdown in compute hyper-scaling seems quite net good? Notice this is without any controversial "doomer arguments", RSI etc. Even if net-bad, it's certainly not worse than like 10+ other political things.
I’m old enough to remember a few days ago when data centers caused residential electricity prices to soar.
Now .. not so much.
Perhaps instead of calling them ‘data centres’ they should call them ‘spyware storage centres’.
Why should taxpayers fund billionaires storing the data they have stolen from us?
All of the city services run on websites hosted in data centers. All of the businesses in the city run on software in data centers, all of the hospitals and clinics run on software in data centers.
Its like banning electricity or oxygen.
So....over 20 AI Data Centres proposed for Scotland, you wonder why ? Well, Scotland has an abundance of water and electricity to keep these noisy giant structures fed.... far away from England who will reap the benefits....a bit like a nuclear submarine base actually.
i grew up playing simcity (one of my favorite games of all time), & if you told me i could zone land for data centers which require a massive capital investment into my city, could have enormous tax revenue, they could be extremely clean (depending on energy), there is minimal or no traffic, they could be aesthetically tolerable, & nothing like heavy industry which is pollution central, i’d think i was about to build the richest fucking city in the world. i’d go absolutely ham & build as many data centers as i could possibly fit.
& yet, here we are, with people fighting tooth & nail to keep them out. which means the debate isn’t about the data centers at all.
Was at a birthday party today chatting to a dad working the legal side of a bunch of these data center deals
His perspective was that the politicians are mostly barking to get elected. Big tech will have to pay their pound (or two) of flesh to communities but the show goes on
Had obviously been working around the clock to lock down what they could over the last few months, but basically felt this was a hiccup and money gets shovels moving
Who knows. Was just some bloke in a quarter zip eating cold pizza his kid didn’t want. Don't do anything stupid.
The high value jobs utilising the power of the data centres can be hundreds or thousands of miles away.
You can be sure they won't be in Scotland.
Just as we are exploited to send electricity and hydrocarbons to London and get nothing for them but a handful of jobs in production.
New documents released by the Scottish government under a freedom of information request show that data centres could cause water shortages, higher energy bills and power cuts.
Sky's @emmabirchley explains.
trib.al/ViooyB0
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233
Utter madness - fueling a climate crisis just to watch AI slop and chat to a chat bot
Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity—and rising
A single large facility can potentially draw as much water as 6,500 households.
singularityhub.com/2026/05/2…
Data centers are (mostly) automated server warehouses that require very few workers after construction ends. States are spending over $1 million in tax breaks for every individual long-term job that's created. It's a terrible trade-off.
In the US midterm elections, voters in 40 out of 41 local ballot measures voted to restrict or ban new AI data centers across 10 states.
The measures included full bans, construction moratoriums, and requirements for public approval. Concerns about electricity bills, water usage, and environmental impact drove the opposition.
You don't need to worry about data center water use.
Farms use 2,500 times as much water as data centers.
They lie with each breath they take!
All over the world they claim they will use green technology and save water and power but at the end they simply steal everything they can from power grids and other natural resources!
Now that the election is over...
Data centers will magically go from being evil boxes of death watered by the blood of minority children to totally innocent boxes of joy that spread affordability.
