Sayre: Data centers should be undertaken carefully

(D)ata center projects need to be constrained to have power provision plans that don’t raise rates for their citizen neighbors, cause them to lose power or prop up antiquated energy systems, as well as cooling plans that don’t result in heating the atmosphere or local waterbodies, including the ocean.”

Johannes Sayre is a resident of Lewes.

The problem of power consumption by large computing facilities is not new. Twenty years ago, I worked on large systems sold to the scientific community, often consuming megawatts of power each. The problem boiled down to watts per unit of performance: How much performance do I get for each watt consumed? Ten years later, at the other end of the spectrum, the information technology department of a small college I worked for was similarly challenged to balance its computer aspirations against its utility budget.

Similarly, commercial computer services causing ballooning resource consumption predates the current artificial intelligence boom. At its advent, cryptocurrency relied on intensive computation, and some types still do. That led to unusual system siting, like coal mines, vessels afloat or the Arctic (great for cooling but bad for ice melt).

We’re in a first wave of AI commodification. With a command economy and a first-tier research community, the People’s Republic of China will control this market, unless the U.S. participates effectively. The current administration correctly perceives this threat, but it’s leveraging it to promote its reactionary program of expanding fossil fuel use and the undying specter of nuclear power, dragging its cartfuls of waste.

I suggest this means a few things for Delaware:

• AI is being oversold with marketing nonsense, and many people only see the dollars on the table right now.
• Delaware’s public has lots of experience being asked to pay the externalized costs of business development. We’re running out of money, and patience.
• We’re as close to Washington, D.C.’s technology hubs as to Maryland and data center titan Virginia, so participating in this market makes sense, as long as we don’t sell the farm to do it — pun intended.
• So, data center projects need to be constrained to have power provision plans that don’t raise rates for their citizen neighbors, cause them to lose power or prop up antiquated energy systems, as well as cooling plans that don’t result in heating the atmosphere or local waterbodies, including the ocean.

Sadly, when dealing with business development, we often hear demands that protections for the public interest be relaxed due to the alleged urgency or benefits of the activity. When we give in to those, we get mediocre operations, and the public benefits don’t materialize. Let’s not do that again.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.