On the Backlash of Data Centers
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Why people are against data centers and why I am as well
I have been seeing people online think that the backlash against AI and data centers is anti-progress, from Luddites, NIMBYist, etc. This discussion stemmed from the news of New York putting in place a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers for a year [[12]]. They don’t seam to understand why the public is against these data centers in their backyards. I am writing this post to gather my thoughts on the subject, why people do not like these data centers and why even though I am a YIMBY, I do not support most of these projects, such as the ones being built here in New Mexico.
Why All the Backlash?
Whether you are a NIMBY or YIMBY, one thing we have in common is “In My BackYard”. People are aware of what is going on in their communities. We pay attention to our surroundings and to local news/projects/groups. It is my belief that the public outrage and backlash to data centers is not from an uninformed ignorant group of people, but by the behavior of these tech companies. Even if these data centers being built in our backyards are net positive to our community, this outrage is well deserved.
Fear-Based Marketing
The first and most obvious cause of the backlash is from the marketing of these LLM tools. The public has been seeing headlines of Tech CEO’s saying this technology will replace them and leave them without jobs. Whole sectors like customer service[[1]] are supposed to be replaced by AI according to Sam Altman[[2]]. Fearmongering is a common tactic by these companies to get people to use their tools. “You will be left behind if you don’t use AI!” is often heard in these circles. They may be right or wrong about this, but either way, this strategy of fear does not make people happy. This marketing strategy brings up feelings of despair, inadequacy, and burnout. I believe that while this might be effective at getting companies to push their employees to use these tools, it comes at the cost of making people upset and unhappy with the tools. It is not an effective strategy to win people over.
Defenders say that new technology has only brought new jobs, but they don’t say or don’t know what these jobs are. My issue with this is when do these supposed jobs arrive. If they aren’t available when you get laid off from your old job, it leaves you unemployed. If it takes years for you to get a new job, that is still years of potential hardship due to AI replacing you. I believe it is valid to be concerned about displacement of people due to technology and it is right to question how we handle new automation. Either way, people are not going to like hearing that they are going to be replaced.
Water Usage
Another reason for the backlash is the water usage. While the usage of water for data centers using closed-loop cooling may not be as much as agriculture, people are becoming aware of the need to preserve and guard our precious water resources, especially here in the southwest. For example, here is a recent view of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque.
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While water usage from data centers is not the main cause of our river running dry, way sooner than other years this has happened [[13]] (though it does have an impact both directly and indirectly with greenhouse gas emissions). There is a psychological effect on people seeing this on their commute across the river. It gives us the impression that our water is limited and it needs to be safe-guarded (rightfully so). This makes the public all the more sensitive to projects that are going to use our water. I will talk later on about the deceptive practices of Project Jupiter, a data center down in Doña Ana County, NM, but in short, they initially said they will only use an amount of water similar to a typical office building (~20,000 gallons), but then increased the amount to 1 million gallons/day for natural gas plants [[6]]. Even though they switched to solid fuel cells later, this caused the public in New Mexico to start distrusting the project and the companies behind it. From what I saw, their project website never updated to the increased amount while they were planning on using the natural gas plants. This lack of communication and transparency is causing issues with the public. If companies don't want public outrage from their projects, they need to be upfront from the beginning on their water usage.
Pollution
I recently read “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein[[4]]. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in how the U.S. government used the law to segregate African-Americans. One section that stood out to me was how city governments were more likely to approve industrial plants next to African-American communities compared to white neighborhoods. Because of all the extra pollutants in the air in their neighborhoods, African-American children were more likely to have health issues, such as asthma, which in turn resulted in more missed school days and worse performances when they were at school.
Earlier this week, Reuters posted a story on the pollution from xAI's Colossus 2 data center [[5]]. Again, it is an industrial plant that is affecting mostly Black neighborhoods. The pollution comes from 59 natural gas turbines, which have not gotten federal clean air permits.
It is depressing seeing this exact same scenario describe in past examples in "The Color of Law" happening in current times. We know that pollution from data centers will affect our surrounding communities. We know that horrific air quality leads to adverse health conditions, which will lessen our quality of life, as well as burden us with medical debt. We know that it will lead to things like acid rain and lead to greater global warming. We don't need to repeat past mistakes. We know the outcome already.
If these tech companies want us to be in support of their data centers, maybe they shouldn't park outside our houses and "roll coal" on us.
Lack of Transparency and Deception
As shown by the increased water amounts by Project Jupiter and the unpermitted natural gas turbines at Colossus 2, these data center projects are not being honest or transparent. I am going to give some examples from the groups behind Project Jupiter. However, I am not going to cover every shady thing that has happened here. I am just going to highlight a few.
Pretending to Be Someone They are Not
The company behind Project Jupiter initially was Acoma LLC. Acoma is one of the pueblos of New Mexico, so they are involved or in support of this project, correct? It turns out, no, they don’t have anything to do with it and disapprove of their name being used to market the project. Acoma LLC later changed their name to Yucca Growth Infrastructure[[7]].
Spammed Public Comment
Rumors began to spread online on Reddit and Instagram about paid advocates for Project Jupiter going around public places. In addition, people began noticing that there were many repeat comments on the public comment form hosted by New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) for the new air permits on the solid fuel cells, which were suspected to be from bots.
Source NM first reported that there were at least three people in three different cities here in New Mexico that had comments posted in support of the air permit, but had not actually submitted the comments [[8]]. It wasn't just regular folk, but also government officials. Both Rep. Christina Parajón and Albuquerque City Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn found comments in their name that they did not submit [[9]]. Below shows the most common submitted comment.
I decided to take a look at all the public comments and see the how many of the above comment was posted. So I downloaded all the comments and compared the above comment with the rest of the comments. The below figure shows a histogram grouping the comments by how similar to the spammed comment.
This comparison found that 8949 comments were > 90% similar to the spammed comment. 8726 of those comments were > 99% similar. That is more than half of the comments!
While I don't have evidence that it was the companies behind Project Jupiter responsible for this spamming, it does not help there case with the public that some one or some people are impersonating us and our leaders. Hopefully, the investigation started by the NM AG will find out and punish those responsible.
I plan on going in more detail on my analysis of the public comments in a future post.
Jobs Promised
On the project website [[10]], as stated in the spam comment, 4,000 construction jobs and 1,500 on-going jobs at the center were promised. However, according to court fillings, only 2,500 construction jobs and 800 on-going jobs are anticipated to be created [[11]]. So what is the real number? Again, the numbers keep changing and no one knows what to believe.
Annie Ersinghaus, a local of Las Cruces, NM, posted a video ~two weeks ago showing the parking lot at the project site [[14]]. At around the one minute mark, she shows how many Texas license plates are there. At least from what she shows, most are from Texas. If most of the construction jobs are going to Texans, even though El Paso is near by, this will further upset the public that these alleged 4,000 jobs are going out of state.
Conclusion
With how AI is being marketed to the masses, how taxing they are turning out to be on the environment, and just how poorly they are treating the public, it is no wonder these data centers are controversial. A few bad apples spoils the whole bunch and so people are pushing back against them by pushing their politicians to enact moratoriums like in New York. If they want to stop the public outcries about their projects, they need to start actually building better relationships with the public and becoming better stewards of our land. Dealing with the public can be annoying and can prevent progress at times, but in this case, I believe the public have good reasons to be upset.
[[1]]: On trying to sign up for BeeHiiv, it would not allow me to create an account with a Proton Mail email address. I had to use a Gmail account. I tried using Buzz, their AI assistant, to get help, but it was no help at all. It said to create a support ticket and that Buzz could do this for me, but every time I asked, it said to use Buzz to create a ticket??? Aren’t I using Buzz right now??? I gave up on the assistant and just used an old Gmail account. Yay for people being replaced!
[[2]]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/22/openai-sam-altman-congress-ai-jobs
[[3]]: Photo from https://icmglt.org/rio-grande-runs-dry-in-albuquerque-for-the-first-time-in-40-years/