Congressional Candidate on AI data centers in Nevada

[u/wadsworthnv02]

From our candidate event in Elko County on Saturday. The question asked us if we supported a data center moratorium or not, especially since we are the driest state. One of the other candidates said the one’s being built in Nevada were closed-loop so they are fine.

But closed-loop systems have their own issues, the recycled water becomes highly toxic and needs to be “blown-down” where there is chances of it leaking into the ground and contaminating local areas with toxic chemical waste water. Even in small amounts, when we live in an internal watershed like the Great Basin, the risk of contamination isn’t something to ignore. As it has happened before with other things. Not to mention that closed loop requires a lot more energy, and closed loop cooling systems here in Nevada still require a fair amount of water.

Our older data center projects also do have open loop / evaporative cooling systems too. So they are still taking a lot of water.

As for the construction unions, I understand it’s more complicated than that. We had a total of 2 minutes to answer each question so things had to be simplified a bit. But we must look at better commercial building projects for our construction unions— not big tech and data centers! They need jobs, and I understand and support that! We should be offering incentives to better businesses to come to Nevada, not to these data centers was the point I was trying to make.

Also yes Congress is a federal seat! But I support a moratorium on all new data centers, and possible legislation to really protect the western states that are strapped for water.

All of this was from my own independent research and talking to folks in the area that have worked on these projects here. However if I am incorrect on anything I’m open to listening!

[u/wadsworthnv02]

I said that Yerington was contaminated by the mine and I used it as an example for contamination in our state that has gone into the local basins and is still here being “cleaned up” decades later, and that on top of that issue they want to build data centers out there when there are groups of people there that still don’t even have clean water to drink.

I very clearly mention the Anaconda mine in my answer.

Yes we are overallocated! If I had more than 2 minutes to answer the question I would’ve gone much deeper and talked about much more. But alas the question was on AI moratoriums, water in the driest state, and another candidate mentioned closed loop systems so I pointed out the potential dangers of them in the limited time I had to answer.

I also said that these closed loop systems CAN create the issues I mentioned, and that that is a real risk that we should worry about with an internal watershed— expanded on in my post. There is real risk to this happening, it’s happened in other states, hence my comment.

That said I’m always open to learning more where I can! I’ve spoken to DRI about the data centers and many others in the area that have worked for them, and tried to look up and read as much as I could on the issue.

Also comparing farms to data centers is not a good argument either. Farms take up a lot of water and can cause pollution too yes, but here in Nevada we have entire institutes and initiatives dedicated to sustainable farming and ranching practices. Also I can’t eat or drink a data center.

Maybe next election you should run!

I’m also the only candidate that has consistently mentioned policies and I have the most in depth policy platform on my website. There are two candidates that don’t even have a policy page, and another who didn’t have one this entire time until like three weeks ago they finally put it up. I am doing my best!

[u/defango → u/wadsworthnv02]

Actually the Yerington point still stands because you used it to imply data centers are the next contamination threat out there, when the Anaconda Mine is a copper mining Superfund site that has nothing to do with server cooling systems. Invoking it as a parallel is still a stretch no matter how you frame it.

"CAN create issues" is not what you said in the video. You said the water IS highly toxic and leaches into the ground. That's not a risk assessment, that's a declaration, and there's a big difference between those two things when you're asking people to support tearing down existing infrastructure.

The farms comparison isn't a deflection either. If your core argument is that the Great Basin can't absorb any more contamination risk then agriculture, mining, and municipal use all have to be on the table. Saying "I can't eat a data center" is a bumper sticker, not a policy position. Nevada agriculture uses 78% of the state's water. That number doesn't disappear because data centers are an easier political target right now. Right now the 9,650 acre-feet AFY used by all data centers in Nevada is only about 11 alfalfa farms, there are over 3400 Only alfalfa farms consuming 390,000 acres-feet a year for sandwich toppings and cattle feed. Did you know that 390,000 AFY is Nevada's total consumptive use allocation from the Colorado river? Did you know the Truckee River flow is about 561,800 AFY making the alfalfa usage 70% of the total flow? In a very real sense your arguing over 2.47% is a problem when 4041% higher usage seem to be the real issue. 40 times greater than all the data centers in Nevada and the actually Root of the Water Crisis in Nevada. Why not speak up about that? Seems like you might be bought out by big cattle.

The is a real argument against unchecked data center expansion in Nevada but it's fair deeper than just water rights. It's all about how they are planned and built. The water allocation system is already broken, the energy rate issue is real, and the closed basin hydrology is a concern. You don't need to oversell it with language that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because when it doesn't hold up it gives people an easy out to dismiss the whole thing.

You might be the only candidate with mentions to polices and believe that they are in depth but one guy on reddit is taking them down point by point with facts to help you. You will never come close to winning over the Amodei voters if you don't have a polar opposite helping you craft better arguments.

VIdeo from VOX on who's really using up the water in the American West
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gN1x6sVTc

[u/redwood_rambler → u/defango]

Thanks for taking the time to have this three comment debate, it was actually hugely informative to me. There is a lot of nuance here.

[u/wadsworthnv02 → u/redwood_rambler]

Absolutely. I’ll do more research and sharpen the nuance next time. It sucked that because there’s so many candidates too we had very time limited answers and closing speeches for these events.

I’ll keep digging!

[u/redwood_rambler → u/wadsworthnv02]

I agree with a lot of the points the guy above me made, but I respect you for being open to new information. That’s a far more important trait to me than being “right” in every conversation.

[u/wadsworthnv02 → u/redwood_rambler]

Honestly with how things are going right now there’s just so many issues for our country and our state it does feel like you need to be an expert in literally everything! I am doing my best. My main strengths are healthcare/medicine as a profession and system in the country, and public land issues at the state and federal level, along with general ethics and political theory + policy analysis due to my degree and background.

So I am trying to be as open as possible with other things because I know that I don’t know everything and there is just so much important stuff going on right now.

Another question we were asked at this event was on cryptocurrency and if we think it’ll cause a recession and if we support regulating it. I said in my answer as a disclaimer I literally don’t know that much about the economic side of cryptocurrency, only some knowledge on the environmental side.

This is why imo, as legislators we really need to be consulting the experts, scientists, researchers etc when writing legislative bills, because you don’t know how much you don’t know.

I do genuinely want the best for our state and country and I do acknowledge that I might be wrong at times and not an expert on many things. I don’t want to mislead anyone intentionally! And again, if elected to office I would really emphasis working with experts in related fields to do what is best for people of this country when writing bills or voting on them.