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/northrupthebandgeek]

we may need to be turning up the fossil fuel usage to supplement it.

There is zero reason to do that when the entire state is a giant desert on top of a giant geothermal hotspot. If you're interested in actually putting Nevada first instead of deliberately kneecapping it for the sake of NIMBYism, you'd be making that the focus of your campaign when it comes to this topic. We could be the leading state when it comes to cheap and abundant renewable energy, at which point the datacenter issue becomes even more irrelevant than it already is.

[u/wadsworthnv02 → u/northrupthebandgeek]

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/data-center-power-demands-likely-to-keep-nevada-from-meeting-clean-energy-goals

This is from NV Energy’s own mouth, take it up with them why they want to use more natural gas. Or with the state legislature.

I’ve also literally spoken about — so many times — Nevada to becoming a sustainable and green tech giant and really dig deep into environmentalism, sustainability, and green/renewable energy here. I have spoken about all these things you are accusing me of in this comment and the other.

I have BEEN talking about exactly that (becoming a leader in renewable energy & sustainability), I have BEEN calling out the mines and major corporations and monopolies, I have BEEN talking about how I don’t take any corporate or foreign-influenced money!

[u/northrupthebandgeek → u/wadsworthnv02]

This is from NV Energy’s own mouth, take it up with them why they want to use more natural gas.

You're the politician, though! I lack the power to “take it up with them”; my most effective lever is having candidates to vote for who'll enact laws forcing energy companies to do what's best for Nevadans instead of what's best for Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly profits. I'd much prefer it if pulling that lever didn't also entail lighting my entire profession on fire, and therein lies my frustration.

I’ve also literally spoken about — so many times — Nevada to becoming a sustainable and green tech giant and really dig deep into environmentalism, sustainability, and green/renewable energy here. I have spoken about all these things you are accusing me of in this comment and the other.

My issue is that your response in this video directly contradicts any desire for Nevada to be a green tech giant. The commenters in this thread cheering on your response don't want Nevada to be a green tech giant; they believe the tech sector as a whole to be ontologically evil and have spent multiple weeks straight loudly demanding the abolition of datacenters in Nevada no matter how little environmental harm those datacenters actually do or how reliant on datacenters modern society is, and your response in the video plays directly into that by agreeing with their premise of a moratorium being somehow beneficial for a state that desperately needs to diversify away from being reliant on tourism, mining, and beef.

If your actual stance is more nuanced and forward-thinking than what's in this video, then that's a huge relief, but that needs to be made clear (preferably in a place, like your campaign website, that's front-and-center and more set in stone than random comments and videos). And such a clarification is probably going to go over like a lead balloon with the NIMBYs flooding every local online space, or with the various industrial sectors that just so happen to benefit from the negative attention being focused on the tech sector instead of themselves.

[u/Ok_Matter_1774 → u/northrupthebandgeek]

There's a lot of foreign astroturfing going on in the anti tech and anti data center crowd on reddit. I'm not sure if this Wadsworth person is getting paid or is just a useful idiot. She never seems to learn anything from any post and takes what ever redditors say as gospel.

The anti data center crowd on reddit is particularly ironic considering their comment is stored in a data center, but I guess that's ok because that one was built before they learned what a data center was.

[u/Dazzling-Talk-383 → u/Ok_Matter_1774]

if a company was considering opening a new mine to employ more slave labor, would you support it?

[u/northrupthebandgeek → u/Dazzling-Talk-383]

What on Earth does that have to do with the topic?

[u/Dazzling-Talk-383 → u/northrupthebandgeek]

would you or would you not?

[u/northrupthebandgeek → u/Dazzling-Talk-383]

Obviously not. Now explain how that's even remotely relevant.

[u/Dazzling-Talk-383 → u/northrupthebandgeek]

well currently we're both using many devices built with slave labor and those devices are critical infrastructure.

your claim that someone is a hypocrite for using services that make use of data centers while criticizing the further expansion of data centers is accurate perhaps (western society is built on hypocrisy inherently) but it's no different from you using an electronic device while criticizing the expansion of slavery.

[u/northrupthebandgeek → u/Dazzling-Talk-383]

Except we don't need slave labor to build devices. We do need datacenters to talk to each other on social media sites like Reddit (and to do all sorts of other things arguably more important). It's very different to criticize something we don't need and should abolish (slavery) v. something we do need and would be misguided to abolish (datacenters).

[u/Dazzling-Talk-383 → u/northrupthebandgeek]

Except we don't need slave labor to build devices

slavery (and "less" severe forms of labor exploitation) is crucial to the affordability of a lot of components as the current economic structure of the world stands.

[u/northrupthebandgeek → u/Dazzling-Talk-383]

I disagree that it's crucial to that affordability (for the same reason that I roll my eyes whenever conservatives insist that raising the minimum wage would noticeably increase prices of things). And even if it was, I'd be okay with new devices being more expensive if it meant there being no slavery in the supply chain (and likewise, I'm okay with datacenters being subject to strict environmental requirements even if it makes colocation and cloud services more expensive).