Full title: Microsoft is using wetlands and native gardens to ‘camouflage’ 20-plus data center sites by blending them into nature — critics blast the ‘biomimicry’ effort as ‘lipstick on a pig’ amid a 20-year gas power deal
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A tale as old as time. Forestry has been doing this forever: clear-cutting where the public can’t see it and keeping forests near roads pristine.
Once again: the problem isn’t Microsoft or the datacenter builders. It’s the governments approving these projects in the first place. Regulation is the only fix. Companies will rape and pillage unless we collectively choose to stop them.
Regulation through government won’t do jack shit because the politicians writing those policies bury lots of grey areas and confusing language in there, because they’re bought and paid for by the very tech companies those laws should regulate.
TL;dr laws and regulations won’t do shit even though verbiage will be cleverly written to seem so.
The only way to avoid negative environmental consequences I’ve seen implemented is Japan using geothermal vents in the ocean.
They harvest the heat for energy, and the ocean (that would get heated up anyways) for cooling.
The net effect is an artificial reef and spreading the heat out further in a temperate zone that facilitates biological growth.
I don’t think there’s any scenario that actually works on land. Maybe out in the middle of the desert powered only by solar and using an absolutely massive heatsink that dumps it all over night when the desert is cold. But the cost for that would be insane.
Yah but that requires coastal development or in the vicinity of the coast, with increasing sea level rise, that is just going to require these things to be made like giant doomsday bunkers able to survive a life extinguishing event. I still question the need for these data centers.
Yah but that requires coastal development or in the vicinity of the coast
There’s this new thing called “boats”…
And data cables can (and do) run along the ocean floor, they don’t even need to connect to mainland, they can join an existing cable.
I still question the need for these data centers
We needed them before AI and well need them after…
Finding an environmental positive way to have them is worthwhile. Arguing that it’s expensive literally just means you’re putting a price on our planet. Which is especially stupid since the billionaires are the ones keeping those savings.
Quit fucking simping for billionaire techbros. Even if you don’t realize it’s what you’re doing, it’s what you’re doing. Fuck their profits the planet matters more.
There’s this new thing called “boats”…
Yah sorry nobody serious is putting a data center on a floating boat/vessel. Maybe submerged, but not on the surface.
Jesus…
That’s honestly what you thought?!
I meant that geothermal vents are rarely on the shoreline anyways, and a bot is what’s needed, not coastal facilities.
I mean damn dude, you actually thought putting a fat center on a boat is what I was suggesting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Natick
And they’re trying to put datacenters in space, too. On a boat would be less unusual.
Bruh. Attack the actual problems. there really are enough of them. No need to attack the only good point.
I wished every industry would “camouflage” their factories like that.IIRC Microsoft built huge wind farms south of Chicago off of i55 to help power their data centers a couple decades ago, part of their carbon neutral plans or something similar.
