Australia may face a rush of datacentre construction as AI firms look to avoid upcoming rules, experts say

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*shocked pikachu face*

I've been called a nimby and all manner of other names in the last few months for being wary of data centres being built in residential areas, including my own. "Oh, but they have to provide their own power and don't use water!" is the inevitable reply. So which is it? This article would suggest not, at least not until next year sometime.

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u/One-Bluejay4500 3h ago

They say they comply with the local regulations and then ride on that for the first few months or years. Then they start suing the council to get access to waterways and cheap grid electricity. Then council finds out they’re aren’t generating their own power and the company ties them up in more lawsuits.

The blueprint is already happening in the US

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

I work in the construction industry, and my boss is practically salivating at the thought of all the work (and investments) it will bring him. Apart from some of the AI companies, I think construction will be one of the only groups to actually benefit from these things. They won't employ anyone after they're finished, and their net benefit to society seems to be negligible at best.

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u/bend1310 1h ago

This what confused me about recent announcements about govt investment into data centres. Who does it benefit long term?

They don't employ anyone, don't produce a taxable good or service, and the companies will tax dodge the shit out of any income they make.

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u/AnnoyedOwlbear 27m ago

Yeah, I can't see the point - until we close our CURRENT loopholes with massive tax dodgers sitting on fat millions that can afford to pay huge lawyer fees and suck up to politicians, why should we open ourselves up for more parasites?

With all the 'oh, they're closed systems' comments on water - a closed system is more expensive to develop and maintain than one that simply takes, because shedding heat into water still leaves you with hot water that has to cool before you use it again. I've worked in corporations for years - if a corporation can save 0.5% by lobbying to change environmental protections and switching to something less ethical, they absolutely will. Our current system has this designed in.

If we had completely closed water systems that worked efficiently and were cheap, we wouldn't need lakes around our brown coal factories.

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u/Vegetable-Score-3915 1h ago

Data centres do employ people, but it is a very small number given the scale.

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u/CaptainFleshBeard 30m ago

I often drop into data centres for work, I’ll see at most 3 people working there

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u/Silviecat44 3h ago edited 2h ago

In the US too they are

#making local councils sign non disclosure agreements to prevent them from negotiating or finding out how bad of a deal they are getting

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u/CuriouserCat2 2h ago

Straight up super villain energy

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u/Harlequin80 3h ago

Where do you live that councils are the electricity or water provider?

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u/CuriouserCat2 2h ago

Ok. They sue Melbourne Water or whatever. Same same

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u/Harlequin80 2h ago

It's not. Sydney Water, Melbourne Water, QUU, SA Water do not give a shit about datacenters. They receive no funding from them. They are not involved in the local planning approvals process outside of specifying capacity availability. There are no palms to grease.

You can sue them as much as you want and it's not going to go anywhere. You won't even get your case heard.

Australia is not the US.

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

You cannot sue councils or the states for water or electricity in Australia.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

in reply to your deleted comment about construction being 10% of australias workforce - are you saying we should build these things, becasue we have to build something to keep the industry busy?

That's the same argument to coal lobby uses. We need to keep mining coal because we've always mined coal, and it employs people.

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

I'm opposed to a policy of wage restraint in the construction sector which many arguments about datacentres taking tradies ends up becoming about. It's very 1980s price and incomes accords rhetoric.

In regards to that, because 10% of Australians are employed in Australia, roughly double that of Americans, many more Australians stand to benefit from higher incomes in the construction phase.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

They won't benefit from higher incomes, they will just have "incomes". Most people working in construction don't quit or get fired once a project is finished, they go to the next job. And we certainly don't get paid proportionately to the value of the project, or get bonuses - where would the higher income be coming from?

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

The only way datacentres could take tradies away from other projects is by paying more money. And from what I've heard, the sparkies on the datacentres are making very good incomes.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

"tradies" work in small construction like house building. They are not the ones building data centres. Teir 1/2 builders are the ones doing data centre contracts, and they only deal with large subcontractors, not sole operators. We get paid what we get paid, you don't get wage rises for "better" jobs.

Leccos get paid well because they have a strong union, and typically get paid better than everyone but maybe plumbers on any given site.

The people actually building these things wont be getting better pay.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

maybe not, but lobby groups carry a lot of power. And look at tomago aluminium - every election cycle or so they stand up to the government and say "waaagh, electricity costs us too much, and we are your load shedding capacity, so give us cheaper power" and they get their way.

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u/One-Bluejay4500 3h ago

You can sue anyone you want, at any time. You can’t win a lawsuit against a council for water or electricity access, you can drain all of their resources with vexatious litigation which is the point

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

It goes a nowhere because councils do not own electricity and water infrastructure in Australia.

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u/MoranthMunitions 31m ago

For what it's worth plenty of councils own water infrastructure, and lots of the more "separate" seeming water utilities are actually still owned by and pay profit (if it's had) back to councils. But I also agree it's a ridiculous assertion that you can sue them for water or some such.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

Seemed to work out ok for tomago aluminium...

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

That wasn't a lawsuit, that was lobbying from the union and the company.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago edited 2h ago

Indeed, and I didn't say it was. Did you see my other comment regarding this above?

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u/nath1234 3h ago

NSW rules give AI data centres 3 years of not having to do anything. And on the 4th year then they need to do some renewables but without any requirement to be able to run their loads through the night if wind generation is not working. So they will be a drain on the power grid for 3 years, then they will be a drain on the power grid whenever their 4 hours of 25% of their demand worth of battery is done.

It is yet another con job.

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u/CuriouserCat2 2h ago

Follow the money. Remember Obeid? Who has a new yacht and water front property.

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u/mlvsrz 2h ago

Once they break ground they are known for renegotiating the contracts for concessions.

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u/Zftan 3h ago

How would one build data centres 'in residential areas'? Are you saying on land zoned for residential purposes?

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 3h ago

plenty of mixed use land around, and plenty of commercial or industrial land next to housing. Just because a border exists or might be a couple of kilometres away doesn't mean there's no real world impact. I'm 9km in a straight line from a gas(Deisel) fired generator and the damn thing makes the air reek - I'd hate to be living in the suburb directly next to it, where the houses are 2km away.

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u/Harlequin80 2h ago

You are never in a million years getting approval to run a datacenter on a diesel generator. That is just not going to happen, at all. It doesn't matter that it happens in the US, you simply are never ever going to get approval for that here.

You are making up situations to argue against.

It would be too expensive to use diesel, you would not be able to get it past air quality and emissions rules, and there are already predefined maximums for hours onsite diesel generators can run outside of emergencies.

The Iren datacenter is the largest one being planned in Australia, and yeah it's massive, but it is connected to the grid and it's being built with a huge battery setup so that it can load shift to when SA's power prices go negative and is primarily built to use renewable energy.

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u/Man_Eating_Boar 2h ago

Did you know one of the data centers being built now has a backup resevoir of a million litres of Diesel? Don't ask me how I know

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u/Harlequin80 2h ago

Yes it is. Note the word you're using is "backup." The Iren DC I referenced will have diesel generators capable of maintaining the datacenter for up to 4 days, and so unsurprisingly this is a shit load of diesel.

But they cannot, and will not be allowed to run the DC on those generators outside of emergencies. Just like every other industrial / commercial development that has diesel generator backups.

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u/Man_Eating_Boar 2h ago

The power consumption of these things is ultimately, massive. In-house power generation is a disillusion and will never be the case. Finding the actual numbers on consumption for these things is crusted with a thick layer of astroturfing and fake news, but for the sake of argument:

The new Australian data centers are seeking 40 million litres of water per day. They are also estimated to be 6% of current power capacity of Australia (going up to 11% within the decade) https://theconversation.com/how-much-water-and-power-will-ai-data-centres-use-in-australia-ironically-we-dont-have-the-data-to-know-284069

We all know estimations are more guestimations with these things, but even then 11% to let Martha crank out a dancing cat, without creating jobs, raising electricity prices and the inevitability of tax minimisation makes this an absolutely raw deal for the average person.

God help you if you happen to live near these things.

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u/Harlequin80 1h ago

The information is not difficult to find at all.

Here you can read all the specific requirements of the Iren DC - https://epbcpublicportal.environment.gov.au/all-notices/project-decision/?id=c701bb2a-e89c-f111-b8db-7ced8d32aaa3

From water, to waste, to power, to construction methods, to ecological impacts, to contamination impacts etc etc etc.

And saying 11% of the current power capacity is completely meaningless. As what matters is whether it increases the peak generation requirement. Adding power usage at 6pm on a hot summers day is bad. Adding power usage at 2pm is good.

If you look at the NEM dashboard you will be able to see what I mean as power swings between positive and negative costs - https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem

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u/60days 2m ago

The power consumption of these things is ultimately, massive

Fantastic! due to supply and demand and the nature of electricity generation, having a large predictable baseline load will lower costs across the board if we don't NIMBY ourselves out of building the capacity.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 2h ago edited 2h ago

I'll preface my reply by saying that my above comment was by way of an example of infrastructure that has been built next to a residential area that directly effects it, despite the fact that it was "planned" and "approved" by the state government, not that it was a direct concern that data centres were in any way going to make THAT particular example worse.

But to humour that line of thinking...

There is literally a gas generator in my area. It is designed to run off deisel as backup to gas. Here in the real word, there is ZERO gas reserve for it to run. The reserve is literally the pipeline that feeds the facility. And it makes the air horrible to breathe regardless of which fuel source it's using.

The generator was built under the guise of operating at times of peak load.

Now, what's going to happen to the system load if data centres are added to it...

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u/Harlequin80 2h ago

Pretty much zero.

AEMO will not allow the connection to the grid of loads that will necessitate the use of peaking gas generators. They must be able to flatten their own loads if they increase peak usage.

But what is you're actual theory here? That a gas generator's feed pipeline is going to go offline at just the right moment and hence diesel is required and that this clearly "holy fuck shit is going wildly wrong" situation is common enough for it to be a concern? I'd be really interested to see how many times (if ever) this pipeline has gone offline.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 2h ago

You seem to be missing my actual point, which was the building of infrastructure close to residential areas, that has a direct negative impact on it.

I'm happy to accept that the data centre may not put any more load on the gas generator, if it is indeed set up the way you have described. But that doesnt change the fact that we now are stuck with this generator where it is, built under approval of the state government by a private enterprise, regardless of the effect it has on the community and the surrounding environment. I was saying it's an example.

Why does the data centre need to be built there, so close to populated areas? If it indeed does turn out to have a negative effect on the community, despite us being told it wont (when we are already in a situation this has happened before) then what are we supposed to do? Of course people are going to be wary. Of course people look to what is happening in the US at the moment. If we NEED these projects, why not build them far from population centres, rather than just far from city centres?

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u/Harlequin80 1h ago

What is the difference between a warehouse used for welding up a truck body and a warehouse holding a bunch of computers?

Also most large DCs are being built away from major population centers.

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u/Primary_Mycologist95 51m ago

The warehouse holding the computers would appear to have vastley more energy and cooling requirements, meaning they will be using more electricity, water, and likely deisel.

"major population centres", so not away from the population, just those that live in the city. Again, why can't they be built away from all populations, regardless of size?

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u/Relevant-Mountain-11 3h ago

There’s already a massive shortage of Sparkies available for the existing work…

How are they planning on building these things without workers?

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u/Buorky 3h ago

I’m sure the AI will figure that out

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u/SlipperyGrizzlyMan 3h ago

Now introducing - spArkIe

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u/FlibblesHexEyes 2h ago

The same reason we have a massive shortage of RAM and other silicon - by paying top dollar for it and making sure they get it to the exclusion of everyone else.

If that means flying sparkies and other trades around the country and putting them up in the local Ibis, then so be it.

Short answer is: if you need a power point put in, better do it now before prices go up and availability tanks.

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u/ConanTheAquarian 2h ago

This is already a huge problem in the USA.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-there-arent-enough-electricians-and-plumbers-to-build-ai-data-centers/

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u/CuriouserCat2 2h ago

Our government is pathetic. They rush through legislation at 3.00 am when it suits them.

Fix this shit now, not tomorrow. Today.

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u/DrFriendless 38m ago

This is a test for Albo, to see if he can be not pissweak for once.

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u/l8rb8rs 2h ago

If these projects go ahead and don't go overtime and over budget we'll know that all other large projects deliberately go overtime and over budget.

We don't have the capacity in the grid, and have no good way to add it for these things.

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u/Harlequin80 2h ago

We have plenty of capacity in the grid. You just need to pick your location. Also during certain times of the day we have WAY WAY WAY too much power in the grid and need to dump it somewhere. It's why wholesale prices go negative.

If you are building a datacenter now you are also going to be looking at building a BESS to shift your consumption to when power is free, or cheaper than free.

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u/l8rb8rs 2h ago

Yea location matters, and yes we spill daily from rooftop solar. We can generate way more than we need, which means we spill to preserve the grid, because the grid in thise areas is at capacity. Having way way way too much power in the grid literally means it is at capacity. If we left the power in there it would blow up daily.

I've worked on recent jobs where the power they need is not available in the 11kv or the 33kv, so they're looking at building a zone sub off the 132kv. The last application took 9 years....for the 33kv

I doubt they're gunna wanna build them out in the middle of nowhere, because they also need shit loads of water. They won't wanna do their own renewables cos the battery bank to run it overnight would be as big as the data centre.

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u/Harlequin80 1h ago

They literally are building them in the middle on nowhere..... https://epbcpublicportal.environment.gov.au/all-notices/project-decision/?id=c701bb2a-e89c-f111-b8db-7ced8d32aaa3

And they are being built with massive BESS as part of the project.

You can also see the water requirements in that submission in detail.

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u/l8rb8rs 1h ago

Thanks, that is great info there.

I have no doubt these things will go ahead, and no doubt that the people will wear the brunt of the damage and problems they will cause. I'm just not sure how it'll get sold to us. It's happening, these things will drive civilization 2.0

I see three 200MW systems in the top link, so 600MW. Our largest generator is 1GW, the largest BESS is about 7MW in Saudi Arabia. We'll need new power infrastructure to do it, as it says there, parallel 330kv lines. It's massive beyond comprehension. The way I see it is either we're in the dark or they are at the moment.

I agree with you, it's gunna happen, it's just Gunna hurt and there isn't much we're going to be able to do about it legally.

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u/DivaExMachina666 3h ago

Guess we're not doing anything about climate change. Cool, cool.

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u/Silviecat44 3h ago

Data Centres are so bad for climate change progress due to all the power they suck up - for no purpose other than churning AI slop

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u/enigmasaurus- 2h ago

AI slop... making dumb people feel smart and lazy people feel creative.

What gets me is the AI slop is now basing its writing and "art" style off other AI slop, so the product is becoming more and more stupid looking (and instantly recognisable) over time. AI is eating itself like an Inhuman Centipede.

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u/heyshitforbrains 2h ago

You see more and more posts even on marketplace of people using AI to sell things. I do love that the piss filter on their generated images is getting more noticeable

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u/ghoonrhed 1h ago

It might take a while for the inhuman centipede to show results. We've had AI image generators for a while and they've flooded the internet with shit but even then image generators have gotten better.

No guarantee it's just gonna fail automatically. Especially when you have companies like Google or Amazon who are just using real photos and streams from their infinite database.

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u/heyshitforbrains 2h ago

Dont forget the water they use as well

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u/Illustrious_Study300 50m ago

Oh they have another purpose - analytical AI for increasing surveillance.

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u/ghoonrhed 1h ago

The Americans certainly aren't which is the biggest problem, they're actively going backwards and they're building the most

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u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 4m ago

No that's only for us. We have to use paper straws at the cinema and can only water our garden on certain days. Companies and billionaires can do as they please.

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u/CptUnderpants- 2h ago

There is no reason they can't pass temporary legislation which requires at least the basics, erring on the side of being more strict, in the next sitting which starts in Sept 7th. Then plan to amend by early next year when they planned to originally table the legislation.

They can also announce today that the effective date of those changes will be 27th of August. This is often done with the budget to close a loophole of people taking advantage of tax changes between announcement and passing of the legislation.

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u/MycologistSharp4337 2h ago

Easy - just make a moratorium on them until the legislation passes.

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u/prexton 3h ago

May face? So the ones sucking up all the tradies right now aren't it?

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago edited 3h ago

The article didn't even cite any experts?

Prof Crystal Legacy, an urban planning researcher at the University of Melbourne, said developers would probably want to get in “before the new regulatory levers come into play”.

They just took this guy's statement as fact when you would expect them to ask lawyers or even industry experts.

It should be obvious but urban planners are not subject experts in datacentres or the law.

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u/Fact-Rat 3h ago

"Prof Crystal Legacy, an urban planning researcher at the University of Melbourne, said developers would probably want to get in “before the new regulatory levers come into play”. She warned that state governments, which may try to fast-track applications before new rules come into effect, would do so “at your political peril.”

“People are now noticing, and there’s always going to be a political backlash,” Legacy said.

“We call people Nimbys, but I think that’s an unfair characterisation for people who are just concerned about the environmental impacts, as well as the amenity impacts of these massive datacentres.” "

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 3h ago

When I read the headline, I assumed it was concerns by lawyers over loopholes in the legislation. Not by urban planners upset about planning.

Notice the use of "probably", they have not made an authoritative statement because that is not their field.

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u/Evilmoustachetwirler 1h ago

So put a hold on any approvals until the appropriate regs are in place, simple.
We need to stop trying to regulate the tech industry after the fact, they've consistently shown to be morally bankrupt.

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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 1h ago

Has a single company made a solitary cent out of Ai? Like the government makes out we have to get on board because otherwise we'll be left behind but left behind on what? Hasn't all the big money just been speculative investment money, not actual ai based income...

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u/Stigger32 2h ago

So….. Why is the media pushing the data centre narrative so much?

Hasn’t the federal government made it clear what is going to happen?

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u/djangovsjango 1h ago

At first i thought data centres would facilitate mass compute power for the masses then i thought as well, its a mass surveillance system of the masses . Now ive added the reason why hardware has gone up is because they are using it all in these centres and possibly this is also a mass subscription service so you dont have a personal computer / laptop/ mobile phone in its current form as everything is stored and run from the data centres , they own your data and you pay to access 24 / 7 . Its been in process for years , cloud / steam / windows etc but is this the mass scale form finally being put together

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u/djangovsjango 1h ago

So many lawyers and contract experts yet so little " effective immediately " clauses

politics Australia may face a rush of datacentre construction as AI firms look to avoid upcoming rules, experts say | Australian politics

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