We Saw What AI Data Centers Don't Want You to See

Just because you see a heat bloom, this does not spell pollution.

All that investment will be obsolete when quantum computers take over.

the empire ic collapsing and soon will be wiped off the map.

Issue with them gas stations - they are not efficient and highly pollutants, but bc of the size they drop under the regulator...

But cow farts are the problem.

These are surveillance centers not for chat bots.

Data center ALL must be stopped immediately before they CANNOT BE.
Their intention is to destroy our country.

This is wrong on so many levels. The government betrays its own.

Well it’s best Elon gets the #1 spot no matter how he has to get there !!!!! Would you rather have Gates or Meta NOPE -

After destroying the earth, you will eat your money!? We are cooked

Politicians say they work for use but serve themselves. How do you think they end up millionaires in a few short years, it's not by serving the people that "elected" them. Besides politicians are selected not elected, the ones that will play ball get the campaign money.

IS STARLINK BETTER THAN DATA CENTERS OR DO THEY WORK TOGETHER OR SEPERATE?

So that's why they told us natural gas is running out so they can use it themselves hmmmmm

No option to Hype

These AI data centers are so evil. They harm people, animals and the environment. They contaminate and steal water. They create noise and light and dust pollution. They are being built on fertile farmland and displacing citizens and wildlife. Awful, Fight people!! Fight back.

Don’t USE chatGPC, etc. STOP searching with AI!!

They thought we had global warming, well, we will very soon!

The Data Center uses Natural Gas. Its the same gas that our own gas stoves use to cook food. It burns into water and c02 but burns into carbon monoxide if incomplete burning.

That’s why they need the water to keep them cool or they heat up and catch on fire.

Over and over it’s proven they are the problem of society always

watching this I kept thinking of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank - first the caravans as an 'outpost' then more and more until full-blown development with settler-only roads, taking Palestinian land, uprooting olive trees and draining the aquifers. watch out America before it's too late

Yet its never near elites and goverment

It's great to see that we're taking climate change seriously

So AI will solve climate change and cure diseases as it is actively polluting the air and water and causing health issues. If curing a current issue means creating more, worse issues, what is the point? Oh, yeah, I forgot, the point is not to solve the issues but to line the pockets of billionaires with even more money. They already have more money than they will ever be able to spend in their lifetime .. it’s just disgusting.

They say AI will solve a lot of our problems. Sure ok but what if big pharma doesn’t want the secret to solving cancer because it would kill the sales of chemo drugs and such. So they contact their senator who they donated to and tell him to stop the approval of the AI wonder cure. You see they tell you what it could do but will it be implemented? Instead big pharma uses AI to find out how they could squeeze every penny out of the existing chemo drug to maximize profits. Now that seems more believable. Maybe AI can tell us how to eradicate Lobbyists. Now that’s a win win for us!

"Theres a lot of secrets around these centers....."
Can clearly see the Heat Generators, Size of the Structures, the number of GenSets.
Hilarious how some things are attacked and others are completely ignored.

I expected no less from PBS.

The PBS piece is heavy on selective framing and climate alarmism, exactly as you said. It uses dramatic thermal drone shots, resident interviews, and loaded language ("dirtiest possible imaginable power sources," "invisible pollution made visible") to paint AI infrastructure as reckless plunder. PBS/Overview has a consistent editorial slant on these topics.
What the video gets right (or mostly right)

Stargate is real and massive. The flagship campus is on the Lancium Clean Campus near Abilene (Crusoe/Oracle/OpenAI partnership, part of the broader Stargate initiative with SoftBank). Roughly 1,100 acres, plans for 8 buildings (~4 million sq ft total). Parts are already operational with Nvidia Blackwell GPUs running workloads. The scale is enormous by data center standards.
On-site gas power is happening. They have (or had at filming) ~10 gas turbines + dozens of diesel backup generators. Permits were filed for a ~360 MW simple-cycle gas plant (and more turbine purchases reported). This is "behind-the-meter" generation—common in Texas right now because hyperscalers can't wait years for grid interconnections amid the AI demand surge. ERCOT and transmission constraints are real.

Local resident impacts are legitimate. Omaira Garcia ("OG") is a real nearby resident (military family) who has complained about construction dust (frequent filter changes), noise from the turbines, and feeling blindsided with little prior notice or public input. Construction on this scale disrupts neighbors. Thermal footage from her property shows heat plumes when turbines run—that's expected physics for operating gas turbines, not some gotcha.

xAI Colossus parallel. The Mississippi case had clearer issues: xAI ran a bunch of turbines without full permits initially (EPA policy treats major sources as needing permits regardless of "temporary" claims). There were lawsuits and enforcement pressure. Texas has been more permissive via streamlined processes.
Regulatory shortcuts exist. Texas uses "permit by rule" or standard permits for quicker approvals with less public notice/input for initial phases. Critics (like the Public Citizen person in the video) argue this lets projects get a foothold then scale up, and TCEQ is stretched thin by the boom. Data centers are exploding in Texas (~300 existing, 100+ under construction, more planned). Many rely on dedicated gas.

Water use is a real planning issue. Closed-loop cooling (what Stargate uses) minimizes ongoing consumption after initial fill, but power generation adds demand too. Projections for Texas data center water use by 2030 vary widely (some studies 0.5–2.7% of statewide use, others higher in aggressive scenarios; one UT Austin paper flags up to ~9% by 2040 in high cases). Texas water planning has lagged because it relies on historical data—the boom is fast. Not apocalyptic on its own, but non-trivial in a state with regional scarcity and drought history.

Where it veers into bullshit / alarmism

Climate catastrophe framing is overcooked. The "7.8 million tons GHG/year = emissions of 2 million cars" and "one of the largest fossil fuel power plants in Texas" lines are dramatic but context-free. US total GHG emissions are ~6+ billion tons annually. One campus (even at larger proposed scale) is a tiny fraction. Natural gas turbines are cleaner than coal on CO2 and far better on other pollutants than older plants. Texas has abundant gas; this is pragmatic bridge power while nuclear/renewables scale (or don't, depending on your view of timelines and costs).

"Brazenly defying laws" and secrecy angle. For Stargate/Abilene, it looks mostly permitted via Texas processes (fast-tracked, as the state wants the investment). The xAI MS case was sloppier on the front end. NDAs and limited public process are standard for big economic development projects everywhere—competitive reasons + local governments courting jobs/tax base. Not unique to AI or evil.
Health and "pollution" drama. Gas turbines emit NOx, some particulates, etc.—all regulated. Modern units with controls aren't "jet engines spewing death." The thermal drone shows heat/activity, not measured concentrations exceeding limits or direct causation of asthma/heart attacks in nearby residents. Emotional resident stories are effective TV but don't prove systemic violation.
Jevons Paradox and efficiency. Valid economic observation (efficiency can increase total demand). AI chips/models are getting more efficient per FLOP (Blackwell generation, better inference techniques, sparsity, etc.), but usage is exploding faster right now due to hype, agents, chatbots, etc. Demand is also policy- and investment-driven. Not the full story, and it cuts both ways—innovation responds to constraints.

Renewables/nuclear promises vs. reality. True that most near-term power for these builds is gas because it's dispatchable and quick. Renewables have intermittency/transmission issues at this scale; new nuclear is slow/expensive. The video treats this as moral failure rather than engineering/economics.

Recent 2026 updates to scenarios for the next IPCC assessment (CMIP7/AR7) dropped or de-emphasized the old RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 extreme high-emissions pathway as implausible. It assumed massive ongoing coal expansion that hasn't materialized due to renewable cost drops, existing policies, and emission trends. This was always a "what if" illustrative scenario at the tail, not a central prediction or measured data. Media and activists leaned on it heavily for worst-case headlines. Its demotion undercuts some doomsday framing, but it doesn't mean "all UN data fake." Core attribution of warming to GHGs from physics/observations holds; sensitivities, regional impacts, and policy responses remain debated with uncertainties. Revisions happen in science—sometimes models ran hot on certain metrics. Your skepticism of maximalist alarmism is reasonable here.

Fun fact fossil fuels was the term co-opted to make people think that oil was limited that's why the Alaskan oil pumps that were supposed to run out forever ago are still pumping out oil today because the Earth itself is what produces it companies use that term to make sure people had that scarcity mindset

The Public has the Constitutional Right to be informed of anything coming into their town or state and the right to STOP it if it harms their citizens in any way

Everything is on the computer......

Thank you for looking out for the citizens safety ! We need no more NOISE, water and land contamination from keeping these centers cooled off ! And killing our citizens with air pollution that they are breathing around those centers and killing them ! @ for Senators and Governors to sign non disclosure agreements with cooperation not protecting the citizens is unreal and they also need to be heald liable personally along with sewing these companies that are noise , water , Air contamination killing & contaminating our citizens This needs to be stopped!!!

Imagine what they are actually being used for🤦‍♂️ think

ONLY REASON WE NEED THESE DATA CENTERS IS TO STORE ALL THE DATA FROM THEM SPYING ON US

China is spreading these lies I think

Take a thermal image of a hospital, high school or manufacturing facility cooild towers and you will see the same thing. More over go into any large city and thermal image all the cooling towers on top if the large buildings. Dont cherry pick one industry you're a useful idiot of the Chinese as the want to stunt the United States AI growth

$$$

Build scrubbers for the exhaust gasses. Use ducting on the exhaust gas for hrsg (heat recovery steam generator)and use the waste for more power. Neither of these are new technologies!

AI will tell those people the same thing scientists did: We had the means to solve climate change all along but instead we made it worse. World hunger? Same. Same with a crapload of those issues.

These data centers are being created for global 24 hour day surveillance.

I'm not trying to defend any of this, but compared to what animal agriculture costs in land and water, data centers aren't even in the same league.

I delivered giant industrial fans to that data center in Abilene when it was being built 😭

Ban data centers and ban onlyfans this is the devils work

It's not "what AI data centers don't want you to see" it's "what billionaires don't want you to see"

also makes me wonder who is actually using all this AI and I am guessing it is mainly the government.