> Data center upstart Crusoe is being pushed aside at an artificial intelligence campus it was developing in Wyoming after failing to lock in customers including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, according to people familiar with the situation.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-06/google-ta...
Problems with Crusoe were already brewing back in June:
> The developer [Crusoe] known for giant AI buildouts announced that it had “paused” its plan to build a data center that would draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Denver. In reality, Crusoe is being pressured to leave the project, after Google had raised concerns about the costs and timetable under Crusoe’s watch, some of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/crusoe-pu...
Crusoe was previously a bitcoin mining operation that pivoted to building AI data centers around 2024. They don't have decades of experience building data centers.
It seems Google disagreed with how Crusoe was running the project and decided it would be better to own everything itself, so it acquired the project.
Yeah crusoe was a bitcoin miner, then pivoted to using flared natural gas for compute, now AI neocloud. I interviewed there at one point; the engineers seemed allright but the leadership… very dodgy.
they don't have experience building datacenters, yet
> Crusoe Energy: Acts as the lead developer for the flagship 1.2 GW Abilene, Texas campus ("Project Ludicrous"), as part of Project Stargate, managing the execution, co-financing, and design of the data halls.
> Crusoe was previously a bitcoin mining operation that pivoted to building AI data centers around 2024. They don't have decades of experience building data centers.
Didn't stop CoreWeave. They very successfully pivoted from crypto to data centers.
"would draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Denver."
I wonder where they get that number from? Google mentions a 702 MW fuel cell development, which from what I can tell will be able to generate be between 1/4 to half of Denver's energy usage, depending on duty cycle?
They will likely back out (this is infinite money glitch news for accounting) - see: similar from Nscale. No one company needs more data centers lol (you will not hear this from anyone who has a vested interest in using them as loan collateral).
Presumably the value of data centers that (1) already exist and (2) already have deals to provide the energy (and water) they need is about to skyrocket.
And even more so the ones that have room for brownfield expansion on the premises. Adding capacity to a site that is already zoned and permitted could be relatively easier.
If that's the case then China is running circles around the US. They're actually investing in energy rollout whereas US is going as far as to pay companies to not build wind farms.
We can’t build out data centers that are not running on renewable energy. It’s too critical to get global warming under control, and the AI build-out is going in the opposite direction of where we need to be heading, and at a huge scale.
It’s just greediness unhinged by lack of policies. And the voters have finally had a say.
These are some of the silliest takes I've ever seen. HN used to be full of intelligent people.
Data centers don't use a particularly large amount of energy compared to literally any other commercial human activity. You likely use more energy driving to the store once than you do firing off AI queries for an entire year.
Of course you as a person don't use a vast amount of energy, but in aggregate all AI usage does. You have to look at the impact at the macro scale; talking about per-person usage in this instance is absurd.
Huh? That doesn't negate the point? Yes in aggregate transportation still takes up 100X more energy than data centers.
Here's the hard truth.
Old economy: 20 white collar workers drive their SUVs 30-60 mins in traffic into an office building that needs to be heated and cooled 24/7, then drive home.
New AI economy: 1 guy works from home and agents in a data center do the work, using up 1/1000th the amount of energy.
If you actually cared about carbon emissions you'd be screaming that we should run toward the new AI-based economy.
Anyone saying otherwise is not a serious person. Now, of course you can complain about AI ruining in person socialization around the water cooler. That is real.
But energy (or water) usage as a complaint is not only wrong and counter-productive to the thing you claim to care about, but its also insincere virtue signaling to mask what is fundamentally just fear of a new technology.
They're doing what most unemployed people do with any extra free time: scrolling feeds, playing video games, watching netflix/youtube, posting bad political takes to websites like this one.
I can assure you they won't be going on 1.5 hr long car rides everyday to nowhere.
Again, whether this is good or bad is certainly up for debate. But if the thing you claim to be worried about is "carbon emissions" then this is objectively a good thing for that particular concern.
> Data centers don't use a particularly large amount of energy compared to literally any other commercial human activity. You likely use more energy driving to the store once than you do firing off AI queries for an entire year.
But they do use a lot of energy when you consider all the development and resource extraction that they necessarily imply, a factor that most people don't put into their calculations.
For a datacenter is not just a datacenter; it's an incentive and pressure to get others to develop competing datacenters, new models, new products based on them, etc; and the resulting pollution and energy usage from that is astronomical.
I'm sorry you're wrong. The more tasks we move to the digital world, the less carbon emissions will be emitted on net.
This is bad for human social cohesion imo, but objectively good for C02 levels if you claim to care about that.
Nothing physical we build for use cases in the digital world emits carbon on the scale of anything we build for use cases in the physical world.
And compute gets exponentially more efficient and uses less and less resources per unit of output over time. Combustion engines and humans in general don't get exponentially more efficient over time, for example.
You don't actually care about the thing you're pretending to care about if you're saying that AI is bad for the environment. It's probably bad for traditional social structures and institutions, but actually fantastic for the environment.
Well of course not. People still need to process information, just like they need to get around.
Imagine, way back when, when trains were invented, and people kept saying “we should stick with horses and carriages!” or “everyone should walk and carry their load on their bodies!”
You can’t reason about this stuff unless you put it in terms of productivity.
Objections to data centers based on energy and water consumption are red herrings. For the most part, people aren’t saying these things because they actually care about these things. They are objecting because either 1/they don’t want to live right next to a data center, 2/they object to DCs being built without the necessary (and ideally clean) generation capacity being built first, or 3/they fear, dislike, or otherwise object to AI for other reasons and don’t want more AI capacity being built at all.
My reply above highlights the unthinking assumption that data is best processed in a centralized manner that runs roughshod over democratic processes.
Imagine, way back when, before automobiles were adopted, if car manufacturers lobbied for subsidies and bought out all supplies of steel for years in advance with a promise to pay with yet-to-be realized profits rather than compete based on merit.
"terms of productivity" indeed. The inefficient mode of transmutation was chosen because I find slop's value proposition dubious. The merest hint of regulation shakes the industry like a rotten tree.
AI just today proved that quantum computers are a bad idea, so maybe we will stop dumping resources into that? Surely there will be other knock on effects like this.
Not for nothing, but voters also have a say in what kind of car they buy. I checked the Q2 numbers -- when gas prices were high. In the US, 8% of people bought fully electric cars. Around 22% bought some sort of hybrid.
Each of these people made a choice about how they were going to affect the environment. The vast majority "voted" to use fossil fuels.
I could write an essay of pure rage about how many overtly liberal people in my life and online still decide against electric over minor or non-existent inconveniences or extra upfront cost (for people who definitely aren't broke).
These people will yell and complain about anything and everything destroying the Earth, but then when it's their turn?
"We just couldn't figure out how to make the extra 30 minute charge stop on our annual vacation work..."
This is why it shouldn't be only consumer choices but intentional policy guiding production and product availability. The government should be mandating EVs.
As an individual, your impact is minor. The problem is that there are hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road.
Do you also get mad when people who are upset about the deficit don't donate extra money to Treasury?
This is a pretty typical coordination problem where people are reluctant to make personal sacrifices when they know others will not make similar sacrifices which are necessary to achieve the goal.
You should stop tying your emotions to other people’s purchasing habits. For your own mental health. And its kind of narcissistic to be offended that people aren’t spending their money how you think they should.
My complaint is the cavernous gap I have uncovered of people who hold beliefs for social points and people who hold beliefs because they themselves are making the world a better place.
Turns out everyone's a selfless hero at the dinner table or in the comment section, but few are on the ground.
A truly terrible thing, and if we were to proceed by putting civilization first over the biosphere, it would show how truly terrible we are.
That's the general pattern of technology. It makes us rely less on the biosphere, and in turn makes us more dependent on it. But since it is destructive, it also actively destroys the biopshere, which is the way technology grows 'organically'. It's a disease.
Ah, the pro-extinction TESCREAL ideology rears its ugly head. What a time we live in. You guys know you're doing Christianity for atheists right? Heaven and god's infinite grace is coming for those that believe.
The "rapture for nerds" quip is relevant for people who think they'll survive the rise of machine intelligence and be uploaded or whatever. Me, I'm pessimistic we'll survive it, but also pessimistic the current trajectory is stoppable.
You’re making the wrong argument. Making a pitch for renewable energy-powered data centers shouldn’t be about the environmental impact. If you do that you’ll only convince people who already agree with you.
I think you’ll have better luck by arguing the economics and cost predictability. Not everyplace has a natural gas field next door, and in those places you’ll have a compelling argument.
But I’m not entirely convinced that all of the anti-data center voter backlash was about the physical infrastructure and power usage. I think a large fraction was general anti AI sentiment. And you’ll have a much harder time getting people who hate all AI to think putting a datacenter powered by anything is a good idea.
Yes, like any other tax, it destroys economic activity. Which is "good for the environment", or at least you can argue that (given what people always do when they're losing money it obviously isn't, but let's not get into reality here, this is politics)
It keeps surprising me that Trump got elected as politician on the promise of introducing new taxes. Tariffs. Republicans at the midterms seemed very surprised that extra taxes affected their election chances negatively. I mean you wouldn't believe it but it's pretty clear who is the pro-tax party now, isn't it?
I mean you couldn't make this up. You'd almost think Trump is like some sort of llama, or perhaps a Russian camel (do those exist?) spitting in the face of his voters, kicking them in the balls to get elected. And it worked.
But we can't do without! Without shipping cheap crap from China (and now South America) to Germany, and cheap gas from Russia, oh and without checking labor laws, environment laws, ... normal Germans (and Europeans) would have more jobs, be paid more, it would be a lot more comfortable living on the countryside AND politicians would make less. There would be no German politicians getting very high wages from Putin without Europe paying billions to Putin for his war in Ukraine.
What is the problem with a few thousand terrawatt-hours if it allows politicians to get paid?
I was wondering if a solution to the NIMBYs is to just put the data centres in other countries like Mexico? I understand it would be hard to have talent move there, though. I mean, this sounds so obvious, but I haven’t heard much discourse around it yet so I’m not sure how feasible it is.
It's not like they're just trying to build data centres in the US. Google's building two in Finland (although all work has been suspended because they had trouble following local laws).
I guess the main problem is infrastructure like energy, heat dissipation and local government. So, why not build them on Canada or Alaska? There are resources and could help on the problems I pointed out.
tristanj | 16 hours ago
> Data center upstart Crusoe is being pushed aside at an artificial intelligence campus it was developing in Wyoming after failing to lock in customers including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, according to people familiar with the situation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-06/google-ta...
Problems with Crusoe were already brewing back in June:
> The developer [Crusoe] known for giant AI buildouts announced that it had “paused” its plan to build a data center that would draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Denver. In reality, Crusoe is being pressured to leave the project, after Google had raised concerns about the costs and timetable under Crusoe’s watch, some of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/crusoe-pu...
Crusoe was previously a bitcoin mining operation that pivoted to building AI data centers around 2024. They don't have decades of experience building data centers.
It seems Google disagreed with how Crusoe was running the project and decided it would be better to own everything itself, so it acquired the project.
pm90 | 16 hours ago
alpb | 11 hours ago
> Crusoe Energy: Acts as the lead developer for the flagship 1.2 GW Abilene, Texas campus ("Project Ludicrous"), as part of Project Stargate, managing the execution, co-financing, and design of the data halls.
linsomniac | 2 hours ago
otterley | an hour ago
MisterTea | 34 minutes ago
echelon | 8 hours ago
Didn't stop CoreWeave. They very successfully pivoted from crypto to data centers.
mkesper | 3 hours ago
a2tech | 2 hours ago
limagnolia | 57 minutes ago
I wonder where they get that number from? Google mentions a 702 MW fuel cell development, which from what I can tell will be able to generate be between 1/4 to half of Denver's energy usage, depending on duty cycle?
rooftopzen | 16 hours ago
WarmWash | 11 hours ago
zerozerotwo | 16 hours ago
oofabz | 15 hours ago
drooopy | 11 hours ago
simonw | 15 hours ago
notfried | 15 hours ago
aligianti | 13 hours ago
rf15 | 8 hours ago
Hamuko | 5 hours ago
nonethewiser | 4 hours ago
Dont forget that the US is attacking the energy supply from both sides. Oil, wind, etc. Yes to all.
WarmWash | 2 hours ago
cmarschner | 9 hours ago
It’s just greediness unhinged by lack of policies. And the voters have finally had a say.
pembrook | 6 hours ago
These are some of the silliest takes I've ever seen. HN used to be full of intelligent people.
Data centers don't use a particularly large amount of energy compared to literally any other commercial human activity. You likely use more energy driving to the store once than you do firing off AI queries for an entire year.
glitchcrab | 5 hours ago
redwood | 4 hours ago
quikoa | 2 hours ago
pembrook | 3 hours ago
Here's the hard truth.
Old economy: 20 white collar workers drive their SUVs 30-60 mins in traffic into an office building that needs to be heated and cooled 24/7, then drive home.
New AI economy: 1 guy works from home and agents in a data center do the work, using up 1/1000th the amount of energy.
If you actually cared about carbon emissions you'd be screaming that we should run toward the new AI-based economy.
Anyone saying otherwise is not a serious person. Now, of course you can complain about AI ruining in person socialization around the water cooler. That is real.
But energy (or water) usage as a complaint is not only wrong and counter-productive to the thing you claim to care about, but its also insincere virtue signaling to mask what is fundamentally just fear of a new technology.
concrete_head | 2 hours ago
pembrook | an hour ago
I can assure you they won't be going on 1.5 hr long car rides everyday to nowhere.
Again, whether this is good or bad is certainly up for debate. But if the thing you claim to be worried about is "carbon emissions" then this is objectively a good thing for that particular concern.
WarmWash | 2 hours ago
They're just lost in the sauce of the current DC fear campaign, which the media is happily tugging along for all those juicy ad views.
bemtevi | 2 hours ago
But they do use a lot of energy when you consider all the development and resource extraction that they necessarily imply, a factor that most people don't put into their calculations.
For a datacenter is not just a datacenter; it's an incentive and pressure to get others to develop competing datacenters, new models, new products based on them, etc; and the resulting pollution and energy usage from that is astronomical.
pembrook | an hour ago
This is bad for human social cohesion imo, but objectively good for C02 levels if you claim to care about that.
Nothing physical we build for use cases in the digital world emits carbon on the scale of anything we build for use cases in the physical world.
And compute gets exponentially more efficient and uses less and less resources per unit of output over time. Combustion engines and humans in general don't get exponentially more efficient over time, for example.
You don't actually care about the thing you're pretending to care about if you're saying that AI is bad for the environment. It's probably bad for traditional social structures and institutions, but actually fantastic for the environment.
RunSet | an hour ago
It's always "Data centers don't use a lot of energy compared to using a particle accelerator to transmute lead into gold."
otterley | an hour ago
Imagine, way back when, when trains were invented, and people kept saying “we should stick with horses and carriages!” or “everyone should walk and carry their load on their bodies!”
You can’t reason about this stuff unless you put it in terms of productivity.
Objections to data centers based on energy and water consumption are red herrings. For the most part, people aren’t saying these things because they actually care about these things. They are objecting because either 1/they don’t want to live right next to a data center, 2/they object to DCs being built without the necessary (and ideally clean) generation capacity being built first, or 3/they fear, dislike, or otherwise object to AI for other reasons and don’t want more AI capacity being built at all.
RunSet | 51 minutes ago
Imagine, way back when, before automobiles were adopted, if car manufacturers lobbied for subsidies and bought out all supplies of steel for years in advance with a promise to pay with yet-to-be realized profits rather than compete based on merit.
"terms of productivity" indeed. The inefficient mode of transmutation was chosen because I find slop's value proposition dubious. The merest hint of regulation shakes the industry like a rotten tree.
otterley | 48 minutes ago
You’re proving my last paragraph. (Also, if you don’t know how to make AI generate good things instead of slop, now is a very crucial time to learn.)
dnautics | 40 minutes ago
nonethewiser | 4 hours ago
timmg | 3 hours ago
Each of these people made a choice about how they were going to affect the environment. The vast majority "voted" to use fossil fuels.
WarmWash | 2 hours ago
These people will yell and complain about anything and everything destroying the Earth, but then when it's their turn?
"We just couldn't figure out how to make the extra 30 minute charge stop on our annual vacation work..."
tehjoker | an hour ago
As an individual, your impact is minor. The problem is that there are hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road.
anon84873628 | 35 minutes ago
estearum | an hour ago
This is a pretty typical coordination problem where people are reluctant to make personal sacrifices when they know others will not make similar sacrifices which are necessary to achieve the goal.
nonethewiser | 47 minutes ago
WarmWash | 36 minutes ago
Turns out everyone's a selfless hero at the dinner table or in the comment section, but few are on the ground.
anon84873628 | 36 minutes ago
It's not unreasonable to be frustrated by people's hypocrisy.
tclancy | 34 minutes ago
TFNA | 2 hours ago
bemtevi | 2 hours ago
That's the general pattern of technology. It makes us rely less on the biosphere, and in turn makes us more dependent on it. But since it is destructive, it also actively destroys the biopshere, which is the way technology grows 'organically'. It's a disease.
pragmatic | an hour ago
A robot civilization? Because last I checked, humans were passed off said biosphere.
tehjoker | an hour ago
TFNA | 49 minutes ago
mbreese | an hour ago
I think you’ll have better luck by arguing the economics and cost predictability. Not everyplace has a natural gas field next door, and in those places you’ll have a compelling argument.
But I’m not entirely convinced that all of the anti-data center voter backlash was about the physical infrastructure and power usage. I think a large fraction was general anti AI sentiment. And you’ll have a much harder time getting people who hate all AI to think putting a datacenter powered by anything is a good idea.
SteveNuts | an hour ago
People don’t want these in their backyard but also care about lot about their energy costs.
nonethewiser | 51 minutes ago
anon84873628 | 38 minutes ago
madaxe_again | an hour ago
Global shipping uses the equivalent energy of a Hiroshima bomb every two minutes - that's about 4000TWh over the course of a year.
ALL data centre use, worldwide, totals 490TWh - that's inclusive of AI data centres.
AI data centre use - 155 TWh.
All data centre use, worldwide, accounts for less than 0.5% of CO2 emissions.
This is "use paper straws to save the whales" territory.
dnautics | 41 minutes ago
spwa4 | 26 minutes ago
It keeps surprising me that Trump got elected as politician on the promise of introducing new taxes. Tariffs. Republicans at the midterms seemed very surprised that extra taxes affected their election chances negatively. I mean you wouldn't believe it but it's pretty clear who is the pro-tax party now, isn't it?
I mean you couldn't make this up. You'd almost think Trump is like some sort of llama, or perhaps a Russian camel (do those exist?) spitting in the face of his voters, kicking them in the balls to get elected. And it worked.
Twice.
spwa4 | 31 minutes ago
What is the problem with a few thousand terrawatt-hours if it allows politicians to get paid?
WILL SOMEONE think of the politicians?
nsoam | 6 hours ago
Hamuko | 5 hours ago
nsoam | 5 hours ago
brunoarueira | 4 hours ago
nonethewiser | 4 hours ago
Or the NIMBYs
The thing is a lot of the opposition is simply anti AI so it doesn’t matter where you put them.
pragmatic | an hour ago
Win win!
ftchd | an hour ago
The Mechartels
russli1993 | 34 minutes ago
redwood | 4 hours ago
otterley | an hour ago
nonethewiser | 37 minutes ago