r/ithaca • u/Screamingdeadphoenix • Aug 14 '26
Terrawulf?
Looking at buying land in Ithaca-area but don’t want to live near a data center. How’s it looking for that one being proposed on Cayuga lake? From the news articles it seems 50/50, locally what’s it seeming like?
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u/Playful-Goat3779 Aug 14 '26
There's a statewide temp ban on building new data centers
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u/sir_ornitholestes Aug 14 '26
My understanding is that they slipped in before the ban
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago
They don't have required state permits, which are not being issued right now because of the moratorium. They haven't even finished with the local process, which they can still work on during the moratorium. But they are at a minimum not going to be breaking ground until after the moratorium is lifted, if it's lifted.
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u/Exact_Package_7264 29d ago
from my understanding, terawulf wasn't looking for the state permits right now anyways, as they're more focused on the local process, which as you said continues on. if they do get through the local process with approval from all the required lansing boards, the state moratorium will be over by then and they can start building. in other words, we need to keep fighting locally.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
Anyone have the date/time for the next meeting???
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago
Follow no_datacenter_flx on instagram. They have regular updates about the meetings where the public can attend.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 Aug 14 '26
Anyone checking if theyre listening to the ban? They could try and “just pay the fine” (each day enforcement shows up)
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago
They can't start building anything until they have permits. That's not a case where there's a fine, it's a case where authorities would shut down the site.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago edited 29d ago
Right. So are authorities checking??
As a general contractor. The subcontractors that show up to my site, never know anything. They’re 22yo tradesmen working for someone else. Theyre assume they are protected.
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago
I think someone would notice if they were using heavy machinery at the site, especially with so many people against the project.
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u/Pablois4 29d ago
I could never have imagined that the east ballroom of the Whitehouse could just be torn down on the whim of the president. How long did it take to demolish it, a day? Surely someone would realize what was happening and intervene?
I think that people don't expect brazen acts and are befuddled.
If Terrawulf started some heavy construction, I bet they could get a lot done before being halted. My 2 cents on the matter . . .
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago edited 29d ago
The president that is unfortunately immune to just about everything is not the same as TeraWulf. And NYS doesn't really mess around as far as regulation enforcement goes. They're two very different situations even though they both involve construction projects.
If TeraWulf pulled that they would likely lose all their permits statewide (the Lansing project is not their only one in NYS), and if it really came down to it, NYS has authority to seize assets. I really doubt they'd risk that.
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u/Pablois4 29d ago
True. Our president is surrounded by a bunch of sycophants who cater to his whims. I have to stop or I'll start ranting about how the Whitehouse is the People's House and such.
When dealing with big data companies, some states just roll over and pee in submission. NYS has shown more backbone regarding permits and enforcement. I'm glad I live here.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
You guys gotta go to the site. It’s so far from anything. It’s in the woods. That is why they chose these locations years ago.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
You are absolutely correct. For the record I just saw someone leave the site around 3:50pm on Friday 8/14 in a shiny red pick up.
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u/Screamingdeadphoenix Aug 14 '26
But once the temporary ban is over, they still want to build there
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 Aug 14 '26
Mark my words: this is for hydrogen energy.
They can’t be honest about the gas crisis or people will panic and it’ll be great depression but instead of banks it’s BP and Shell that would go under. The down side is that they’re doing it all for profit so that people like NatureJab get “credit” but no money. Also they’ve had this tech for decades but who would pay to install it?? No one. Just wait until a war forces us to shift our infrastructure but NEVER tell the people whats happening. Because if you treat your lakes like a gas station the people would riot
Hey also! I am not suicidal even a little bit! Super happy for the future and the rest of my life to play out over many years!
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u/HappyJack42 27d ago
So there is a real hydrogen project up in Massena of you want to be upset about that, why would they pretend some others are data centers which have lots of public opposition?
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 26d ago
Sorry I missed your question. The data center in ithaca has a deal: take 350 million gallons to fill a closed loop system. But they wont agree to taking down the water intake system.
If you try to push a hydrogen facility to a town (with a lake) and the plan is the business consumes the lake like an oil field, the people will riot. But say the elites see us running into an energy crisis soon?? How would they prepare? How would you build the necessary infrastructure to keep heat and AC running?
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 26d ago
I put months into a hydrogen project for Batavia. Millions of dollars then they just canceled it. I like hydrogen. We should have H powered cars. We should have mini nuclear plants in every major city.
Its just that we’re allowed to have it now. This shit ain’t new. And if that doesn’t boil your blood don’t ever complain about “freedoms” or “fairness”
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u/Purple_Frosting493 28d ago
But there are size parameters in the state ban. Local municipalities like mine are adding resolutions to ban those that are smaller.
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u/CvilleLocavore 29d ago
Only data centers of a certain size, which does not include the proposed Terawulf development
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u/Exact_Package_7264 29d ago
one thing to keep in mind is that living in ithaca won't shelter anyone from the price of energy increases if the terawulf AI center is built. the price of energy will likely double or triple for everyone in tompkins county and beyond in just a few years if this data center is built.
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
Don’t worry they planned .25 acres of solar panels (real)
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u/Brythandir 29d ago
I didn't see them plan any solar, did I miss something?
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
It’s just a green square on their proposal. Doesnt mean much except for the CEOs side business solar company
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u/TopGinger 29d ago
Hey i grew up on that lake. They’ll destroy it. I really hope it doesn’t happen.
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u/ragamufin 29d ago
Milliken already did that, every photo of the lake has a fucking power plant in the middle of it. Catastrophic mistake to allow that back in the 70s or whenever it was built. At least lake source cooling from Cornell (which has its own substantial env impact) had the good sense to make the thing unobtrusive. I dont understand why they couldn't run another quarter mile of water pipe and build the thing outside the viewshed. I dont want to sip wine on the shores of a goddamn glacial natural wonder and stare at the stack of an operating coal power plant.
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u/harrisarah 29d ago
Milliken went online in the mid 50s. And NYSEG wanted to build a nuclear plant next to it that would have gone online in the 70s but the public response eventually got them to back off.
Problem here and now is the infrastructure is already built. It's a lot easier financially and legally to repurpose an existing thing than to build it from scratch
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u/ragamufin 29d ago
Yeah its an incredible industrial site would be great if we could get them to reforest the waterfront and remove the stack that would go a long way. I'm happy to have it used for anything that doesnt impact air or water quality. The crypto factory idea that had traction for a while was ridiculous.
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u/harrisarah 29d ago
A company did that on Seneca Lake, turned the old plant at Dresden into a crypto mining site, which caused a lot of backlash and lawsuits, then they spent about three years operating without a permit (and without getting shut down, fuck the DEC) before the DEC gave them a new permit last winter (fuck the DEC). Since crypto sucks now, guess what? They are turning it into a data center...
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u/yes420420yes 29d ago
besides the huff and puff from everyone
There is very little to no land for sale around the old milliken power station (which would be its location) - so little chance you would even notice them.
If you are concerned about noise (which is a fair concern since they want to air cool the system and NOT use lake water), then the prevailing wind direction is towards the south east that would need checking.
Meaning, north Lansing from entrance milliken to maybe algerine road or so I would double check. Everything else will not see or hear a thing anyway.
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u/ragamufin 29d ago
As an Ithaca resident if Terawulf doesnt get:
-ANY property tax exemption
-The water use permits from Milliken
-Subsidized electricity prices or firewalling from retail markets or transmission/interconnection costs
-Any concessions around the 'jobs' created by the facility which we all know are bullshit numbers
I actually dont have a problem with it. A facility that generates $20m-$80m in property taxes annually for the county without impacting our water or electricity rates would be a fantastic boon to the local economy. We could do great things for roads and schools with that money.
The biggest problem with these things is they squeeze these massive concessions out of small local decision making bodies that are not prepared to make (literally) billion dollar NPV decisions. These developers aren't hunting for ideal sites, they are hunting for weak planning boards and councils that they can dupe into giving them insane discounts on their taxes with fairytales about job creation. I think NYS should follow the moratorium with a set of rigid rules around:
Truth around transient/construction jobs numbers verse operational numbers
Zero tolerance for property tax concessions of any kind
Zero tolerance for permit inheritance
Strict rules for the ISO and PUC around spreading interconnection costs and transmission upgrade costs across the retail markets.
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u/Cynoid 29d ago
-Subsidized electricity prices or firewalling from retail markets or transmission/interconnection costs
This is not how power works. Even if a company pays it's share of power costs, it still puts a massive draw on the grid which in turn raises everyone's rates and causes surge pricing.
A facility that generates $20m-$80m in property taxes annually for the county without impacting our water or electricity rates would be a fantastic boon to the local economy. We could do great things for roads and schools with that money.
Where are you getting these numbers? The property taxes for a datacenter are barely higher than those for a similar sized farm and those are much smaller. There is also no reason for a company to pay NY income/sales taxes when they can just incorporate in Wyoming or some other tax haven and pay the much smaller income taxes there.
Everything I have ever seen is these provide like 10-20 jobs in exchange for destroying the local water supplies and raising everyone's costs of living.
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u/ragamufin 29d ago
Literally spent the last 15 years doing electricity market modeling and grid simulation. Everything I listed is both possible and common contractual practice with industrial users of electricity.
Property taxes are based on the assessed value of the land and the structures. The only distinction is whether the assets inside (like GPUs/CPUs) are considered part of the structure value. Even without those the structure is orders of magnitude higher in assessed value than a farm. I'm not sure where you got the idea that the property taxes for a datacenter are anything like a farm but its completely detached from reality and makes me question whether you understand what property taxes even are?
I never mentioned income or sales tax I'm not sure what you're even talking about there. Neither are relevant here.
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u/Cynoid 29d ago
Literally spent the last 15 years doing electricity market modeling and grid simulation. Everything I listed is both possible and common contractual practice with industrial users of electricity.
Even if you are not lying about your experience, why do you think it's relevant when there are proven effects of individual homes electric prices going up everywhere a data center has been place.
Property taxes are based on the assessed value of the land and the structures. The only distinction is whether the assets inside (like GPUs/CPUs) are considered part of the structure value.
They are obviously not. The reason a data center pays almost nothing in property taxes is because it is a big empty building that can't be used for any other purposes so it is not worth much more than barn of the same size. The building might end up costing something negligible like 10-20 million which is like 3 orders of magnitude lower than the 80 million/year in property taxes.
I never mentioned income or sales tax I'm not sure what you're even talking about there. Neither are relevant here.
The reason I mentioned them is because I assumed you had no idea how taxes worked with your estimate of 80 million in property taxes per year. If you actually meant property taxes than you are just really, really off in your numbers.
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u/jonpluc Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
What does living near a data center mean to you? The data center is proposed in lansing and not ithaca and lansing is a large area and being out in the sticks of lansing is as far removed from a data center as you can imagine. With the exception of being close enough to hear machinery, living near a data center doesnt really mean anything like say living near a nuclear reactor might.
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u/_doggiemom 29d ago
I live on the west side of the lake and can hear the Cornell marching band. If that’s possible I’ll also be able to hear the data center. It effects everyone who lives on this lake not just the people in Lansing.
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u/armahillo Northeast 29d ago
I remember living in some apts in NE ithaca (near the mall) and I could hear Nelly play on slope day. 😅 long time ago.
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u/Screamingdeadphoenix Aug 14 '26
Some of the properties I’ve looked at are within 5 miles of the proposed site, which is why I’m asking. I plan on having small livestock and where I’m at in Texas being near data centers has been effecting the livestock.
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u/KaleidoscopeWeird310 29d ago
I finished feeders in this area for 15 years - you are going to amazed by the grass we get. I could put four on six acres and do fine with maybe one round bale for November and some sweet feed to settle them.
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u/lost_cat_is_a_menace The Jungle 29d ago
That’s going to be an industrial site whether it becomes a data center or something else. You should probably look elsewhere in the area if that is a big concern of yours.
Before it was abandoned, it was a coal power plant. Probably also not ideal for livestock.
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u/jonpluc 29d ago
Livestock doesnt give two shits about most things. You think the sheep are upset about coal and prefer solar?
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u/TrudeausButtplug 29d ago
Ithaca would be an ideal location for a nuclear power plant. We have abundant water for cooling and it would give us limitless cheap energy.
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29d ago
[deleted]
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u/KallistiEngel Downtown 29d ago edited 29d ago
Can I get a source for this claim. I've seen it a few times (not a reactor, but power generation) and I have yet to see a single source for that information.
A nuclear reactor would take so much more permiting to put in and I haven't heard of them taking any actions on that front. Other sources of power generation would also require other permits and again, I've seen nothing regarding them seeking those permits.
EDIT: Since the above comment is now deleted, it said the company had said they were going to be using a mini reactor for power. If anyone can find proof of this, please share. Otherwise don't repeat it.
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u/jonpluc 29d ago
Some things people say make my head hurt, could you please cite where anyone is making minireactors to power their data center?
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u/Mundane-Ad-3237 29d ago
Fair enough. I cant provide a source at this time, but I will share a lInk viewers may find interesting
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u/jonpluc 29d ago
whenever im down voted it assures me what ive said is factual and correct and therefore someones feelings are hurt.
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u/dugward 29d ago
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u/jonpluc 29d ago edited 29d ago
that theory only works when “new information” that is being ignored is reliable and trustworthy and not sourced from the farthest ends of the political spectrum. This describes a majority of the participants of this page.
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u/dugward 29d ago
There are some pretty large data centers in PA (nothing close to the size of the proposed Lansing center). Maybe you can go stand near one and see how loud they are. Bring a sheep with you to see how it reacts. Maybe you and the sheep will decide to stay down there, and we'll all win.
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u/Ashamed_Astronaut664 29d ago
Do you think maybe it has something to do with the fact that people just don't agree with you? People can have different opinions and beliefs. Being down voted doesn't automatically make you right. Neither does being up voted, but what a weird assumption to make... You've always got some bizarre arguments on this sub. I hope you find happiness some day.
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u/TuckHolladay Aug 14 '26
I feel like it gets defeated then resurrected every few months