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Not Just Paris: Community Activists Target Data Centers (datacenterfrontier.com)
1sockchuck writes: This week's case in which a Paris data center lost its license isn't an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of disputes in which community groups have fought data center projects, citing objections to generators or power lines. Data center site selection is often a secretive process, with cloud builders using codenames to cloak their identity. Community groups are using social media, blogs, research and media outreach to bring public attention to the process and voice their concerns. Protests from a Delaware group led to the cancellation of a data center project that planned to build a cogeneration plant. In Virginia, a coalition has organized to oppose a power line for an Amazon Web Services data center. Everyone wants their Internet, just not in their backyard.
It's also a major oversight to presume there are no risks to building a data center "out in the sticks". Every cable can be severed. Every mile from the rest of your operations is additional risk.
I'm not familiar with where that particular one in Virginia is specifically, but it looks like Prince William County. I used to live/work near several out in Loudoun County, though. To give some perspective for those not familiar with the area, that's roughly two counties out from the District of Columbia proper. The western side of Loudoun is still farms and horse country, and the southern and western parts of Prince William are likewise. So we're likely not talking about heavily urbanized areas. At most, this is suburbs/exurbs.
And I think that may be some of the problem. It's not just urbanites who object to stuff being built next to them. You can get the exact same thing from rural residents who don't like that their formerly rural area is having giant concrete buildings with lots of infrastructure built there. 50 years ago these counties were completely rural, but the DC suburbs have been expanding relentlessly westward, first to the edge of Fairfax County, and then on into Loudoun and Prince William. This has led to more than a few clashes between those who see this as a good thing, and those who don't.
So you are ignoring the fact that those data centers need to be built in places with reliable power grids (something you do not tend to get away from population centers), need to be reasonably close to distribution points (to get replacement parts for those computers) and need to have a large enough population base nearby that there will be enough skilled labor to staff the data center.
Yes, you will have an easier time finding and keeping employees if your business isn't located in the middle of nowhere.
The people promoting the Delaware data center lied to everyone at nearly every possible opportunity, which is why it was so easy to rouse the community against them.
For example, they claimed that their data center would employ lots of local people, when this simply wasn't true. The whole place was going to be nearly lights-out - there'd probably be as many janitors as technicians.
They also misstated the entire purpose of the plant - the so-called data center was always a trojan horse intended to allow them to gain exemptions from zoning laws and secure taxpayer funds to build a noisy, polluting power plant in a totally unsuitable location. That power plant was purposely outsized for the data center in the original plan, and more than doubled in size after it'd gained its initial approvals, and probably would have been built even bigger given the size of the property they were going to put it on. The intention was always to use tax dollars to undercut existing energy providers and sell electricity to local citizens and businesses, the data center was never anything but a front operation.
How do I know all this? Well, I do live here, and I have built three data centers professionally. The whole thing was a total con job from start to finish. That's the reality, and the University of Delaware's investigation revealed this and caused them to withdraw their support from the project (the other backers withdrew their support only because public outcry was calling attention to the many secret side deals they'd made with the power plant builders, that are protected by non-disclosure contracts).
I can't comment on Paris or other places where similar things have happened; maybe those data centers were real. The Delaware one was a power plant disguised as a data center and the people proposing it were liars and con men who were trying to loot the public tax coffers.
I iive in Masn County, Michigan. A while back there were rumors that the state of Michigan was going to build a data center by the pumped storage plant that is located in the county. The hope was that after the state built a data center here, that others would follow. There are several good reasons why they should build there since there is power from the pumped storage plant and from 56 windmills also in the county.There is also cold water most of the year that is pumped out of Lake Michigan that possibly could be used to cool the data centers. As one can see by this article (http://www.shorelinemedia.net/ludington_daily_news/news/local/article_ae2bb37a-680f-11e3-a7b8-001a4bcf887a.html) that the project fell through. I believe we are still waiting to see if anything will be built. The point is that there are places that would welcome data centers in their backyard.
A new generator would not be that loud but they are cost prohibitive which is why they buy older well maintained equipment when possible. We had a new generator installed at one of our facilities you could stand outside next to it and have a conversation with out raising your voice the truck that delivered diesel to the underground tanks was actually louder.
>> Community groups...voice their concerns
You realize what the endgame is here, of course. It's to elevate the organizers to the point where they get paid to shut up (usually with no benefit to the community they claim to represent) as soon as they declare interest in a lucrative project.
See Jesse Jackson for a great example of this. Lots of protesting, leading to little or no improvement in "his" community but instead large financial gains for himself and his family (e.g., beer distributorships for his sons).
That is not always true. My dad used to lead a community group for a section of town that covered about 10-15k people in a community of 100,000. The part of the community we lived in was often neglected by the rest of the city. We did not have a grocery store that was less than 15 minutes away by car without traffic. There was one park and no library. The city got its hands on something like 1000 acres of land in that area. My dad's group help ensured that part of that land was used to bring a library, a grocery store, and a new park to the local residents. The city just wanted to sell the land off to large multinational corporations. I spent a lot of time gathering signatures for petitions and other such things and I never saw my dad get so much as a coupon for all our hard work.
Well, the article is making reference to giant 100+ foot towers, in wide-cleared rights-of-way, refusing to bury cables, and generally abusing the locals.
And if that's how they want to do this, they should in no way be surprised when people oppose them.
Bury the cables. Don't devalue people's property with giant transmission towers.
But don't expect sympathy when you come in, hide who you are, underplay the impact, and crap all over the neighbors. That pretty much says "this company is ran by assholes who don't give a fuck about the locals".
In which case communities are right to send a big giant "fuck you" back in return.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
the people largely don't want *another* HV power feed running through thier area/property; at least not one that exists solely for commercial use. This issue is actually somewhat local to me; and the residents of the area have always been at odd with "big power"...simply because of the greed. What starts as a right-of-way for one power line soon becomes a single right of way for multiple lines; the property owners haven't been reimbursed for the now extra stuff on their property. Plus, as much as I'm not a person who says no to towers or utility lines...the situation they've got going on over there is getting pretty bad.
The biggest issue is it's going in to serve *one* customer; it has no overall benefit to the residents of the area; and this is after a power company already abusing exsiting contracts and promises. They've seen zero benefit from the result of this growth.
I can tell you this though; if the local electric co-op wanted to put the line in; there'd be almost no opposition. The co-op would also fairly compensate everyone while engineering the line to serve the demands of the customer; but as well as all the customers running along this new line.
But it's basically someone coming up to you "I'm putting a fence across your property so I can make more money. It doesn't benefit you in any way...and I will essentially have the land on the other side of the fence. I'm not going to pay you for it either." There's no middle ground, there's no working with them; it's "this is what we're putting in, you will have no input in to how it looks and we're not even going to compensate the piece of property we're over..and we'll probably force you to maintain the property around our equipment as well."
That isn't exactly true; they can be very quiet (outside the room/enclosure), but it takes pretty much work to get an enclosure down to 65dBA at 21'. For a 2MW engine, you need about 7' sound traps on intake and exhaust, plus a way to keep the combustion exhaust pipe from having any reflected noise hitting a sensitive area. (Direct engine exhaust is about 85dBA with the best silencer you can buy.)
What is hardest on people is that they are generally tested at night, and when they run they often do so for long periods of time. Working inside the generator room is very stressful, as the low-frequency noise is really penetrating.