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.

Comments

Wasn't one of the other concerns

[rsilvergun]

the large amount of diesel gas stored on site in a populated area? Not sure if that's actually a problem or not, since I don't know what they mean by 'large'. There's plenty of safe ways to store it (we have gas stations after all) but they're expensive and I'd worry about corner cutting. Then again I"m a yank and here in the states those kind of corners get cut all the time due to poor gov't oversight & lack of funding for the regulators.