Data centers

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

This column is built from my own scientific and historical knowledge. Quoting others will be useless for one can find any side of the argument to build or not build data centers. So, these are my thoughts and opinions, no others.

I have decided I am in favor of building data centers, as long as they comply with all local, state and federal codes and regulations. We already have data centers now. Ever store anything from a computer in a cloud? That is in a data center. (The cloud is a euphemism unless Elon Musk really puts them in orbit.) 

Data centers are relatively benign. All the water they use for cooling is just that – cooling water. It is nothing like sewage or industrial waste.  

All the electricity they use must use cabling and apparatuses that meet the National Electric Code. Regulatory bodies can charge them a higher usage rate on that electricity just like they do now for all industrial installations keeping the extra costs off the home owner or renter.

Before the mid-1960s, industrial sites got by with ridiculous amounts of water and air pollution. After President Nixon signed the EPA into law, regulations have gotten tighter and tighter for all pollution sources.

Data centers are relatively easy to bring into compliance. The air, water and noise sources are already well known and by nature they are small from the beginning. Keeping them tight should be easy.

I was not and still am not in favor of rural solar cells. It simply takes too many acres of good farmland to make an array of significant size. And they are ugly. Data centers just look like a big warehouse building to the neighborhood.

Not building adequate data centers makes us Luddites. These are the next logical progression in computer capacity. Artificial intelligence is sucking up lots of computer capacity, and the horse is out of the barn. Artificial intelligence is another subject to be discussed at another time; but be assured that it will continue to develop.

When it comes to data centers, though, I don’t think people have thought too far down the road, or if they have, the following has not been widely discussed.  

Simply, I think data centers will be obsolete in 10 years or less. Why? The ever-shrinking computer and memory chips. All I have to do is look at my wrist. My Apple watch has many, many times all the computer capacity used to put Apollo 11 on the moon, which filled many, many rooms at NASA in Houston.

Data center assets are costly. If these can be shrunk to  wristwatch size, they will be. So a final note: When you are putting the handcuffs on the data center builders to make them behave all regulations, make sure they are obligated to take the things down and leave nice meadows of grass if they become obsolete. You don’t want an abandoned data center in your neighborhood, nor do you want to bear the costs of cleaning up the site.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.