Other than having absolutely no real value except to scammers and thieves, cryptocurrency has no real value. But a lot of money gets laundered through crypto these days, so people will spend gobs of real currency building data centers to generate more cryptocurrency. These data centers efficiently dump nearly all the externalities of crypto mining onto their neighbors, except for the externalities crypto already dumps on just about everybody else. Oh, don't let me forget that simulated artificial intelligence also needs big data centers:
Across the country, from Indiana to Oregon, companies such as Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are building data centers on sites that can stretch over 1,000 acres, ringed with guard towers and razor wire fences.
People who live near one Northern Virginia center have complained that the mechanical whir of the fleet of industrial fans needed to cool the sensitive computer equipment inside can sound like a leaf blower that never turns off. Cooling the heavy equipment also diverts great volumes of water even in places where it’s scarce. And some of the costs of powering the centers are shouldered by utility customers, in the form of hundreds of dollars a year added to household energy bills.
Local leaders who run interference on behalf of tech giants often play up the benefits, particularly the jobs and advanced technical training opportunities they tout. Recently, a small but growing number of officials have begun to question these deals. In Georgia, where electricity demand and energy grid strain from more than 50 data centers pushed residential utility bills up almost $200 a year on average per household, state senators passed a bill earlier this year that would pause tax incentives for data center development for the next two years.
One thing Cooper doesn't suggest: increasing penalties on public officials who benefit personally from their offices. But that would undermine American-style democracy, wouldn't it?