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When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

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Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#41

Post by madaxe_again »

bob1029 wrote: post #37
oliwarner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty harmless? That's easy to say until it's your land and view that now has pylons and restrictions dumped on it.

I've got overhead transmission lines in my back yard right now. It's really not a big deal. I've got a garden and a small shed that are directly underneath the lines. I have no perceptible loss in utility. Every now and then, someone will visit my property but I don't have to interact with them. The nature of the easement can make a big difference. Oftentimes the power lines will be colocated with gas pipelines which…

Ditto. They come and trim my trees for me and pay me £300 a year for the privilege. I really don’t mind, barely even notice the lines are there.

Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#45

Post by left-struck »

throwaway667555 wrote: post #40
bob1029 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be even more nuanced, the land is not typically taken entirely. The more typical solution is an easement with compensation for the land owner to cover the reduction in utility. Transmission lines are pretty harmless when considering things that could be built instead. Zero emissions, silent, no illumination, etc.

They buzz loudly and increase leukemia.

Sources?

Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#46

Post by DecoySalamander »

lenkite wrote: post #34
jaredklewis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We run power lines to everything else: houses, offices, commercial buildings, factories, and so on. Any particular reasons we should have a special exception where we don't run them to data centers? Where I live pretty much every piece of land has some sort of easement on it: for water, power, or something else. Seems weird to me if we can insist that now everything needs to be frozen and no more infrastructure upgra…

A blank cheque on corpo infrastructure just means that billionaires win and everyone else loses. At that point, just paint "Peasant Slave" on your forehead if you don't have a multi-million lobbying group at the state and federal level. "All your base are belong to us" => Billionaires of USA When that happens rename the nation to Corporate States of America as well.

The only losers are foreign adversaries who would prefer it if your country didn't develop high-tech infrastructure and businesses.

Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#47

Post by crote »

left-struck wrote: post #45
throwaway667555 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They buzz loudly and increase leukemia.

Sources?

The buzzing is pretty obvious when it is rainy or misty. I passed a power line during my high school bike commute, it never failed to amuse me. I wouldn't call it "loud" though: noticeable, but the average traffic noise is far worse.

The leukemia is bullshit, though. The numbers are too small to make any kind of definitive statement, or to properly compensate for things like socioeconomic factors - plenty of other potential causes on the rural farms and poor urban neighborhoods where we usually build power lines, after all.

Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#48

Post by 9dev »

Animats wrote: post #19

This could work out. We need, for example, ultra-high-voltage DC lines from the US wind belt to areas with real loads. The US wind belt is roughly from the Texas panhandle north to Canada. Plenty of wind, no big power users. But nobody has been able to build lines west to California or east to Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, where the loads are. This is held up by land acquisition, not technology. China has so…

And why not build data centers where the energy is?

Re: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

#49

Post by jaredklewis »

lenkite wrote: post #34
jaredklewis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We run power lines to everything else: houses, offices, commercial buildings, factories, and so on. Any particular reasons we should have a special exception where we don't run them to data centers? Where I live pretty much every piece of land has some sort of easement on it: for water, power, or something else. Seems weird to me if we can insist that now everything needs to be frozen and no more infrastructure upgra…

A blank cheque on corpo infrastructure just means that billionaires win and everyone else loses. At that point, just paint "Peasant Slave" on your forehead if you don't have a multi-million lobbying group at the state and federal level. "All your base are belong to us" => Billionaires of USA When that happens rename the nation to Corporate States of America as well.

But what if I want to live in a country with a growing economy and improving infrastructure? Forbidding all development does hurt corporations and the wealthy, but just in the sense that it hurts everyone, including them.

If we do want to soak the rich, can we do it in a progressive, targeted way (such as taxes) and not in a NIMBY way where we just say no one can build or improve anything?

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