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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?

#131

Post by infecto »

giantg2 wrote: post #72
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.

These are not silent nor zero emission. These do emit large electromagnetic fields that interfere with some electronics. There are also some studies that show higher risk of childhood leukemia and potentially negative affects to sensitive groups such as people with neurodiverse conditions. They also tend to hum and crackle. At times you will have helicopters doing line work too.

I am going to say ok maybe possible but I look at how many transmission lines criss cross places like Dallas. Would there not be enough data to have already proved that thesis?

I remember the original issue with these is they were spraying some kind agent orange like chemical to keep growth down under the lines and people were getting cancer from it 50 years ago.

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

#132

Post by shimman »

elzbardico wrote: post #120
thrance wrote: post #39

Notice how when it comes to the interests of Capital, suddenly regulations or NIMBYs are rendered powerless. Building homes and infrastructure? Impossible. Building datacenters that will be obsolete in 4 years and abandoned just to fuel a speculation bubble? Yessir! Immediately, sir!

Frankly I stopped caring about it. The current system we live in is unsustainable and on the verge of breaking. We're headed towards something far worse than 1929, and there's nothing we can do to stop this train. I started to believe this when snapshot had their IPO value at something like 5 Exxons or 24 General Motors, but was primed for this belief working on energy and carbon credit derivative markets during the…

You should care and do more. It's honestly sad to look at the destruction of your community and do nothing about it. There are plenty of groups that could use your help, go help them. Be part of something instead of an observer.

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

#133

Post by malfist »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52
crote wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

> 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. This seems like the thing where people use the phrase "there is no evidence of" to imply that something has been disproven…

> what it actually means is that we don't know enough to say one way or the other.

To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the leukemia claim just as likely.

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

#134

Post by jasonjayr »

sznio wrote: post #86
thejokeisonme wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having zero knowledge about these studies I have high credence they are baloney.

you've never walked under a high voltage power line? even driving a car under it you can hear the radio being weird. i assume it can make life miserable for a ham radio enthusiast. also, walking beneath one, you can hear the crackle, which is why nobody places a power line above homes. as for them causing leukemia i'd not consider that realistic

My home is like 1500 ft from HV lines. According to OSM, they are 115kV. Some of my neighbors are even closer. These things are totally built near homes.

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

#135

Post by ahoka »

malfist wrote: post #130
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…

Why DC lines? AC is by far the better technology for distance transmission.

I assume Chinese engineers know how to build power lines, so maybe it is better in this case?

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

#136

Post by wahern »

sokoloff wrote: post #71
bpodgursky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression people are not compensated by eminent domain? In fact, a huge portion of the sentimental press stores over eminent domain are attempts by homeowners not to cancel the project, but to increase the payouts. Often the homeowners would be quite sad to see the project cancelled, they just want to milk the settlement via litigation.

I am under the impression that they are not compensated correctly when their land is taken. I own the land that I do because I value it more than any other buyer/current bidder. (If that weren’t true, I’d sell it to the higher bidder.) If, instead of bidding an attractive price for my land like an ordinary buyer, you win a court case or political process that says you can force me to sell my land at a “fair market va…

Condemnation proceedings are the exception. Most of the time, the entity taking the land under the threat of eminent domain offers substantially above FMV, if only because condemnation proceedings cost money and, more importantly, time.

Some states do require above FMV for condemnation, e.g. 120%. After Kelo in the early 2000s, almost every state passed significant eminent domain reform.

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

#137

Post by Ajedi32 »

sokoloff wrote: post #71
bpodgursky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression people are not compensated by eminent domain? In fact, a huge portion of the sentimental press stores over eminent domain are attempts by homeowners not to cancel the project, but to increase the payouts. Often the homeowners would be quite sad to see the project cancelled, they just want to milk the settlement via litigation.

I am under the impression that they are not compensated correctly when their land is taken. I own the land that I do because I value it more than any other buyer/current bidder. (If that weren’t true, I’d sell it to the higher bidder.) If, instead of bidding an attractive price for my land like an ordinary buyer, you win a court case or political process that says you can force me to sell my land at a “fair market va…

Yeah this is basically my take as well.

The problem with not having eminent domain is that without it, for any project of sufficient size you'll end up with ~100+ land owners who each individually have veto power over the entire project. If 99 of them freely agree to sell, but 1 is really stubborn and refuses to sell at any price, the project is dead.

There's also a prisoner's dilemma problem. Maybe it's not a big deal paying one stubborn guy 100x fair market value for his property to allow the project to continue. But if enough people think they can get 100x what their property is worth if they just hold out a bit longer, that also kills the project.

Eminent domain solves all this by making it so the project only has to to clear a few bars the government has set for it, rather than the many bars ~100 individual landowners set for it. But in the process it also erodes property rights and kills the built-in protections the free market has to ensure such transactions are fair.

A 1.5x or 2x multiplier on the fair market value would help with that a lot and help ensure eminent domain is only used in cases where it's strictly needed.

Or alternately, I sort of like the idea of letting the landowners elect someone to represent them in negotiations with the project developer, and then having a chance to vote yes/no on the final cash offer. Then the final price would still be set by a market of sorts, but there'd be no prisoner's dilemma or individual spoilers. Not 100% sure if that would work better or not though; it is a bit more complicated and there are still some issues with it.

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

#138

Post by bryanlarsen »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #70
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that actually make any sense when there is also plenty of wind across the ocean, which is >1000 miles closer to the coastal cities where people live?

Offshore wind power costs ~3 times more per MWh than on land. You can still do it if you're really low on space, but if you have tons of empty space anyway, it may very well be cheaper to simply build longer power lines.

The main advantage of offshore power is the reliability of the wind. For example, on the North Sea the wind blows strong enough for power generation 80% of the time.

The East coast of the US has similar trade winds.

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

#139

Post by 9dev »

Aurornis wrote: post #123
9dev wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why not build data centers where the energy is?

Parent comment didn’t say anything about data centers. Getting power from the areas with high renewable energy density over to the population centers is a good goal to have.

So, you move into a new flat. In the living room, there's five sockets on the west side, but only one on the east side, and that's planned for a lamp already.

Does it make more sense to

  a) put up your TV and gaming console on the east side, and have an electrician run another power line across the room (they can install five plugs there too so you can keep the lamp and even charge your phone, which is nice), or
  b) simply put up your TV and console on the west side?
I know parent didn't say anything about DCs, but this is a thread about power lines to data centres. Before you go out of your way to span expensive power lines all across the country to get the power where the consumers are, it's a lot smarter to move consumers where the power already is.

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

#140

Post by maxerickson »

left-struck wrote: post #53
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This seems like the thing where people use the phrase "there is no evidence of" to imply that something has been disproven…

Basically I just thought the leukaemia claim is quite an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary evidence if you’re trying to convince a sensible person of your claim. I know a thing or two about rf, emf and electricity in general and I don’t see why or how these hv wires would cause cancer, or if they did why would it be specifically leukaemia. I’m fully aware though that before we knew about nuclear radia…

They do vegetation control in larger easements, the power lines/electrcity aren't the only possible factor.
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