My little town of 1200 people in West Central Iowa has a Bitcoin datacenter. It is a fraction of the size of the propsed DC in this discussion. The property was purchased from a now-defunct cooperative, and after the grain bins, legs, etc..., were torn down, it occupies the same space. It provides high paying jobs (for this area) to around a dozen full timers and seasonal jobs for high school and college kids in the summer.
Des Moines and surrounding suburbs have some huge datacenters as well, and the area was attractive to owners due to low utility costs and state incentives. The Meta center in altoona is humongous. Here are some stats from their homepage FWIW.
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On a separate but similar note, the arguments against these DC are very interesting as they are similar to the failed arguments used to try to prevent ethanol plant construction. Ethanol plants also consume a tremendous amount of water from local aquifers and then dump a tremendous amount of water "cleaner than when it was extracted" back into local waterways. Ethanol plants also require a huge amount of energy. The dependence on corn as a raw material continues to drive environmental devastation in the midwest including soil erosion, nutrient and chemical runoff, and most notably for people on this forum, massive habitat loss. Then there are the dramatic cancer rates in Iowa and elsewhere...
Most recently "carbon capture" pipelines are the next evolution of the ethanol industry with a private entity pushing legislators in Iowa to allow use of imminent domain for their carbon capture pipeline corridors. The new product "low carbon ethanol" is in demand internationally and demands a premium (more profit) for these private companies.
On the flipside, similar to these DCs, ethanol plant construction creates investment in local communities during construction and afterwards, provides some price relief at the gas pump, and also provide dozens of permanent good paying jobs to locals.
The same arguments can be made for the mining projects that have been discussed on this forum.
There are consequences to technical innovation, and as consumers of these technologies, we have some control over proliferation. If you don't like ethanol, use regular gas and suffer the higher price at the pump. If you don't like mining, stop using electricity and ditch your consumer electronics. If you don't like DCs, stop using the internet and social media, including this forum. We are our own worst enemies, and instead of making our own personal lifestyle changes, most folks just complain about it. Human nature...
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