wild to see new york times doing a piece on central washington https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/technology/ai-data-centers-electricians.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kE4.ZTQZ.eXmmXjcNivCI&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
for the record people were flocking there for the cheap electricity prior to A·I, including:
• silicon manufacturing
• carbon fiber plants
• unmanned aerial vehicle testing and manufacturing
• and yes, bitcoin miners
another important piece that they don’t mention is that the profit from all of this electricity usage goes to the Public Utility Districts, nonprofit cooperative entities which were set up because rich people didn’t want to sell farmers power
those utility districts have been spending that money on public infrastructure like fiber, without which none of this would be possible
for a while Ephrata, WA (tiny town in the middle of nowhere) had the fastest internet in the country measured as average speed available to individual households, because Grant County P.U.D. simply gave everyone a publicly owned fiber hookup because what else are they going to spend the money on
(here is a source for that last bit: <https://www.dailydot.com/debug/ephrata-washington-fastest-internet-us/>)