Dan Moore: Data centers, a mixed bag of goodwill and concern

As our modern life moves faster, newer things come into our daily lives which we'd never dreamed of. For great-grandparents growing up at the turn of the 20th century, it was things like indoor plumbing, home electrification, and the innovation of commercial jet travel. In our own lifetimes, we've seen phenomenal advancements in medicine, automation, labor-saving equipment and productivity improvement devices like computers. Some of these 'new things' we didn't give a second thought to, some we accepted right away, and some we greeted with apprehension. It seems that data centers fit all three categories. Advancements in better living usually came into our everyday living gradually — some every few years. We had time to acclimate ourselves to new ways of living without regret for what used to be. But with the advent of laptops, iPhones and electric vehicles, we've seen a marked acceleration in the introduction rate of inventions to the point that we're starting to see push back on acceptance of some. We now have self-check-out at the grocery store and self-check-in at airline counters. Online shopping has greatly reduced time spent at local stores for prescriptions, dining, groceries, clothing, and sporting event/concert tickets. We can do it from the comfort of our living rooms. While these things have generally been accepted in stride by American consumers because their convenience greatly eased our workload and freed up time to play, work more efficiently and do things we never had time to do before. New technology is good. But, a new technological concept has suddenly come into our lives and it's carrying a mixed bag of goodwill and concern: the data center. Up until a few years, we'd never heard of them, much less thought about them, pro or con. But recently, communities have been inundated with companies seeking local permitting and financing for them. The onslaught of requests to build has been rapid, and the growth of those already built is like nothing seen before. While acclimation to and acceptance of previous technological advancements by the general public was measured in years and even decades, the growing pervasiveness of data center growth is challenging public acceptance. So stunning has this building boom been, that the term 'data center' has gained a foreboding connotation — something to be avoided as not necessary at the least, and deleterious to our very well-being at the worst.