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

Which ones - the ones that show an association or the ones that don't?

Well maybe you should have a bit more hubris is in the face of science. You can power a lightbulb just by standing under certain high-voltage lines.

Skeptic here.

Many of them probably are. Individual EMF concerns are often debunked. It is possible but unlikely that all of them are categorically complete nonsense. But let's put them aside for a moment. There are real, known consequences of living next to a data center as implemented.

Coil whine from transformers, in audible and infrasound movement of air, has real known effects, as well as suspected poorly studied effects, on the human head & ear.

The fact that we're just allowing a data center that says "I'm out of power, let me use more", to run four extraordinarily loud, dirty airplane jet turbines at the middle of their property for power generation on an improvised basis. And then when we look at their operation in aerial photos, we see 36 jet turbines.

Any and all non-closed-loop cooling systems are an issue, especially when they pull from potable water or operate in dryland droughts. The ratio of wattage consumed vs water consumed should be instructive here.

The amount of money that is going into these things is obscene, and when they choose to involve local officials it is essentially buying out your local-level democracy wholesale. Total lack of regulation. Town council meeting videos where all of your supposed representatives are under NDA; Extremely blatant corruption that the state doesn't want to touch. Races to the bottom.

These things are designed to run basically as lights-off factories, with little to no local labor involved. While there may be some initial investment in facilities, that will dwindle. When they are simultaneously not paying taxes via assorted individual arrangements, and raising electrical rates, there's very little to recommend them to locals.

We have established no general rules as far as buffers. Large-scale construction in general tends to kill rural watersheds & aquifers in close proximity. The sound issue is real, the EMF issues may have some limited credibility, and well-water is often tragedy of the commons, all of which might be totally mitigated by a half mile or whatever of forest buffer mandated around a data center zoning.

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.

Seems dangerous in case the line breaks or short-circuits.

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.

Agreed. Since most land is already owned by private individuals do we freeze everything as is and do no further changes [1]?

The last house I lived in had an easement along the back property line. I built my fence on the easement knowing full well they would tear it up if they needed to access anything. I live in a denser town now where the power comes from the street to my house, wraps around my house, then lines to the next building over. I guess I should tell those people in the other building to figure out a different way to get power.

[1] Also feels a bit like the arguments against wind power.

> We run power lines to everything else

But no, we don't seize rights and access to privately owned land for houses, offices, commercial buildings or factories unless there is overwhelming public benefit. I can't just say I want to build a factory and force access and utilities across my neighbours without their permission or an extraordinary process to prove that I'm going to provide massive local benefit (or national security).

If my factory wants to compete on an already contested resource (water, power), I should have to go further to show that I'm going to be a net benefit in my area.

As things stand, datacentres provide very an extraordinarily low employment density. They don't produce food. They consume an extraordinary amount of energy making it more expensive. And they money they generate concentrates wealth to billionaires. If you want your powerlines prove you're going to be beneficial. Start with a solar+batterty farm. You can surge from the network, and sell on slow days. Guarantee free power and network for locals. Integrate heat pumps to heat local homes in winter.

I've wandered off the topic of forcing permanent access to others land into broader planning, but it's all related.

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.

Without explanation, you think power plants aren't "the grid" that's being strained?

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 value”, that previous point establishes that I’m being forced to take a loss, as I am being forced to accept a price lower than my reservation price.

At the same time, eminent domain must exist in order to let continuous projects like power lines and highways be built. I just think that 150% or 200% of what is currently called “fair market value” is a better reference price than 100% of it.

The taking of land against the owner’s will should come at a premium, but that premium should be capped rather than unbounded.

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