04/19/2024

Northern Virginia Serves as the World’s Internet Hub

Its neighbors are paying a price

A helicopter hovers over the Gee family farm, the noisy rattle echoing inside their home in this rural part of West Virginia. It’s holding surveyors who are eyeing space for yet another power line next to the property — a line that will take electricity generated from coal plants in the state to address a drain on power driven by the world’s internet hub in Northern Virginia 35 miles away.

There, massive data centers with computers processing nearly 70 percent of global digital traffic are gobbling up electricity at a rate officials overseeing the power grid say is unsustainable unless two things happen: Several hundred miles of new transmission lines must be built, slicing through neighborhoods and farms in Virginia and three neighboring states. And antiquated coal-powered electricity plants that had been scheduled to go offline will need to keep running to fuel the increasing need for more power, undermining clean energy goals.

“It’s not right,” said Mary Gee, whose property already abuts two power lines that serve as conduits for electricity flowing toward the biggest concentration of data centers — in Loudoun County, home to what’s known as Data Center Alley. “These power lines? They’re not for me and my family. I didn’t vote on this. And the data centers? That’s not in West Virginia. That’s a whole different state.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.