ABSTRACT
Data companies from Apple to Facebook centralise – the label is on the box for ‘data centres’ – tens of thousands of square metres leading to acres of rural land being turned over to the digital world. Large data centres are co-located with hydroelectric dams in Sweden, wind turbines in Denmark, solar farms in Nevada, geothermal energy in Iceland.’ The data centre engineer is crouched down in a puddle of yellow patch cables, his face a monotone blue from the wash of coloured overhead lights. Basically, data processing goes to where the renewable energy is. It’s called a load-balancing network. Green and yellow-eyed computer cows are stacked and racked in dark stalls, lined up for eternal milking. The engineer beside one cabinet of equipment is wearing an archetypal farmer’s boiler suit – perhaps he also has a small croft up the road.
