New Law Lets Data Centers Hide Power Usage 208
1sockchuck writes "Just days after Google announced that it may build a huge data center in the state, Oklahoma's governor has signed a bill into law that will effectively exempt the largest customers of municipal power companies from public disclosure of how much power they are using. Officials of the state's power industry say the measure is not a 'Google Law' but was sought 'on behalf of large-volume electric users that might be considering a move to Oklahoma.' Others acknowledge that data center operators were among those seeking the law, apparently arguing that the details of their enormous power usage are a trade secret. Google recently acquired 800 acres in Pryor, Oklahoma for possible development as a data center, and is reportedly seeking up to 15 megawatts of power for the facility."
Don't Tread on Oklahoma (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, no one ever talks about the good things coming out of Oklahoma law making bodies...
http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_s
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
Later, the power company comes back and says "Hey, public, we're running out of power, and we need to build three more coal-fired power plants near your town, and by the way, we want to avoid regulations that require us to clean our exhaust because that would hurt our bottom line."
The public says "No way, I don't want your pollution clogging my air, worsening my asthma, and causing my city to become subject to EPA regulations. I resent you trying to avoid cleaning up your own mess. By the way, who's driving this demand for power? Is it big business or folks like me, because I know I try to conserve my power use by turning off lights and even switching to CFLs? I don't want to pay (in terms of taxes or pollution) for power generated to serve some big out-of-state business, especially one that doesn't generate many local jobs."
Then, the power company says "-snicker- We can't tell you who is using the power. Just give us the plants or we'll do rolling blackouts on your homes and schools."
Not all hidden (Score:5, Insightful)
This bill hides only their electric power usage.
Their power to manipulate the legislature is out in the open.
Re:Cheap not so green electricity ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please do not group coal and nuclear together. Nuclear is currently the "greenest" electricity production option for a large scale output whereas coal releases heaps of nasty stuff in the air, specially as electric co. are slow to use filters to clean the exhaust of their coal burning plants.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for clearing that up for me. Without all those perfectly valid lines of thought I might have suspected your were just trolling.
Re:Trade Secret? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trade secret is not a logical reason, the only logical reason for this is so they can play power shell games. No other reasons at all. And since they exists soley because the government says so, we are entitled to all that information.
The governer just did a big diservice to the people who voted for him.
Naive?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Without all those perfectly valid lines of thought I might have suspected your were just trolling.
Pot, meet kettle...
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
I for one would want to know the bottom line.
Re:I am not an Economist, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
But, and this is lost on
Nukes are best thing we have (Score:0, Insightful)
How about more research funding on fusion, antimatter, solar, and geothermal?
Re:I am not an Economist, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I am not an Economist, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
But there's more... When I studied the French power company (EDF) in great depth a number of years ago, it became clear that implicit or hidden cross-subsidies (charging one group of consumers more than the cost of service in order to allow another group to pay less) were essentially a veiled sort of industrial policy. For example, the French state wanted to make French electro-metallurgical (read: aluminum) and electro-chemical industries globally advantaged, so they got cheap power as a result. Ironically, that apparently wasn't enough for the aluminum producers, as in the 1980s and 1990s they moved much of their processing to Canada, where Hydro-Quebec and Ontario Hydro were offered much lower rates, in part b/c (in Quebec, at least), they could flood huge expanses of Indian land with minimal compensation.
As a resident of Michigan, where the auto industry is in free-fall thanks to perhaps the world's most bone-headed corporate leadership, I've had the wonderful privilege of paying some of the highest residential power tarriffs in the US. Why? Because residential users are subsidizing the Big Three through the rate structure. (I should also mention that we have some of the worst roads in the US because our weight limits are twice those of our neighboring states, thereby encouraging the suppliers, etc, to stay within our boundaries; we therefore subsidize the auto industry through our gasoline and road-use taxes).
In the end, these subsidies might make sense--I don't think so personally, as it encourages a race among states to offer corporate welfare--but in a democracy we as citizens should have the right to know. EDF, the French power company, attacked me nastily when I made this argument; I've not pushed hard in Michigan, as politically, we are expected to be slobbering whores for GM, etc., political affiliations notwithstanding (yeah, my House Rep is John "Camaro" Dingell, a dim Dem).
Bottom line, governments can and probably should have it within their authority to advantage one group over another, but that should be fully out in the open. When Oklahoma explicitly creates a system for obscuring the process, citizens lose. The problem is less, really, than one of corruption and sweetheart deals (tho OK has a long and ugly history of crooked relations b/w politicians and Big Oil), but the more "virtuous" practice of industrial policy conducted in the shadows.