Homeowners appreciate not having power lines all around them, and it turns out that the owners of datacenters feel the same way. Only datacenters need a lot of energy, so in Northern Virginia, DuPont Fabros is kind of stuck.
A new power line might decrease the likelihood of blackouts and even (eventually) reduce costs. So far, so good – you might imagine that DuPont would support Dominion Virginia Power’s plan to run one.
But Kendra Marr writes, “[S]oaring towers and high-voltage lines could devalue its property,” and a cofounder of DuPont told her that the company has been unable to either support or oppose the idea. The Northern Virginia Technology Council also failed to pick a side.
If such situations are duplicated elsewhere, this could conceivably lead to problems for ever-expanding companies like Google and Microsoft. Granted, Google in particular tends to “wow” and win over locals, and a recession might make just about anything look appealing, but it seems that nobody connected to the Dupont issue is as enthusiastic as one might expect.
Is this the end of all tech growth? Of course not. Still, it’s an interesting indicator in light of the scary stock market.
