Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 125

up. According to a forklift driver who works at a local fruit warehouse,
“When they irst start up, a big, huge cloud of black smoke comes up. It
just kind of makes you nauseous” (ibid.). As more companies and more
data centers moved into town, even more diesel was used, all of which
generated environmental hearings, lawsuits, and a lot of delicate negotia-
tions, leaving an environmental engineer with the state's Department of
Ecology to conclude in some exasperation, “I ind it hard to believe that
this is the best way to store data. Something's lawed in that thought
process” (ibid.).
Alongside the ight over diesel, another dispute arose between Micro-
soft and the utility over power usage. As is generally the case, the utility
requires estimates of power usage from its large customers in order to
eficiently manage the grid. This issue is so important that power com-
panies are permitted to ine irms that signiicantly miss estimates. In
this case Microsoft overestimated and was levied a ine of slightly more
than $200,000. Much to the surprise and chagrin of locals, the computer
giant not only refused to pay the ine, but proceeded to burn millions
of watts of power in what it admitted was an “unnecessarily wasteful”
manner until the utility agreed to slash or completely erase the ine. In
Microsoft's view, if it was going to be ined for overuse, then it would
simply burn off enough power to raise its power consumption above the
level that had triggered the ine. One might think Microsoft would pay
the ine and enjoy some positive publicity for using less power than it
estimated. Indeed, Yahoo! faced just such a ine and paid it. However,
Microsoft decided against doing so, and its power use jumped from 28.5
to 34 million watts in three days. Under pressure, the utility board voted
to cut the ine to $60,000, and Microsoft ended its fuel-burning protest.
It is little wonder that a utility commissioner and local farmer com-
mented, “For a company of that size and that nature, and with all the
'green' things they advertised to me, that was an insult” (ibid.). Microsoft,
for its part, claimed that this was an isolated incident. But it was actu-
ally just one more in a long list of issues creating tension and outright
conlict between the company and the farming community. A mere three
days after the ribbon-cutting ceremony welcoming the computer giant
and presenting the local general manager with a bag of beans from the
last harvest on the land and a sign announcing, “Preparing the Site for
Another Farmer: Microsoft,” tensions rose over the ability of the town