Facebook May Make Tiny Town a Data Center Mecca 136
miller60 writes "Just weeks after the opening of a Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon, local officials say two more companies may build server farms in the small town. Facebook has touted Prineville as an ideal environment for using fresh air to cool servers. The news positions Prineville (pop. 10,000, unemployment rate 17 percent) to emerge as a data center hub similar to Quincy, Washington, a small farm town that now hosts five huge server farms."
Send heat to local buildings (Score:5, Interesting)
While the cool air may be better for cooling the data enters, surely it would make even better sense to pipe that excess heat to local buildings. On the one hand the datacenter would be saving on heating costs and on the other hand the local buildings would save on heating costs.
The problem we have today is all too often buildings are seen as individual entities, instead of something that needs to fit into the local environment.
Let's position that a bit differently. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it is a job making law. No question.
As for no value added, do you live in Oregon? It rains A LOT. And when it's like 45 and soupy rain, getting colder, it's absolutely great to pull up, stuff a 20 out the window, and get your gas pumped, easy cheezy.
I know my regular gas guy. We have a running conversation over the years, kids, family, politics, you name it. There is a lot of value there too.
As for prices? It's a few pennies most of the time, and sometimes it's less here than it is in Washington.
There, it's all pre-pay, barren stations, often dirty, crime laden, with some dude in what I can only characterize as the smallest possible workspace, barking at you through some shitty PA.
Of course, one can go to the nicer stations, where they figure out new and interesting ways to get you inside to buy stuff...
So the value is debatable, clearly. No question. But, let's be clear. It's not a significant price difference. I've lived here a long time, and the cost of gas relative to the "do it yourself" states has never been significant enough to warrant giving up the option of just staying in the car on a shitty day.