You could basically write the same article but swap data centers for clean energy upgrades.
- rationing request anecdote
- clean energy law dictating cleaner power
- unexamined claim clean energy is increasing prices nationally
- state there is a 25% price increased
Its
- “A” and “B”
- claim “A” causes “B”
- restate “B”
Did I show “A causes B”?
So the best way to keep money coming in is to read the vibes of social media, and print stories that fuel those fires. Basically manufacture stories using well established marketing and propaganda techniques to maximize click rates.
Ice cream man selling ice pops in the park becomes "Man seen using treats to lure young children to his van in the park".
Honest headline, criminally misleading takeaway.
Like 37 data centres in a small rural county?
The whole thing seems pretty overblown: County where energy prices are up 25% sends a memo asking employees to conserve electricity doesn't seem worth writing about. If prices are up 25%, I bet the datacenter guys are also working on efficiency. The county isn't asking datacenter peeps to conserve energy, because the county isn't paying their electricity bill.
From the headline, I thought this was going to be schools that signed up to participate in demand response in return for reduced electric rates are being asked to reduce their demand. Growing up in socal, most of the schools were on demand response programs, and sometimes we'd have reduced lighting as a result. I wouldn't expect a lot of datacenters to participate in demand response programs, so the angle would be 'the schools have to turn off their lights, but the datacenters don't do anything' ... ignoring the cost savings the schools signed up for; some datacenters could participate though --- large operators can move traffic and shutdown, idle or limit power for most of the servers, or can switch to local generation; but facilities for small hosting / colocation probably don't have enough insight into their customer loads to move traffic and might not want to run their generators.
So it might be a small county but it sure ain't rural!