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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowData centers and Bitcoin mining require huge levels of electricity. Indiana is heading toward hosting both such ventures.
Hoosier utility ratepayers should not be forced to pay for additional electric generation required. Doing so would amount to a direct subsidy to the companies owning the data centers and mining operations.
Those companies should be required to either produce their own energy needs or work a deal with the utilities to build out new generation that is dedicated to only the data centers or mining operations.
Aside from the relative few jobs they create, these companies will not benefit the regions where they will locate, and if they require keeping dirty coal and gas plants online, they will, in fact, hurt the communities where they intend to operate, causing more ill health.
Even renewable generation, built only to serve the data centers and mining, should not be subsidized by ratepayers who do not need the additional power.
—John Blair, president
Valley Watch Inc.
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