An interesting local twist to this story is that Google is locating one of these facilities at The Dalles, Oregon. The unique thing about The Dalles is The Dalles Dam, a major hydroelectric facility on the Columbia River. Those computer farms are going to use a lot of energy. The operations most known for siting in The Dalles previously were the very energy intensive aluminum processing industry facilities.

In the Pacific Northwest, apparently we can use paper and kill trees, or use computers and kill salmon. When The Dalles Dam was built in the late 50s it created a reservoir that flooded over the former native fishing grounds at Celilo Falls.

Do no evil?