Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Apple Inc will build a $1.375 billion data center in Waukee, Iowa, Apple and state officials said on Thursday, with $207.8 million in incentives approved by the Iowa Economic Development Authority and Waukee city council.
Apple will purchase 2,000 acres (8.09 square km) of land in Waukee, about 20 miles (32 km) west of Des Moines, to build two data centers. The company will receive a $19.65 million investment tax credit for creating 50 jobs.
Apple said the project will generate more than 550 jobs in construction and operations, but did not specify how many of those jobs would be long-term positions.
Speaking alongside Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the facility "will create hundreds of jobs for people in Iowa from construction to engineering."
Cook said Apple will contribute up to $100 million toward a "public improvement fund" for the city of Waukee, adding the first project supported by the fund will be a youth sports complex that "will be open to all."
It's nice that they won't be outsourcing the data mining of all your personal information and metadata. Merica!
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iowa-idUSKCN1B422L
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Friday August 25 2017, @10:08PM (2 children)
https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=IA [eia.gov]
Electricity
Iowa's five largest power plants by capacity are all coal-fired, and coal is the primary fuel used for electricity generation in the state.
Almost all of the coal consumed in Iowa is subbituminous coal (dirty brown coal) brought by rail from Wyoming and delivered to electric power generators; a few small shipments come from other states for industrial uses.45 Iowa is home to about 1% of the nation's population, but the state consumes more coal for electricity generation than 28 other states. In 2015, that level of consumption made Iowa the 11th largest per capita consumer of coal for power generation.
Why Iowa?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @11:10PM (1 child)
Wind power, dumbass
And, electricity there is cheap.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:42AM
Iowa has seen a real boom in windmill farms in recent years. Saw them everywhere when I traveled US 18 in northwest Iowa a few years back. The western half of the state is excellent for wind power generation, and the east has some good areas too.
The entire high plains from Canada to Texas is great land for windmills. Windmills are all over the cliffs at the edge of the high plains in west Texas where Amarillo and Lubbock are, and up into eastern Colorado. Expect much of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas are covered in windmills by now. Montana too. I suspect even Oklahoma, home of climate denying oil corporations and tycoons worse than the ones in Texas, is getting into windmills. though I didn't see any in the westernmost part when I last passed through perhaps a decade ago.