The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

Luddites of Iceland
WSJ story on data centers in Iceland

Iceland Takes Hard Look at Tech Boom Sparked by Its Cheap, Bountiful Power

“It’s our re­spon­si­bil­ity to use the power re­sources that we have,” said the chief ex­ec­u­tive of Ad­va­nia’s data cen­ter unit Eyjol­fur Mag­nus Kristins­son, echo­ing the ar­gu­ment that Ice­land used a half-cen­tury ago to bring alu­minum smelters to the is­land.

Iceland now has a trivial part of the world’s aluminum refining capacity

Maybe Iceland is trying to leverage better deals but I don’t think they’re that clever. There is no other country that has the amalgamation of things that an environmentally conscientious tech industry would desire but I suspect the Icelandic government is going to stick themselves in their own eye again.