For some residents it started with a letter in the mailbox. It was a “friendly introduction from the team behind the Victorian AI hub”.
“I am knocking on doors to explain what we have in mind and, most importantly, to listen,” the letter from Syncline Energy stated.
“Construction won’t start for at least two-years while we complete the planning and environmental approvals.”
For others, news of the project had already spread, through social media and news reports which sounded the alarm before the company had begun its communication efforts.
The site for what has been dubbed a mega datacentre in Plumpton, around30km north-west of the Melbourne CBD, is now an empty paddock next to Melbourne’s renewable energy hub, just off the Calder Freeway. It’s near a fast-growing suburb, transmission lines, and a stone’s throw from where Harry Houdini made what was claimed to be Australia’s first controlled powered flight in 1910. Planes from nearby Tullarmarine airport fly low overhead, and on weekends the sky is punctured by the lights and sounds of the Calder speedway.
This paddock is rapidly becoming a microcosm of the growing community resentment to datacentres across Australia.
The proposed site is 350 hectares, of which Syncline says 40% – 140ha, or just under six times the size of Chadstone shopping centre – will be used to house four datacentre buildings with maximum capacity of 2.4GW, with the remaining 60% to be open land. The proposed centre is larger than any currently operating in Australia and would consume more electricity than is generated by Victoria’s largest power station, Loy Yang A.
The sheer scale of the project has alarmed residents before shovels have hit the ground, building on a growing deep discomfort with the explosion in datacentre construction. An April report by lobby group Data Centres Australia said there were 30 datacentres in operation in Victoria, with another 30 in the pipeline.
Environmental impacts, electricity and water use, concerns about the rise of AI more broadly, and the impact of campaigns in the US – which show developments stretching for miles, lit up like an international airport and with a constant hum of white noise and higher power prices – are feeding community concerns.
A petition calling on the state government to “ensure the environmental, cultural, social and infrastructure implications of the proposed Victorian AI Hub are fully assessed and publicly considered,” as well as the cumulative effects of other new datacentres, has amassed over 3,600 signatures. It was started by Molly Walker, who lives over 250km away in the Grampians and first heard about the plans on TikTok.
Walker, who works in conservation, said the scale of the project made her think “enough is enough”.
“How much is being taken away from the environment?” she asked.
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
