I'm always amazed how often we forget that the immaterial world is still solidly based on the material. When Greenpeace began calling Facebook "The So Coal Network" last February, activists drew our attention to information infrastructures and the data centers that serve them. Specifically, activists pointed to the energy sources being used at Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Oregon. The New York Times profiled this problem last week, noting that the data center would be powered by PacifiCorp, a company that gets 58 percent of its energy from burning coal. Is communication really becoming more ethereal? Perhaps. But even in the age of global flows and digital networks, the entire system still relies on physical supports and real-world infrastructure.
