So the issue is we lack proper refineries to process our own domestic crude oil - if only there was a way to fix that...

Who said anything about "workers" being a significant contributor to the local economy?

Are you serious? Regarding Private Datacenters (Think AWS or Azure, etc.) They build a multi-million dollar building, stuff it full of tens of millions of dollars of equipment (servers), and they do all this as a non-profit entity? That's what you think?

Here's a thought - perhaps they spend tens of millions of dollars to generate hundreds of millions of dollars, and they then pay income taxes on the spread between those two numbers, less operating expenses (salaries, electricity, water, etc)

FFS, you really think private datacenters are non-profit operations?

As noted originally, this particular datacenter is a government facility, so this particular datacenter doesn't generate tax revenue, but I am speaking broadly (note the reference to "private data centers").

FTFY

Wow, how insightful of you - yes, a buy-out package limited to people whose age plus years of service at MS add up to 70 or greater by definition limits the offer to "older employees," since it's mathematically impossible for anyone under about 45 or 50 years of age to qualify (45 year-old employee would need 25 years "on the job" to qualify, not impossible, but unlikely to find a younger employee than that with sufficient time on the job...

If it's not a good deal, they won't take it, just as you didn't take it when Google offered you your voluntary buy-out package...

Cute how you skip over the "voluntary" part of the buy-out...

Literally the first line in TFS, as well as in the headline for the story, but still somehow you missed it... Interesting.

I suspect the employees offered the voluntary buy-out have a fair bit of company stock, likely collected over their 20+ years in the company.

If the deal isn't appealing to them, they don't have to volunteer to accept it...

Stop the drama - they are offering buy-outs to older, more expensive employees. NO ONE IS BEING FORCED OUT. You do understand the concept of "voluntary buy-out", don't you?

To be eligible you'd need, say, 25 years on the job and be 45 years old, to make the magic "70" number for age + years of service.

Exactly - The Gulf Coast data centers that were bombed were in the middle east - are they really concerned that Iran will attack the data center in Michigan? Or are they afraid it will be a target when Canada finally decided to bite the hand that feeds them and launch an all-out assault on the US?

They are grasping for reasons to oppose the datacenter.

Its a quarter million square feet facility, it really isn't that big - they are talking about a facility in Utah that will have up to 2 million square feet of datacenter floor space.

Uh, private datacenters pay a WHOLE LOT OF TAXES relative to the load they place on the local schools, hospitals, police/fire/first responders and roadways.

In this very particular case, being a federal facility, the numbers are different, but your comment was more general than just this one facility...

OK, what does that mean "consume" - if the facility takes in 500,000 gallons of water a day, how much is returned to the sewage system? None? Most of it?

So where is electricity 50 cents a KWHr, is it Texas or California? NY or FL? Not a whole lotta Trump supporters in CA or NY, for example.

Here's a handy chart of electricity costs in the fifty US states

Land for solar panels is kind of important.

Lots of island nations rely on roofs for collecting rain water (fresh water is hard on an island, the water surrounding island nations is salt water), and houses on islands are typically much smaller, and have much smaller yards than we are used to in a place like the US.

"Banker class"? I'm old enough to remember when Three Mile Island happened - remember the carnage, the deaths, the environmental damage when TMI "melted down"? Of course you don't, because it didn't happen - that was a Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, and Jack Lemon movie called "China Syndrome" tat forever emboldened the environmentalists to organize a "No Nukes" concert and challenge every application to build a nuclear power plant.