… and finds it on the Columbia River. Wired Magazine reports that when Google needed new property to house the servers that provide its search directories, maps, email and contextual advertising services to the world, it couldn’t relocate to just any place. It needed certain specific things to be successful:

1) access to fat data pipelines and
2) access to cheap electricity.

Despite having a virtual presence on your computer, a search engine company has physical demands that are extraordinary. Google’s server farms burn through electricity for everything from data processing to cooling fans. According to Wired, the current power demand of our major search engines roughly equals the amount of electricity burned by Las Vegas, and that amount is only expected to grow.

The article speculates that Google may be the leading edge of a wave of online corporations hunting for cheap electricity solutions. Just as Google located itself next to The Dalles Dam on the Columbia, others may follow, perhaps leapfrogging up river chains in search of new cheap hydropower, or else turning to nukes (or maybe just cheap cheap coal?) to satisfy their energy requirements.

One thing is certain: the power will be coming from somewhere, and it won’t be virtual. Within a few years, the biggest enemy of salmon could turn out to be a “post-industrial” company that has just as much of a hunger for cheap power as the aluminum industry.