Imaginaries on ice: Sociotechnical futures of data centre development in Norway and Iceland ...

• Main Authors: Upham, Paul, K. Sovacool, Benjamin, G. Monyei, Chukwuka
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: SAGE Journals 2022
• Subjects: 120599 Urban and Regional Planning not elsewhere classified; FOS: Social and economic geography; Iceland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25384/sage.c.6230520; https://sage.figshare.com/collections/Imaginaries_on_ice_Sociotechnical_futures_of_data_centre_development_in_Norway_and_Iceland/6230520

In 2018, Norway promoted itself as a ‘Datacentre Nation’. In terms of low cost, renewably generated sources of electricity and low ambient temperatures, Nordic countries and the data centre sector are potentially mutual beneficiaries – yet, there are also negative impacts associated with the necessary electric power production. With this as a starting point, for Norway and Iceland, we explore how data centre proponents promulgate similar techno-environmental imaginaries, but achieve differing degrees of stabilisation. To this end, we use three sources of imaginaries relating to data centre development in Iceland and Norway: those implicit in promotional imagery originating within the countries concerned; those implicit in international newspapers, as indicative of external perceptions; and those implicit in focus groups with the Norwegian and Icelandic public. We show how data centre advocates deploy visual imagery to create a promotional techno-environmental imaginary that marries nature with the digital in ...