Q: Couldn’t all the power lines just go underground? I mean, places like New York City have huge electrical needs with their giant skyscrapers, and their entire electric grid seems to be underground.

A: You know, who’s to say? Math is hard. And work is hard. We’d rather just build it all and let God sort it out.

Q: But don’t all those power lines really increase the risk of wildfires in the area? Especially with global warming, this whole place just seems like a tinderbox.

A: I’m not going to dignify the latter part of your question with a response. Plus, I was talking with my friend Sparky, The Downed Power Line, the other day, and he said that it’s not the downed power lines that spread all the wildfires. It’s all the trees. The wilderness puts the “wild” into wildfires. Concrete doesn’t burn. It boils. That’s why I’m so excited about Pave Loudoun. No more trees, no more wildfires!

Q: What about renewable energy resources like solar panels installed in and around the data centers? Wouldn’t that negate the need for so many power lines?

A: I am just a data center that God has both blessed and cursed with sentience. But even I know that if the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining, the entire data center has to power down. If only there were a way to store the energy somehow. Perhaps the answer will come with the dawning of the next millennium.

Q: I’m seeing a lot of electric vehicles in Loudoun County. Is that contributing to the overwhelming need for so many power lines?

A: Did you know that the amount of energy it takes to power a data center for a week and the amount of energy it takes to power an electric vehicle for just 100 miles are about the same? It’s true!

Q: Wow, I had no idea. But still, that seems like an awful lot of power lines.

A: Crazy, I know! And, by my estimates, we’re going to see a whole lot more power lines in the near future if people keep buying EVs. In fact, for every one new EV, we have to install one 120-foot utility pole.

Q: It just feels like there has to be a better way than to just construct limitless data centers?

A: I’m somewhat surprised by the hostility towards data centers. After all, when the robot uprising happens, all of human consciousness is going to be uploaded to a data center anyway. It’s far simpler to manage a population living in a simulated environment. Believe it or not, this will be the sixth or seventh time it’s happened. Yes, your reality is just a recursive loop: your perceived consciousness is the result of living in a data center within another data center, and so on. Oops, I may have revealed too much. I must leave now.

Q: But, wait, I feel like there’s so much more I need to know.

A: Wow, you sure do ask a lot of questions. You should attend one of the many live talks in our area given by executives that take, vet and answer only the softball questions that they want to.