The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

The city is working to finalize a development deal that would bring an $800 million data center to far east Tulsa.
Project Anthem would be constructed on 340 acres south and west of the intersection of 11th Street and the Creek Turnpike and, once operational, employ 50 people.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/business/800-million-data-center-in-the-works-in-east-tulsa/article_f630aac0-d741-11ee-8b95-272feae7310b.html

But should we?

Public data hint at the potential toll of this approach. Researchers at UC Riverside estimated last year, for example, that global AI demand could cause data centers to suck up 1.1 trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons of freshwater by 2027. A separate study from a university in the Netherlands, this one peer-reviewed, found that AI servers’ electricity demand could grow, over the same period, to be on the order of 100 terawatt hours per year, about as much as the entire annual consumption of Argentina or Sweden.

Carbon offsets and clean-energy power-purchase agreements may help Microsoft achieve carbon-negative and water-positive operations on paper, but they don’t necessarily net out the effects on local communities, or anyone else for that matter. The power-purchase agreements, for example, give utility providers money up front to build more renewable-energy or carbon-free-energy capacity, but not necessarily on the grids that Microsoft uses. That means the company’s data centers may still be running on fossil fuels and generating emissions, while clean energy is being underutilized somewhere else. “Purchasing clean energy is not the same as physically consuming clean energy,” Microsoft wrote in its own 2023 white paper about decarbonizing the cloud.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/ai-water-climate-microsoft/677602/

(sarcasm on)

Not to worry, John Kerry and AL Gore worked all this out with the UN and other globalist at Davos that when the UN takes over agriculture and food production in the US all the farms and ranches will become wind and solar farms and since water won't be wasted for food production they can use it for server farms.

(sarcasm off)

This would be the first project at Fair Oaks.  I've said it before but Fair Oaks could be like MAIP but mostly within Tulsa city limits.

(https://partnertulsa.org/wp-content/uploads/Fair-Oaks-Industrial-Park-2-e1709334572144.jpg)

M

Is this the same location that GKFF is supporting?

Would be neat I guess, but that's just 50 jobs, and not all of them are going to be high paying. Data centers aren't that great to have around actually. They suck up a ton of resources and don't give much back in terms of jobs. They are huge investments, but after they are built I don't know that they mean much to anything locally besides a huge liability if the area gets hit by a big storm or something. It's not like FB is going to open an office here.

That being said, I guess it's nice to be on someone's radar and have SOME tech presence.

This sounds like the Meta data center they built in Los Lunas New Mexico about 30 miles south of Albuquerque.

 https://www.kob.com/archive/facebook-announces-800m-expansion-plan-for-los-lunas-data-center/  (https://www.kob.com/archive/facebook-announces-800m-expansion-plan-for-los-lunas-data-center/)

 https://maps.app.goo.gl/rWZT4c5NzcMrjyiz7  (https://maps.app.goo.gl/rWZT4c5NzcMrjyiz7)

They planned to build one in Mesa but sold the land to another data center developer.

 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/meta-sells-land-in-mesa-arizona-to-data-center-developer-edgecore/  (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/meta-sells-land-in-mesa-arizona-to-data-center-developer-edgecore/)

 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JiyyjF1uvmTmBfhu6  (https://maps.app.goo.gl/JiyyjF1uvmTmBfhu6)

As long as there is no (or small) tax incentives, it would be a sizable millage increase for county property tax collections. Nothing to get to excited about but generally positive. As for the water issues, Oklahoma is probably one of the better places for water consuming data centers. The Mississippi valley would be better still.

Like the big Google center over at MAIP.   Few people.  Big box.  Uses lots of power.  Modest improvement to county overall.

Built under the traffic pattern at the airport and then complained about the airplane traffic. 

 :o

Google?  Seems to be a distance there.

I can remember in the 60's when we moved into a house directly under the flight pattern at 21st & Memorial.  The chatter through the neighborhood was fear of another airplane crashing after take off.  One had done that near 51st & Memorial in about 1958 or 59...?.  Open pasture at that time so no injuries on the ground, but still the fear.

I also remember hearing a couple of sonic booms in the 50's - it is kind of impressive, especially to a little kid!  I am guessing it was out of Tinker or Altus before that became not allowed.

Mid America Industrial Airport (H71) and Google.  Google plant is just northeast of the north end of the runway.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/vEFt6WZtPurCTy4Z8

Got it!   I was wrongly zoomed in on Tulsa airport mentally!

The Tulsa-bound plane had taken off on a routine training flight from McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita about 45 minutes earlier. While flying 23,000 feet above Tulsa at about 1:35 p.m., the jet began making a 45-degree turn. Suddenly, its left wing broke off and the plane exploded and disintegrated.
Debris was reported from 21st to 51st streets between Yale Avenue and Memorial Drive. The largest chunk – a portion of the rear fuselage and landing gear – landed in a pasture about 200 yards from a home in the 2200 block of Memorial.
Two days earlier, a B-47 had accidentally dropped an unarmed atomic bomb on a house in Florence, South Carolina

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/history/throwback-tulsa-b-47-jet-broke-apart-raining-debris-on-east-tulsa-in-58/article_4ff393dd-d055-5446-acd1-cd1c7184ae20.html

My parents lived on 30th st between S 76th and S78th E Aves back then. Where those nose section landed is on the following map and is directly across the street from the house I grew up in.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rwb9eAw93gJexcFCA (https://maps.app.goo.gl/rwb9eAw93gJexcFCA)

This is the maneuver that caused B-47's to have a wing snap off in mid flight. The maneuver over stressed the wings beyond the capabilities.

(https://i0.wp.com/militaryhistorynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Overtheshoulderbomb.jpg?w=421&ssl=1)

Aircraft like the B-47 practiced “toss-bombing” techniques, which involved planes releasing their bombs while climbing upwards into loops. The maneuver put unbelievable stress on a jet’s wings. (Image source: WikiCmmons)
The one in Tulsa was not the only one this happened to. There were multiple B-47's that crashed because of this plan from Strategic Air Command.

While only completing half the loop, they would fly in low, pull up into the vertical, release the bomb and continue to the top of the loop where they would then roll from inverted to right side up and fly off in the direction they came from. SAC lost 58 B-47's in two years, sometimes two in the same day.

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2018/09/16/broken-bombers-how-the-u-s-military-covered-up-fatal-flaws-in-the-b-47-stratojet-with-disastrous-results/ (https://militaryhistorynow.com/2018/09/16/broken-bombers-how-the-u-s-military-covered-up-fatal-flaws-in-the-b-47-stratojet-with-disastrous-results/)

Made a heck of a mess.  By early 60's people were still talking about it in the neighborhood!

That whole area, from Michael Heights to Johansen Acres was all new at that time...within a couple years.  Neighbors told us there was a 1947 Pontiac used as fill under the slab of house.  Had been sitting there when the old farm was split up for development, so why waste good fill material!

So you must remember 31st as a gravel road from Sheridan to the east.  Like today, took the city forever to catch up with development of roads!

I was born in 1963 so 31st being gravel east of Sheridan was before my time. I'm good back to about 1970 but there are some things before that that I have bits and pieces of to 1967. My immediate family all moved to Tulsa around 1955/1956. My family lived in the area around MA-HU from 1956 to 2000, my aunt (father's sister was a half block from Hoover Elementary, and my paternal grand parents lived on Atlanta just south of 21st from 1955 until 1990 when my grandmother was moved into the nursing home right there on 21st just east of Atlanta and my grandfather passed shortly after.

Yes, the development of the streets (actually the lack of) in Tulsa is something that I remember quite well, but that's a discussion best left for another area in the forum.

Wow didnt know those details. So somewhere in the debris field where I-44 is now, might have been a live nuke?  ...and they were practicing a maneuver that they wouldnt have survived in reality?

To paraphrase Roy D. Mercer: "How big a bomb are ya?"

I don't remember if the one that crashed in Tulsa was practicing that maneuver, it was on it's way to the Douglas plant since it was one of the maintenance bases for B-47, B-52, KC-135, and the A-3.

The more I read about SAC during the cold war, the more I realize Dr. Stranglove was a documentary in some respects. I can see George C Scott's Gen. Buck Turgidson version of Gen Curtis LeMay discussing with other SAC leaders, "Okay, we're going to put a  nuke in a B-47, fly it at 500 MPH at 1000 feet above ground, go over the target then stand it on it's tail going vertical into a  half loop, toss the bomb just before going inverted at 600 MPH at the top, then a half roll and fly out. What could possibly go wrong?"

(https://i.redd.it/37f4w1c1exl91.jpg)

It was gravel then.  Took a couple more years before it got paved, so you missed it.

We were in Michael Heights east of the schools less than 1/2 mile.  When old people start talking about how they had to walk 45 miles to school, uphill both ways, in the snow...  I tell them I had to drive 1/4 mile to school, rain or shine, hot or cold, uphill both ways, in my 61 VW Beetle!  About the same as walking 45 miles in the hot and snow....

You had your own car in High School?  Lucky you!

Saved up for about 2 years (from 14 on) to get enough to buy that thing!  Starting when 15 I got a job in a shop sweeping the floor and shoveling horse stuff out of the bosses horse barn.  That car cost me $50.  Ran a little rough for the first 5 months, then swallowed a valve - two plug wires were reversed and I had no clue!
 Jacked it up in Dad's garage on about 3' of wooden blocks.  Dropped the engine out the bottom, took it to a shop and had it rebuilt.  Since I had been working very steady for 6 months, getting $37.50 a week takehome, I had saved up the $400 it cost to get it rebuilt!  Put it back in.  Ran another 1.5 yr till I got the chance to buy an amazing 65 Buick Wildcat for $800!  Sold the bug.  Wish I still had both of those!  Still have some of those old pay stubs from that job and the next one - found them while purging about a year ago!

Early Bugs were notorious for swallowing valves unless one adhered to the rigorous German service requirements.  Otherwise, they ran fine. Still a scary car though regarding real handling. 


Yep, relatively easy to work on.


Pretty radical change in vehicles.  Wildcat was a good Turnpike cruiser.  Maybe not an Autobahn cruiser though.

Oh Holy Thread Drift!

In my immediate family we owned several VW Beetles and one VW Bus between 1968 and 1989. There were two 1967 Beetles, a 1969 Beetle, two 1972 Beetles, a regular and a Super Beetle, and a 1972 Bus. Three of the four of us boys owned Beetles as first cars so I got a good education in working on them, and yes, my parents gave me a 1972 Beetle as my first car in 1979, I paid for any work that I couldn't do my self.

I remember doing business with Spraker VW that was on Harvard just south of the BA, and while not driving yet I remember going to Courtesy VW that was on 41st where the Annex Mall was built when Courtesy moved to Memorial across the street from Conine Swabb Porsche Audi.

I also did business with a place called Mac's Wagon Shop on 15th across the street from ONG, Gene Pyatte that was behind Cue Spot when it was on 31st, Dynabug that was an independent on S 68th E Ave just south of 41st, Der German that was on N Harvard and Dawson, and another VW parts place that was on the east side of Memorial just south of 15th.

A friend from high school started working at Dynabug in 1982 and I spent quite a bit of time there on Saturdays doing work on my Triumph TR7 and my dads Super Beetle. I actually bought a hot rod Baja bug from them that had a mechanics lein on it because it was brought in and never picked up. Bought it for $150.00, fixed the bent front suspension for $200.00 and sold it for $1500.00.

The bent valve issue got me with my first Beetle just a couple of months after I started driving. Took off from a left turn at 31st and Memorial and at 30 MPH the thing just slowed down made a lot of noise, and created a smoke screen that James Bond would be proud of. Had Mac's fix that one, but a couple of years later rebuilt the engine again my self, and in 1983 dad's Super Beetle started leaking from the main seal behind the flywheel so he had me rebuild it. Instead of a 60 HP 1600 CC, I built a 1750 CC 90 HP with a mild cam that ran really well. First time he drove it, he asked me, what had I done, and I just said, made it a little better. Still got great gas mileage as long as you kept your foot out of it.

My '61 had no gas gauge so ya had to kinda stay aware.  If it sputtered, there was a reserve valve that gave you another 1/2 gal of gas or so.

I had the original 'hippie' vw repair guide - was wonderful.!  Still have it around somewhere...probably lost in a box!  "How to Keep Your VW Alive" by John Muir.

Once I got the plug wires on right, never had another problem.  Adjusted the valves a couple times, IIRC.  Mileage was never that great - about 21-22 on highway.  Couldn't really go more than about 60-65 mph.  Should NOT go more than about 60-65 mph with that suspension!

Somewhere about 1971 there was enough of a sales slowdown that the standard 71 Beetle was on sale new for about $1,300.  Down from the $1,995 it had been for a while.  My brother bought one and ran it for 5 or 6 years.   He had a gas gauge!

Gene Pyatt sounds familiar, but don't really remember where I had mine rebuilt....

What's the scoop on the New Urbanist community plans in Fair Oaks?

I gotta find another Beetle so I can drive out there and look around at it!  See if anything happening yet!

(Tying all the threads together...I know - kind of a stretch!)