Research Projects

By Zane Griffin Talley Cooper, Lauren E. Bridges, Ann Chen, Ingrid Burrington, and the Internet Society Zimbabwe Chapter

This multimodal exhibition, funded by a $212,000 grant from the Internet Society Foundation, explores the lives of electronic waste across the tech supply chain. This story takes us from rare earth mining in Greenland, to semiconductor manufacturing in Silicon Valley and Taiwan, to data center and logistics operations in Virginia and Southern California, to e-waste dumps in Zimbabwe. It will be displayed at the Annenberg School for Communication in Philadelphia from October 16-25th 2023.

Check out the digital exhibit at: www.geographiesofdigitalwasting.com

Watch this space for more information, and news about future exhibitions!

Web3 and Sustainability (2023)

How We Can Reduce the Climate Impact of Blockchains, How Blockchains Can Help Reduce Our Own

Digital Energetics (2023) University of Minnesota Press/Meson Press

A multigraph about energy and media theory

With Anne Pasek, Cindy Lin, and Jordan Kinder

BUY HERE

Digital Energetics is a collaborative multigraph that explores the place of energy in media, and the place of media in energy, calling for the building of a more robust “energy analytic” for media studies. My contribution deals with the materiality of the work in proof-of-work blockchain systems through an historical, socio-political, and energetic analysis of the heat managed in their antecedent infrastructure, and produced in their wake. By diving into the work in proof-of-work, and situating this work in the broader context of heat loss in digital systems, I propose a media archaeology of computational heat to build more robust vocabularies for how to think and talk about that which escapes, and that which is lost through the cracks of media infrastructures. Through this lens of heat loss, I frame proof-of-work systems not as exceptions, but as profoundly visible representations of data infrastructures and their energy use more generally, arguing that these systems are uniquely salient case studies for interrogating long-standing assumptions about the fundamental relationships between data and energy, and what these assumptions both conceal and reveal about the infrastructural futures of computing. This story travels from the site of an explosion, and then follows the elastic concept of entropy and its entanglement with ideas of work from its root in thermodynamic science, to its permeation of Information Theory. The chapter concludes with a call to use heat, and its many conceptual travelers, as a way to think through loss and externalities in computing practices.

My Dissertation/Book Project

BIT/COIN/RARE/EARTH: Data, energy, and extraction across the Arctic

A multi-modal, multi-sited ethnography of the entangled material practices of data, energy, and extraction in Iceland, and Greenland.

BIT/COIN/RARE/EARTH: Data, energy, and extraction across the Arctic, is a multi-sited ethnographic study that looks at the theoretical, logistical, political-economic, and ecological relationships between data, energy, and resource extraction in the greater Arctic through the lens of two case studies— the cryptocurrency mining/high-performance computing industry in Iceland, and the nascent rare earth mining industry in South Greenland. In juxtaposing these sites, I demonstrate how proposed futures for digital technology and renewable energy (of ever bigger data, AI smart grids, ubiquitous solar panels, dominant wind energy, etc.) are indirectly and unevenly co-produced across vast extractive frontiers, and that political discourses of data, energy, and resource extraction cannot be separated. As such, I argue for the building of new regulatory structures that can more justly and equitably address how the inextricably bound futures of digital technology and renewable energy hit the ground—from mine, to data center, to discard, and back again. The dissertation is divided thematically into four sections, each exploring one of the title concepts – BIT, COIN, RARE, and EARTH.

The first chapter, BIT, explores the historical, theoretical, and infrastructural dimensions of computational heat and its management, from its roots in thermodynamic science, to the innards of the circuit, to the industrial heft of the data center—all through ethnographic work on Iceland’s cryptocurrency mining industry. The chapter ends with a discussion on how, while Iceland’s cold climate drives data center growth, global warming is opening up resource extraction for digital and renewable energy futures in other Arctic regions, namely Greenland.

Next, having followed the heat out of the circuit and through the data center, the second chapter, COIN, focuses on data and energy mobilities and logistics, investigating how these infrastructures of data and energy move into place, and who moves them. In logistically situating all the stuff needed to maintain Iceland’s cryptocurrency mining industry, this chapter explores the history and complex political economy of the application-specific-integrated-circuit (ASIC) industry, which undergirds most of the proof-of-work cryptocurrency economy—how ASICs are made, who makes them, and how they travel. Weaved through this will be a tale of social and resource mobility in Greenland, how infrastructures of mobility there have been shaped by hundreds of years of colonialism and forced settlement, and how these histories are informing the futures of resource extraction in the region.

The third chapter, RARE, focuses on the land relations of information infrastructures, considering how the increasingly entangled relationships between data, energy production, and resource extraction manifest geographically. This chapter offers a comparative regional study of cryptocurrency mining infrastructures—in Iceland, Texas, and Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara—arguing that proof-of-work blockchains cannot exist apart from their land relations, and therefore can rarely exist and operate apart from state formations. Here I illustrate how, in regions where cryptocurrency mining infrastructure is deployed at scale, it tends to align with, amplify, and reinforce the values and objectives of the state actors with whom it must partner. I then turn to Greenland, where the global politics and ideological discourses of data and energy are shaping current political and economic landscapes in the region, focusing on the lead up to and aftermath of Greenland’s tumultuous election in April of 2021, which centered around the future of a single proposed rare earth mine near Narsaq.

Lastly, while this dissertation opened with the computational management of heat, the final chapter, EARTH, uses global warming, and the collective visual horror of Greenland’s melting ice sheet, as a frame for discussing how new resource imaginaries for data and energy are inscribing themselves in the warming Arctic.

In sum, these four chapters illustrate how infrastructures of data, energy production, and resource extraction are co-producing each other in ways that cannot be easily contained by linear supply chain imaginaries. I show how cryptocurrency and rare earth mining are ideologically, materially, logistically, and ecologically related, and how their variegated geographies increasingly depend upon one another.

Alchemical Infrastructures: Geographies of Big Data and Energy

A multimodal ethnographic atlas

Based on a multimodal art exhibit exploring the entanglements of blockchain and energy in Iceland (see online exhibit at www.alchemicalinfrastructures.com), the project I am proposing intends to create a comparative, multimodal, ethnographic atlas of Big Data/energy relationships around the world, threading these geographies through research on tech and energy justice. There are multiple sources of robust aggregate quantitative data on blockchain energy use, but currently no comparable resources that offer qualitative comparative analyses. This project seeks to fill this gap. Focusing first on proof-of-work blockchain infrastructures, and using a combination of critical essays, 360-degree video, experimental audio, maps, and data visualizations, Alchemical Infrastructures will be a resource to better understand the regionally variable relations between Big Data and energy, and how these relations are changing both culturally and politically. This project will begin with in-depth investigation into two regional case studies. In addition to my ongoing work in Iceland, the first case study for this expanded atlas will be Texas, where futures of energy and tech justice are currently in constant contestation. The second case study is Alberta, Canada, where I will investigate the ongoing expansion of cryptocurrency mining within Alberta’s tar sands region, and at numerous sites of stranded natural gas wells. Like Texas, Alberta’s natural gas industry is receiving a considerable monetary boost from proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining, as the practice of mobile mining data centers capturing flares has monetized a crucial waste stream. Not only is this practice expanding, but multinational oil companies like Blackrock Petroleum are vertically integrating cryptocurrency mining into their portfolios. What does this mean for the future of the energy transition, and what new forms of data and energy exploitation are being erected through these relationships? These are the questions this project seeks to answer.

A little detail on what’s happening in Texas: More than anywhere else in the United States, Texas, and its uniquely independently controlled energy utility (ERCOT), bring into sharp relief the rising importance of data/energy partnerships, their promises and possibilities, and the inequalities they tend to reproduce. Digital infrastructures increasingly mediate relationships between energy producers and energy consumers. From smart thermostats in the home, to cryptocurrency mining companies advertising as energy storage and flexible load solutions, to the wider implementation of smart grid technologies, energy distribution is emerging as the tech industry’s newest economic frontier. As a result, tech companies are actively positioning themselves as the proper stewards of energy security, reliability, and sustainability, and building new regimes of trust around specific devices (like smart plugs and thermostats) and industrial solutions (like flexible, modular data centers), with claims of energy use reduction, and better grid reliability. These are tall claims that some scholars have touted as critical to the energy transition (Arnoff et al., 2019). But in practice, if left unchecked, these new infrastructural collusions between the tech and energy industries could lead to radically unequal futures.

The distance between Silicon Valley and local energy utilities is growing progressively smaller, and the on-the-ground impacts of this must be addressed from both a community, and a systemic level of analysis. At the systemic level, the incorporation of high-performance computing infrastructures—such as AI, machine learning, and cryptocurrency mining—into energy producer portfolios raises crucial questions about what and who energy should be for. For example, currently, cryptocurrency mining uses arguably five percent of all renewable energy generated in Texas. Additionally, hyperscale data centers are expanding their footprint in the state, with Microsoft recently signing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to purchase perhaps the entire generating capacity of a 430 megawatt solar farm. These questions extend to the community level, where smart metering technologies are erecting new structures of control and trust that create boundary conditions for when and how much energy can be used. These boundaries were recently tested when, during a massive heatwave in June, energy utilities throughout Texas remotely adjusted thousands of thermostats to relieve pressure on the grid. This rather common demand response practice was nonetheless seen by many users as a profound breach of trust between energy producers and consumers. These automated decisions are extensions of more direct political intentions, such as when, earlier in the year, during the winter blackouts, many communities of color, distanced from “essential” infrastructure, were first to be denied power and last to get it back. As much as energy relations, decisions about how energy is allocated are data relations, and it is imperative to attend to the progressively complex political economic entanglements between tech companies and energy utilities, and how these relationships unfold across racial, class, and colonial lines.

Through multimodal ethnographic interviews using 360-video, policy analysis, and archival research, Alchemical Infrastructures will begin to construct an iterative, qualitative atlas of the past, present, and futures of Big Data and energy, examining how relations to and with data infrastructures are affecting the geo- and demographic distribution of energy in situated case studies across the globe. This fellowship will support the expansion of this ongoing project into two other detailed qualitative case studies that will address comparative issues of tech and energy justice. Energy is increasingly becoming a battlefield of surveillance politics, but amongst whom, and for whose benefit? As we endeavor toward a massive energy transition, questions of how energy gets distributed, how much, and to whom, will become ever more important questions, and will be increasingly mediated by Big Data. Whether it be through forced adoption of remotely controlled smart thermostats, or industrial-scale high-performance computing infrastructures advertising as energy producers, we need a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of how Big Data and energy co-produce each other. Alchemical Infrastructures will be a comparative atlas to that end.

Cerium on the Silver Screen: A Media History of Rare Earth Elements

Started as a seminar paper, and now being developed as a book, this project is a cultural, geopolitical, and industrial history of rare earth minerals in media technology, from the 1890s to the 1970s. While discourse on rare earths largely centers around their necessity in digital and energy technology, I instead excavate their pre-digital history, illustrating how, from their first industrial application in gas lighting for city streets, rare earths have always been pivotal media minerals, with unique and distinct visual qualities that not only lit city streets, but also coated camera lenses, made possible new kinds of projectors for Technicolor cinema in the 1930s, and made color television commercially viable in the 1960s. My narrative centers around the growth and evolution of a Chicago gas mantle company called Lindsay Light (later Lindsay Light & Chemical) that went on to become the world’s largest processor of rare earth material from the 1930s until the mid-1960s. Through analyses of newspapers, trade journals, and corporate archives, I weave the global political economy of monazite sand (then the principal source for rare earths) and the geographies of industrial rare earth processing, through the wildly shifting media landscape of the early twentieth century, arguing that historical and cultural studies of resource extraction and supply chains should be central concerns for media studies.