>Because it’s a dangerous technology where profit over security can have severe consequences.

Yeah it's far better to have power plants kill a steady stream of people, but in a banal way that's hard to attribute, like coal power plants causing lung cancer.

No, but hydroelectric works pretty well. There's a reason they recycle aluminum, etc. (power-hungry industries—crypto-mining, ha ha) along the Columbia River, etc.

So build your data centers there. No reason to choose the least evil.

Hydro electric as a resource is probably mostly exploited - are there a lot of big hydro projects left to build? If there are they must be difficult or expensive or they would have already been built.

In the Cascades they’re deconstructing dams as the benefits were oversold while the maintenance costs and environmental impacts were underestimated.

The Green movement in Australia was started over the successful blocking of a hydroelectric dam. Rivers are usually highly ecologically significant.

Which is why coal power plants are being shuttered everywhere in favor of gas and renewables (and I suppose nuclear, sometimes).

It's not nuclear or coal. There is wind, solar, etc.

Because the only options are coal or nuclear?

Wind and solar with storage is far better than nuclear.