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The infrastructure that supports the Internet, online commerce and nearly all corporate data services is engaged in a vast migration eastward in search of energy prices cheaper than anything available in Silicon Valley, where the digital revolution began, according to a report released Tuesday by the environmental group Greenpeace.

Internet companies often cloak themselves in an image of environmental awareness. But some companies that essentially live on the Internet are moving facilities to North Carolina, Virginia, northeastern Illinois and other regions whose main sources of energy are coal and nuclear power, the report said. The report singles out Apple as one of the leaders of the charge to coal-fired energy.

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“They are very brand-conscious companies,” Mr. Cook said. “They want to be presenting themselves as responsible and innovative.” He added that the companies “don’t want people to be concerned about, when they post their videos, that that’s somehow attached to coal.”

In fact, coal accounts for about half the generation capacity of the electric utility that powers an enormous data center in Maiden, N.C., that Apple recently opened, and some industry analysts think the center will be expanded. Nuclear power accounts for the large majority of the rest of that capacity, according to figures supplied by the utility, Duke Energy.

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Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, added that the company is building two large projects intended to offset energy use from the grid in North Carolina: an array of solar panels and a set of fuel cells.

Also from Greenpeace:

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Curious to see if there were any toxins in her body that could be causing health problems, Welch had her hair checked. Hair stores chemicals and toxins absorbed in the body.

“My hair is 68 parts per million uranium,” Welch says. “And then my husband started breaking out in disfiguring hives. His kidneys started acting really bizarre.”

Welch says her doctor linked the family health problems to uranium poisoning. The uranium was traced to a water well on her property. That discovery led to more robust testing by University of Georgia researchers, who found more than 20 homes in the area with high concentrations of uranium.

Hair testing revealed that another Juliette resident, Jamie Worley, had high concentrations of uranium in his hair. Worley developed liver cancer and died, although it’s unclear whether the uranium triggered the cancer.

The researchers say they haven’t traced where the uranium comes from, although EPA officials said they believed the contamination to come from underneath a layer of granite 70 miles away near Atlanta.

Uranium is also heavily concentrated in coal ash. Plant Scherer produces hundreds of acres of coal ash per year. The waste is stored in a 900-acre pond surrounding the plant. Over the past 30 years, several studies have found coal ash more radioactive than the waste from nuclear power plants.

So when Georgia Power sealed two wells, many in the community began to suspect the massive coal plant could be causing the contamination and the illnesses. One of the most commonly accepted theories by residents of Juliette is that uranium and other toxins from the coal waste are leaking from the ash pond into the area water table.

“Through the grapevine and small community talk, that’s what I hear,” Welch says. “Over and over again people ask me, ‘Is it Georgia Power? Is there any proof it’s Georgia Power? Is it the ash?’ I don’t know. I can’t say. I just want the truth.”

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With no discussion, the Dendron Town Council unanimously reaffirmed land-use changes to pave way for a 1500-megawatt coal-fired power plant, which would be the largest in the state.

More than 200 residents turned out at the Dendron Volunteer Fire Department for a five-hour public hearing on Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s plan to build the $5 billion coal plant in Dendron.

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Absent in the amendments was an agreement to pursue an independent environmental study of the plant, which at least one member of Surry’s Planning Commission had recommended last week. The recommendation was left out of the town’s considerations after an Old Dominion representative told the council that the Army Corps of Engineers had already contracted an independent study as part of its review.

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Critics also rejected the idea that if the plant is denied in Dendron, Old Dominion will build in Sussex County, sending needed jobs and revenue there instead.

“That’s crack dealer logic,” Waverly resident Stephen Warren said. “‘Sure, crack is bad, but if they don’t get it from me, they’ll just get it from someone else. So I might as well get paid.’ That’s bad logic. It’s bad for a crack dealer and it’s bad for a town council.”