From Jeremy Wallace’s newsletter.
A flood of new data centers trying to hook into the Texas electrical grid could force the state to significantly expand its power grid to accommodate the new demand.
More than 480 “large” data centers have requested to connect to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid through 2032, according to ERCOT’s data, as tech companies race to develop artificial intelligence.
Altogether, these prospective data centers are seeking more than 418 gigawatts of electricity from ERCOT’s grid, according to the data — or nearly five times the all-time ERCOT power demand record of 85.5 gigawatts, set during summer 2023’s record-breaking heat wave.
“It’s really been just something that we’ve never experienced before in the history of ERCOT,” CEO Pablo Vegas said in a previous interview about the surge in large electricity users.
[…]
No state agencies publish an official list of data centers being built in Texas. But the Houston Chronicle partnered with Cleanview to publish a first-of-its-kind, public interactive map of existing and proposed projects across Texas.
There’s growing backlash around the state and nation to data centers as communities worry about the impact on water, electricity and quality of life.
In San Marcos, dozens of citizens organized to delay approval of a data center project that plans to use half a million gallons of water a day – the equivalent of 1,600 homes.
In Amarillo, city officials are discussing a moratorium on large data center projects after concerns from the community.
And in Hill County, county commissioners initially tried to impose a moratorium but backed off that plan last week after threats of lawsuits from data centers.
Reporter Claire Hao has more on the power demands of data centers and what Texas needs to do to handle the growth.
I didn’t realize that the disparity between the future demand and current capacity was that great. You’d think that if we really wanted to be the Promised Land for data centers, we’d be massively investing in new generator capacity and more water sources, but the same Republicans that are clamoring for these things have gotten all squirrely about wind and solar energy thanks to the orange chaos monkey in Washington, and investment in water is inadequate, by a lot. I dunno, maybe some better leadership is needed here.
The Texas Observer highlights another red county that just wants to have a say in what’s happening to it.
Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden, a stout 63-year-old who sports a cowboy hat and a white handlebar mustache, is hoppin’ mad about the artificial intelligence-fueled data center boom in his backyard.
Like so many other rural Republican county officials across the state, Haden is staring down several energy- and water-sucking data center projects that he and other county officials have very few powers to constrain. “By the time I hear about it, [developers have] already bought their land, so it’s not like they’re asking our permission to show up,” Haden told the Texas Observer. “So that’s frustrating, right? But I can’t do anything about that, so I’m trying to do something about things that I can do.”
[…]
The policy debate thus far has exposed deeper tensions within the party as GOP state leaders have for years engaged in an expanding war on local control—aimed at big blue cities—in favor of state supremacy. But that ideological shift now has local Republicans finding that they, too, have fallen prey to that crusade.
So far, Haden and other county officials are choosing a middle lane between these political poles. Two days after Hill County commissioners passed their data center moratorium, Caldwell County commissioners took a more moderate action by unanimously passing a resolution calling on the state to grant counties greater land-use authorities to rein in data centers. The resolution also calls for independent environmental assessments and for developers to disclose their energy, water, and infrastructure impacts before they can proceed.
Haden is also working with his county’s state legislators, Republican state Representative Stan Gerdes and Democratic state Senator Judith Zaffirini, to draft legislation that would do just that. Haden says his draft bill would grant counties the ability to impose certain land-use requirements on data centers within county subdivision ordinances. This would allow county officials to impose a range of limits on data center projects, including clear limits on potable water use, stormwater use, and wastewater discharge, forcing the data centers to use more efficient closed-loop water cooling systems with non-potable water and “dark sky” lighting, among other stipulations.
“This is not a property rights bill. I’m not asking for [developers] to be able to come or not to come. What I am asking is to be able to regulate our national natural resources if they arrive here,” Haden told the Observer.
Right now, Haden says, counties can only impose such requirements as part of a development agreement that would grant developers lucrative tax abatements or reinvestment zones. For now, Haden says, the county is granting tax abatements as a means of leverage in order to ensure data centers follow basic rules—sparking ire among many of his constituents in the process.
[…]
Caldwell County Judge Haden is running out of patience and has called on Abbott to call a special legislative session specifically to address data center regulation. “Governor Abbott could call [a special session] tomorrow. He has chosen not to. I mean, for God sakes, we have special sessions over who can use which restroom, but we don’t have a special session for this,” Haden said just before voting to pass the county’s resolution supporting data center regulation.
The idea of any special session, for any reason, at this point makes me want to go play in traffic, but Judge Haden is at least putting the blame where it belongs. I should note, for what it’s worth, that Caldwell County isn’t nearly as red as some of the others we’ve been talking about. It flirted with purple status in 2020 before taking a step back in 2024, along with the rest of the state. In a strong Dem year like this should be, I think “purple” will be a more accurate description.
Now here’s a genuinely red county.
Dozens of East Texans converged at an Angelina County Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday to demand answers regarding a proposed data center project on State Highway 103 East.
The project proposed by Denver-based AmpZ Champion Data Center Holdings has drawn considerable ire in Lufkin over the last few months. Residents worry about potential light, sound, air and water pollution, as well as how this project will affect property values.
Even though Angelina County Judge Keith Wright shares those concerns, he told residents the county has no power to stop proposed data centers from being developed. In fact, another facility on Highway 103 West has already cleared major hurdles without any input from the county, he said.
“We have no authority to do a moratorium or stop any type of development in the county,” Wright said. “Texas legislators have consciously limited what counties can do, and they’ve done it on purpose. They don’t trust us.”
He called on residents to voice their concerns with the lawmakers who tied the county’s hands.
[…]
Because AmpZ’s data center project is proposed outside of Lufkin city limits, Lufkin won’t receive tax revenues from it. AmpZ has to look to Angelina County for any tax-based incentives.
While Wright, the county judge, cannot stop the project, a proposed tax abatement may give him some leverage to negotiate protections for nearby residents.
He wants to enact various measures to mitigate potential harms, such as noise limitations, landscape buffers between the center and nearby properties, and bond requirements that would ensure the company pays for any necessary cleanup costs. But these demands would be part of business negotiations that AmpZ could ignore if it decides to build regardless of whether it receives a tax abatement.
“It would be good if the state would develop some type of construction standards that facilities have to meet,” Wright told the Texas Tribune. “That would go a long way to address some of the concerns.”
Shelley Tatum, a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives district 9 seat, said she grew up near the mill when it was running. She recalled its stench as a mixture of rotten eggs, wet dog and collard greens. She is not thrilled about the building’s potential return to operation – even if it’s a different type of industry.
She called on the court to deny any form of tax abatement. Doing so is the only way the county can show its distaste for the project, she said. Plus, property taxes are the only benefit residents would see from the operation.
“That data center is not going to be operating in 10 years,” she said. “Technology is developing so quickly that by the time a 10-year tax abatement runs, that facility is going to be as empty as the old paper mill is right now.”
Slick move, locating outside Lufkin city limits, where some form of control over the project could be exercised, via permits if nothing else. That’s the way the game is played. Kudos to Shelley Tatum for showing up and fighting. To put it mildly, HD09 is a challenging district – 78.6% for Trump in 2024, 75.6% for Ted Cruz in 2018 – but what are you gonna do, sit at home and complain? Go and show people you’ll fight for them on an issue they care about, and see what happens.
That said, being in a city and having the data center planned for there doesn’t mean you can stop them.
Tempers flared during a late May public hearing about whether San Antonio residents wanted another data center in their far West Side neighborhood.
“There are already three data centers in my backyard,” one middle-aged woman railed during her time at the podium. “Now the light is in my bedroom every night. I don’t sleep. I listen to the hum of the air conditioners.”
A man with long hair and glasses looked directly at executives with the company operating the new center as he delivered his stinging message of disapproval.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, because there is a special place in hell for all of you,” he said.
Held May 28 in a Marriott ballroom near Sea World — and right across from the data center in question — the hearing mirrored debates playing out in communities nationwide. Amid a boom in data centers, residents are pushing back against the operations, their use of public resources and their impacts on daily life.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held the meeting to gather input on the pending approval of an air-quality permit for the new Westover Hills facility, developed and run by Denver-based Vantage Data Centers.
This was the first public hearing on the center, located at 5207 Rogers Road, which is already constructed and partly operational, company officials told the crowd.
[…]
During the Vantage hearing, [Adrian Shelley, Texas director for advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen] and other advocates spoke from the podium about the unknown cumulative effects of concentrating so many of the centers in one area.
“There’s not really any mechanism at the state level to address cumulative impacts,” Shelley told the Current. “This has been a point of contention with us in the regulation of air and water pollution for a long time: that they look at these facilities in isolation.”
[Rachel Hanes, policy manager for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance (GEAA)] told the Current that part of the difficulty in overseeing the industry is the opaque nature of their operations and the fact that each data center is different.
“I really think the data center operators are not doing themselves a service by not releasing information and being transparent,” Hanes said. “And so it seems to people that they’re just getting run roughshod over.”
During the hearing, a resident pointed out that the data center abuts a creek and queried whether the body of water would become a dump site. Data centers are known to produce wastewater that may contain PFOS, a toxic “forever chemical” linked to contamination of waterways.
Vantage execs insisted the center would generate zero wastewater.
However, Hanes questioned whether Vantage representatives were being truthful when they said the new operation will have minimal environmental impact.
“I still find it interesting that they are not discharging any wastewater, which could be true, but that doesn’t quite make sense to me,” Hanes said.
To dump wastewater in the nearby creek, the facility would need to obtain a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) permit from the state, otherwise known as a wastewater permit.
However, Vantage representatives at the hearing said the center would also be connected to the city’s sewage system.
If any wastewater is released from the center, it would likely enter city sewers, where it would be handled by a San Antonio Water System wastewater treatment plant.
“Wastewater can contain heavy metals, corrosion inhibitors, salts, minerals and … potential forever chemicals,” Hanes said. “So, we don’t know exactly what’s in that wastewater. Hopefully SAWS would have that answer. But if they happen to contain those existing contaminants … that’s obviously a concern.”
Vantage has been evasive about how many times the glycolic fluid can be recycled through the facility’s closed-loop cooling system and how much water will be needed to supply both the data center and the VoltaGrid gas plant, among other questions, she added.
As the story notes, there are multiple data centers in the Austin to San Antonio corridor already, and they tend to generate few jobs once the construction is over.
And then there’s the water issue, which is further exacerbated by where these things are being built or planned to be built.
About two-thirds of upcoming data centers, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year.
Of 809 planned data centers, 517 are in locations that have been in drought conditions throughout the past year, according to data from Cleanview and the federal government, which grades drought across four levels of severity. A similar proportion of existing data centers are already situated in drought-affected areas.
More than 60 percent of the contiguous US is currently at varying stages of drought, the largest expanse for spring in modern records, with a particularly severe lack of rain and snow in the Southeast and West desiccating croplands and raising fears of a disastrous wildfire season.
[…]
“The AI industry is sprinting as fast as it can to gain market dominance, and the rest of us have to deal with a great increase in water demand in places already in drought,” said Christopher Dalbom, an expert in water resources law at Tulane University. “Even if there wasn’t climate change, we’d be feeling the effects of droughts more acutely, because water demand is going up and up, to feed more people and water more lawns and crops. There isn’t enough water to go around. Now with this explosion of data centers, I think a crunch point is inevitable.”
I sure don’t want to give up my access to water for these monstrosities. As with Texas and the electric grid, where’s the planning for any of this? I know, stupid question.
Good grief, that’s 1.89 data centers per county! (480 divided by 254)!
Good grief, that’s 1.89 data centers per county! (480 divided by 254)!
So they are going to need five or six times the grid power we have available now? Where is that going to come from? As I understand it gas turbines necessary to use fracked gas as power are way, way backordered, so I guess they are just going to have to build out solar and wind.