What are water, energy and climate impacts of data centers?

Our Take

Credit to WCNC for putting numbers and local voices behind what a lot of us already suspect: the AI buildout isn't some abstract cloud, it's concrete substations, cooling towers, and utility filings that show up in your neighborhood and your monthly bill. North Carolina is a good case study because it's got the trifecta — cheap land, willing utilities, and state officials eager to land the next "transformative" project. The catch is that ratepayers and local water systems often absorb the risk while the tax breaks and marketing wins go to the company and the politicians who signed the deal.

What doesn't get said enough in these segments is who actually approves the water withdrawal permits, the substation upgrades, and the tax abatements that make a hyperscale campus pencil out. Those decisions happen in utility commission dockets and county commission meetings, not press conferences, and by the time residents notice the noise, dust, or rate hike, the ink is dry. That's the pattern we track everywhere from Virginia to Arizona to the Carolinas.

If you want to see whether a project like the ones WCNC is describing is already planned near you, check our facility map, and if you want to push back before the next deal gets rubber-stamped, our take-action page has the openings that actually matter — public comment periods, utility hearings, and local council votes.