Watt’s the Problem with Data Centers? The Truth About Energy Use, Costs, and the Panic Over Progress

Our Take

Let's separate two things Stossel blends together: violence against public officials is indefensible, full stop, and nobody serious is defending it. But using that extreme example to wave away every community objection to a 24/7 industrial load moving in next door is a cheap trick. "They're resource-intensive, but so are most productive things" is a nice line from a think-tank fellow, except most productive things don't get negotiated in closed-door tax abatement hearings, don't get to bill ratepayers for their new transmission lines, and don't quietly draw down a local aquifer while the county signs a nondisclosure agreement about how much water it's actually using.

The people showing up at zoning meetings aren't anti-progress — they're the ones who read the interconnection queue reports and utility rate filings and noticed their bills are set to rise as new gigawatt campuses get built to train chatbots. "We need them" is true in the abstract; it says nothing about whether a specific county should hand out a 20-year tax break, rezone farmland, or let a hyperscaler tap the municipal water supply without a public vote. Framing that scrutiny as "panic over progress" lets the actual deal-making — the megawatts, the gallons, the acres, the incentives — slide by without anyone in the room asking who signed off.

We track those deals so you don't have to dig through PUC dockets and county minutes yourself. Check our facility map to see what's landing near you, and if there's a hearing coming up in your area, our take-action page has what you need to actually show up informed.