Local Opposition To Data Centers Is The Next New Thing

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Last Updated on: 20th May 2025, 12:25 am

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That is a maxim often cited by scientists, but it applies in social settings as well. The world has gone gaga for artificial intelligence — the latest digital miracle that can write our term papers and political speeches while sifting through airline bookings in search of people who harbor resentments against the current US administration so they can be arrested at the airport and shipped off to a foreign gulag. The result has been an explosion in the number of data centers planned for America.

Data Center Watch is a research organization that tracks data center opposition. It’s latest report claims that “$64 billion in U.S. data center projects have been blocked or delayed by a growing wave of local, bipartisan opposition. What was once quiet infrastructure is now a national flashpoint — and communities are pushing back. This report highlights political risks and local opposition as frequent factors in data center project delays or cancellations, including community resistance, environmental concerns, and zoning issues.”

The Data Center Watch research tracks opposition to large-scale data center projects in 28 U.S. states. That research has allowed the organization to build a database of activist activity and public officials involved in blocking or delaying development. “We reviewed public sources such as local media, government filings, petitions, social media, and official statements,” the report says.

Data Centers In Northern Virginia

Nowhere is opposition as strong as it is in northern Virginia, which has more data centers than any other US state. Inside Climate News reports that, to date, $900 million worth of data center projects in Virginia have been blocked and $45.8 billion in projects have been delayed. However, the state has yet to put effective limits on data centers in place. In the last legislative session, dozens of bills were introduced, but in the end, only one, which made some general pronouncements about controlling utility bills, got signed by the governor.

The governor vetoed a bill that would require data center proposals to give a description of substation needs and the noise they would create for nearby homes and schools. Democrats in the Virginia House nixed a requirement for state regulators to review data center power contracts to ensure that electricity generation and transmission lines could support the need.

Josh Levi, the president of the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing many of the tech companies developing projects in Virginia, said the group is “committed to working collaboratively with local officials, policymakers, and regulatory bodies at every level. Data center companies site projects where they are permitted under local zoning ordinances, rules, and regulations, which are developed by local leaders representing their communities. The industry seeks to work collaboratively with local officials to minimize community impacts, which often includes participating in town halls and other community and public engagement opportunities.”

What has put a bee in the bonnets of those who live in the areas where new data centers are proposed? There are a number of complaints about noise, the blockhouse style of architecture common to most data centers, and the increased number of electrical transmission lines feeding them. In the Bren Pointe residential community in Fairfax County, residents are fighting a $165 million project that would need new transmission lines and a five-acre substation located just 60 feet from the boundary of the community of upscale townhouses that sell for an average of $800,000 each.

Local Opposition Grows

Elena Schlossberg is a resident of Prince William County, Virginia, who has been organizing opposition to data centers in her county for a decade. She became part of a group called the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, which is 35 miles southwest of Washington, DC. The group has joined forces with the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Sierra Club, and the National Parks Conservation Association to create the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition.

The allure of data centers for many governments is simple — money. An empty field pays very little in taxes. An empty field that becomes the home of a data center can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in new tax revenue every year. Ann Wheeler is the former chair of the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County — former because she lost in a primary recently. Wheeler and her challenger were both Democrats. Today, she stands by her decision to support the data center industry.

The environmentalists used “misinformation,” she told ICN. They ran a BANANA campaign, she claims, which stands for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. Supporting the data centers meant union jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in local revenue to support the social services the Democratic Party traditionally champions. “They’ll go in somewhere,” Wheeler said. “I would rather have that tax revenue in Virginia.”

Going Bananas

CleanTechnica readers can surely sympathize with Wheeler. BANANA sounds exactly like the anti-renewable energy hysteria that is gripping Middle America. In that case, new laws are requiring new solar and wind farms to be sited a half a mile or more from the nearest residence. In southern New Jersey, residents were able to put the kibosh on an offshore wind farm that would be located 12 miles from the shore because they feared the whirling blades would anger the summer tourists who pay so much of the community’s bills. Never mind that 12 miles is below the horizon if you are sitting in a beach chair. Reality, common sense, and politics are seldom the closest of friends.

The pushback against data centers is bipartisan, the Data Center Watch report says. “Opposition to data center development cuts across political lines. Republican officials often raise concerns about tax incentives and energy grid strain, while Democrats tend to focus on environmental impacts and resource consumption. This cross-party resistance defies expectations and marks a rare area of bipartisan alignment in infrastructure politics.”

“Despite the post-ChatGPT enthusiasm for AI, communities are not universally embracing the physical infrastructure behind it. Even when promised jobs and tax revenue, local residents often push back against data centers — challenging the prevailing narrative that tech development is always a local economic win,” the report claimed. “Where communities once rallied against factories, warehouses, or retail sprawl, they’re now opposing data centers. From noise and water usage to power demands and property values, server farms have become a new target in the broader backlash against large-scale development. The landscape of local resistance is shifting — and data centers are squarely in the cross hairs.”

The Colossal Scale Of Colossus

One example of how tone deaf data center operators can be is the Colossus project in Memphis, home to Elon Musk’s Grok. The local utility can’t supply enough electricity to run the facility, so Musk has brought in dozens of portable methane powered generators to keep the place running while the utility play catch up. Those portable generators are far dirtier than a conventional methane fired generating station and local residents are up in arms about the amount of pollution Musk’s data center is spewing into the air.

There are accusations that Musk failed to obtain the necessary air quality permits for those generators, a charge Musk hotly denies, but it is clear the mayor has visions of sugar plums dancing in his head at the thought of all the lovely new revenue that will flow into the city’s coffers, now that an abandoned industrial facility has been repurposed.

The question on how much AI is enough is one that will be a frequent component of political campaigns for the next several years. There are some who predict data centers will use ten percent of more of all the available electricity in the world before long. The industry is looking at reactivating shuttered nuclear generating stations and building new small modular reactors along with dozens of new methane fired facilities to meet the demand, a situation that makes environmentalists question why we need all this computing power.

Look for data centers to become a political hot button in lots of places as the race to add AI becomes more frantic. Maybe someone should ask Chat-GPT or Grok why we need all that data processing capability.