Data centers are like garbage dumps. Everyone wants them, just somewhere else.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/opinion/data-centers-democrats-republicans.html What made Ohio so hospitable to tech expansion — and so vulnerable to a political backlash — is a long story. The state has lots of people, cheap open land, abundant water and weak zoning laws. Most important, it was devastated by deindustrialization like few other places, and has spent decades pursuing an industrial revival.
These vast installations are wrecking the landscape in unspoiled parts of Ohio, as they have done over the past two decades in Northern Virginia.
Cheery projections made by Ohio politicians have not panned out. Tax exemptions intended to lure tech firms wound up costing $1.4 billion more than anticipated in 2025. Above all, the jobs have not come.
Once construction is finished, no one but a couple of tech guys ever has any reason to go in there. Last year, The Wall Street Journal found that a large data center in Abilene, Texas, would employ about 100 people — a fraction of the jobs created by a cheese-packaging plant nearby. And cheese packaging doesn’t threaten to send residents’ utility bills through the roof.
In August, Mr. Ramaswamy called for free electricity for people living near data centers. *
Seventy percent of Americans now oppose having a data center near them. That’s a problem for Big Tech
There are massive benefits to be had for local community leaders willing to creatively demand them, at least for awhile.
Meta’s Community Action Grants: In 2026, Meta awarded $94 million across 328 grants globally to fund STEAM and AI projects in its data center footprint. For example, the Meta Data Center Community Action Grants Program funded AI coding initiatives via Girls Inc. in Huntsville, Alabama, and AI literacy training for 4,000 students via the Perrysburg Schools Foundation in Ohio. [1, 2]
Google’s Infrastructure Commitments: Alongside its $15 billion investment announcement for a new data center in Montgomery County, Missouri, Google committed to responsibly expanding local infrastructure capacity and funding regional energy affordability programs to lower utility costs for residents. [1]
Loudoun County, Virginia Tax Allocations: Though structured as taxes rather than direct charity, operators in Northern Virginia generate massive revenue that directly dictates local funding. In Loudoun County, the data center industry contributed over $875 million in tax revenue in a single year, single-handedly exceeding the county’s core operations budget and funding critical public safety and schools. [1]
Meta’s massive AI data center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana
, directly funds local education through record-breaking teacher bonuses and a $5 million college scholarship donation. [1, 2]
Teacher Bonuses from Tax Revenue
Large Cash Windfalls: Richland Parish teachers received year-end bonuses of up to $50,935 thanks to surging local sales tax revenues generated during the data center’s construction. [1, 2]
Support Staff Payouts: Classified school staff members received special “13th check” bonuses of $17,472. [1]
The major benefit of data centers is the taxes they pay. They also try to be good citizens and can be generous w local donations. Their number of jobs is small but they are good paying jobs. And they have potential to attract others needing their services.
The greatest concern seems to be noise. You wonder if sound deadening technologies would work.
Landowners like the prices they are willing to pay.
Fortunately, you don’t get decide what others find palatable. In Louisiana, teachers are getting bonuses for their work for the first time ever. Like the AI hysteria, there is a similar all datacenters are bad, when it is really a case by case basis.
There is a theory that the AI and Datacenter is a seminal moment in terms of our civilizations long term technological direction, similar to those policy changes by China and then the ascent of Europe.
The Great Divergence: China vs. Europe
In his seminal historical work The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy uses this exact event to illustrate why Europe eventually surpassed China—a phenomenon often called the “Great Divergence.” [1]
A direct comparison of their structural and political setups during this crucial period reveals why this single decision set both continents on completely different trajectories:
This turning point is traced back to the consecutive reigns of the Hongxi Emperor (Zhu Gaochi) and the Xuande Emperor (Zhu Zhanji), who abruptly halted the legendary maritime expeditions of Admiral Zheng He in the 1430s. Later, during the 15th and 16th centuries, subsequent Ming rulers implemented isolationist Haijin laws, making it a capital offense to build multi-masted ships and ordering the destruction of all oceangoing vessels. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
It’s not referring to today. China’s demise as a world power was tied to a push back against innovation and exploration by two Key emperors that ceased shipbuilding in the 1400’s. But if you think 40 to 70 million unnatural deaths under Mao between 1950 and 1976 is an acceptable trade off, I would say you lack a moral compass or at least are oblivious to history.
Clearly, Louisiana and other areas of the country are at least trying to do something in conjunction with datacenters to directly benefit the local regions. I think you claimed otherwise.
When will they trash their smartphones? NIMBY Hypocrisy.
GoogleAI:
The tension between consuming digital services and resisting the physical infrastructure required to power them highlights a growing NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) paradox in the modern tech era.
While public pushback against localized data centers increases due to concerns over heavy energy consumption, water usage, and land development, consumer reliance on data-driven technologies remains at an all-time high.
The Infrastructure vs. Consumption Divide
Skyrocketing Data Demand: Every smartphone action—from streaming video and scrolling social media to deploying artificial intelligence—relies heavily on cloud infrastructure.
Resource Strain: Modern data centers require massive amounts of electricity and millions of gallons of water daily for cooling, frequently straining local municipal grids and resources.
The Hypocrisy Gap: Consumers widely demand faster connectivity, seamless cloud storage, and advanced AI features, yet a significant majority strongly oppose the construction of the actual facilities that make those services possible near their homes.
How Big Tech is Navigating the Backlash
To mitigate public resistance and address resource constraints, technology companies are adapting their infrastructure strategies through several avenues:
Rural and Remote Siting: Shifting new developments away from heavily populated suburban hubs to more isolated, rural regions where land is cheap and community pushback is minimal.
Sustainable Tech Investments: Investing heavily in nuclear power agreements, geothermal energy, and advanced waterless cooling systems to reduce the environmental footprint on local communities.
Economic Incentives: Offering communities tangible local benefits, such as direct grid upgrades, tax revenue investments, and funding for public infrastructure to offset negative sentiment.
That’s for Louisiana voters to decide on in the next elections. But, there is now a general waive against data centers. It might be an opportune time for the right region to ask for all kinds of monetary and non-monetary conditions that might benefit residents long term. Alternatively, areas otherwise lacking financial resources and a solution can do nothing.
The midterms are not looking good for Republicans, so what?
I don’t know what people you are talking about. Most people I know have the life they earned. We may run in different circles. As Charlie Munger would say, the best way to get what you want is to deserve it.
I’m suggesting most people are still largely in control of their destinies, in spite of it. All hierarchies tilt towards corruption. It is a constant problem to defend against it.
Only if large commercial power users are paying for their own infrastructure, rather than spreading the upfront costs across all electric power users, residential and commercial.
Well read um and weep. I have concluded this like so many before me years ago.
From a macroeconomic perspective, analyzing whether energy pricing stabilizes as a region increases its electricity consumption requires looking at the interplay of scale economies, structural supply constraints, and utility regulatory models.
In classical economics, scaling up production usually lowers unit costs. However, the electrical grid operates as a highly complex, real-time infrastructure network, causing it to defy standard rules of scale.
1. The Short-Run Macro Effect: Increasing Marginal Costs
In the short run, electricity generation is subject to a strict increasing marginal cost curve. Unlike a factory that gets more efficient as it prints more widgets, an electrical grid gets more expensive as it approaches maximum capacity.
The Merit Order Effect: Grid operators dispatch power plants from lowest operational cost to highest. When regional demand shifts outward, the grid must activate older, inefficient, and expensive “marginal” power plants.
Wholesale Price Determination: In competitive wholesale markets, the market clearing price for all electricity during a given hour is set by the most expensive plant required to meet the last megawatt of demand. Therefore, a macro increase in demand disproportionately inflates the market price for all power flowing through the system.
2. The Long-Run Macro Effect: The Capital Investment Supercycle
In the long run, sustained demand growth forces a transition from utilizing existing capacity to building entirely new capacity. This triggers a massive capital investment cycle.
Sustained Demand Growth ➔ Grid Capacity Exhausted ➔ Multi-Billion Dollar Capital Buildout ➔ Regulatory Rate-Base Inflation ➔ Higher Consumer Base Rates
Asset Long-Tail: Utility infrastructure (high-voltage transmission lines, substations, nuclear or natural gas plants) requires immense upfront capital expenditures with amortization periods spanning 30 to 50 years.
The “Rate Base” Multiplier: Under the Cost-of-Service regulatory model used by most global utilities, regulators guarantee utility monopolies a fixed rate of return (often 9% to 11%) on their capital investments. When a utility spends billions to expand the grid for a high-growth region, that entire investment plus the guaranteed profit margin is added to the “rate base,” driving up structurally fixed delivery tariffs for decades.
3. Structural Tailwinds vs. Headwinds to Stabilization
Whether a high-consuming region’s prices ever stabilize or decline depends on which macroeconomic forces win out:
Force
Mechanism
Macro Impact on Pricing
Technological Deflation (Tailwind)
Transitioning to utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage. These have near-zero marginal costs because the fuel (sun/wind) is free.
Stabilizing / Deflationary: Once the heavy upfront capital is paid off, the localized cost per megawatt-hour plummets.
Resource Scarcity & Bottlenecks (Headwind)
Increased regional demand collides with localized fuel supply constraints (e.g., limited natural gas pipeline capacity) or supply chain backlogs for electrical transformers.
Inflationary: Scarcity drives up input costs, causing severe structural price volatility.
Grid Utilization Factor (Tailwind)
If the new demand is flat and predictable 24/7 (like data centers) rather than peak-heavy, it increases the grid’s overall “capacity factor.”
Stabilizing: It allows fixed infrastructure costs to be spread out over a much larger volume of sold kilowatt-hours, lowering the average unit cost if generation capacity keeps pace.
The Macro Verdict
A region that consumes more electricity will only see prices stabilize if it can outpace its demand growth with technologically deflationary generation (like renewables) and aggressive infrastructure deployment. If a region’s demand grows faster than its supply-side infrastructure can be built, it traps the local economy in a structural loop of high marginal costs and permanent rate hikes.
If you want to dive deeper into this economic framework, let me know if you would like to explore:
How “Cost-of-Service” regulation legally guarantees utility profits on these buildouts.
The difference in price stabilization between regulated monopolies and deregulated competitive markets.
How flat-load versus peak-load profiles alter grid efficiency.
Do people working for wage & salary income “deserve” to be paying a much higher tax rate than someone like me who’s been living off a stock portfolio and early retired for 30+ years?
Hard to imagine that the average GOP voter understands he’s voting for that. And it’s a big number – if you paid little to no taxes & FICA on 30+ years of wage & salary income, you’d have a fortune.
You shouldn’t need an MBA and an engineering degree to understand you’re getting screwed, but that’s what crony capitalism gives us.
I thought we were talking about data centers? You seem to broad brush everything as “crony capitalism”. The tax code has been unfair in its application, since as long as it has been around, in one way or another. Despite that, people everyday are pursuing what they want and creating success stories. For some reason, most on this board have figured out a pathway to financial freedom. Yet, you seem to think the same opportunity isn’t available for others. You are far too pessimistic and again, it has nothing to do with data centers. In the end, it’s still pretty straightforward. Spend less than you make and deploy the surplus in assets that can compound uninterrupted for long periods. The average lottery winner files for bankruptcy in or around 5 years. Is that crony capitalism?