Opposition to data centers may be the singular unifying issue in American politics. Seventy percent of Americans are against data-center construction in their communities. They worry about the environmental dracularity of these facilities, the electrical costs they may impose, and the imperiousness with which tech companies target struggling communities while drastically altering the landscape. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have spoken out against data centers; so have Steve Bannon and the right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh. About 75 data-center projects were blocked or delayed in the first three months of this year—roughly the same as were blocked or delayed in all of last year. Still, this is a fraction of the more than 1,500 projects in development. Those who seek to stop the spread have recently turned to statewide moratoriums. Fifteen states have introduced moratorium bills, but only two of those bills have made it through the legislature. Last month, New York became the first to ban the construction of “hyperscale” data centers (ones that use 50 megawatts of power or more). Maine was supposed to have beaten it. In April, the state passed LD 307, which would have banned new centers using 20 megawatts or more. The bill went to the office of Governor Janet Mills to be signed into law. And she vetoed it.Mills took no issue with the thrust of the bill, writing “a moratorium is appropriate.” She vetoed it for one reason only: It failed “to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay.”Jay, Maine (population: 4,620; motto: “Proud of our past and working for our future!”), wants a data center. It had one in the works, and town officials lobbied the governor to preserve it. Mills listened. “We must consider the perspective of the Town of Jay,” she wrote.In May, I drove to Maine to consider the perspective of the Town of Jay. I wanted to understand why this town had fought for the very thing that so many others dread. What I found was a reminder that politics is local. Jay’s embrace of the data center had less to do with the power of rapacious tech companies or the future of AI than it did with the failure of a series of welds that sealed a 166-foot-tall pressure cooker at a half-century-old paper mill.There are two Maines. The first Maine is right there on the license plate: vacationland. Lighthouses, lobster bibs, the jagged coast,… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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