Who’s Behind the War on Data Centers?
Power Line,
by
John Hinderaker
Original Article
Posted By: Hazymac,
5/27/2026 6:27:00 AM
For many years the Soviet Union, and then Russia, financed the environmental movement in the United States. Their purpose was to suppress American production of oil and gas, and they succeeded to a considerable degree, to their own great benefit. Today, we are in the midst of another kind of race with Communist China–the race to develop superior systems of artificial intelligence. The Chinese Communist Party knows that if it wins this race, it will contribute greatly to its dreams of world domination, while if it loses, China, with its rapidly shrinking population, could be on the way to the garbage dump of history. So the stakes are enormous.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
3XALADY 5/27/2026 8:39:31 AM (No. 2109216)
I wouldn't call this 'trouble.' I'm in east central Missouri and data centers are sprouting up like mushrooms around me. Huge power poles are being installed on many roads. Huge farms are being sold to accommodate them. Highway 70 is being re-worked and is a mess from west of St. Louis to Columbia, a lane both directions being added and the only reason we can think of has to do with data centers. In my town, they tore out the overpass over Hwy. 70 so now the town is split for a minimum of four months and to get on the other side I have to drive many miles in either direction to get to the other side. Other small towns have lost their overpasses, slow to be rebuilt. Woods have already been obliterated and people are finding animals in their yards because their homes are gone. In one direction I have to go to cross over, there is a large field (former farm, you know) with a large amount of huge equipment and trucks, some I have never seen before. I say all this to say people here don't want these data centers. They don't want the noise, the increased electric bills and the impending water shortage. My electric budget bill has already increased $17/month and I don't change my temp. settings. The video is talking about Utah so evidently they are getting them there also. Recent elections show that people are not happy with their commissioners voting for these project that probably started in the planning stages a long time ago and some of them are being voted out. The only ones happy with these data centers are the now millionaire farmers. Add this angst to the multi-thousand-acre fields full of solar panels that are now in our neighborhoods. This is the video from the article. https://twitter.com/i/status/2059036986623819815
18 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Digger 5/27/2026 8:46:07 AM (No. 2109220)
I’m glad to see this informative and disturbing article. The organized propaganda has infiltrated to the local level and has taken over the minds of the local citizens (rubes) with scare tactics. I have followed and invested in the growth of data centers and see their absolute necessity.
I’m a well-educated and highly informed individual (PhD in engineering), now retired after nearly 60 years in the energy industry. I’m retired and living on a lake in east Texas, a very rural setting. At a recent community event where one of our local government officials told us of his active opposition to power plants. “They’re going to take our water and drain our lake!” Funny, he doesn’t look Chinese but they got to him. My neighbors were shocked when I spoke in favor of power plant construction in rural areas and the financial benefits thereof. It will be a long and hard fight like the global warming and Covid scams. The lies have invaded the minds of the uninformed. We must expose them to the sunlight of truth. Join with me, please.
6 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
felixcat 5/27/2026 9:05:00 AM (No. 2109225)
I live just outside the Northern Virginia area which encompasses Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William counties and there are legitimate issues with the growth (almost like a cancer metastasizing) as county executives see only tax revenues from these monstrosities and just rubber stamp their approval. Citizens have a right to question these things especially when every county or local government employee has to sign a NDA regarding the approval prices. Hmmmm. And no one has asked (as far as I am aware) what happens to these huge buildings and the loss of land when technology advances so that there is no longer a need for these buildings?
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
wilarrbie 5/27/2026 9:07:52 AM (No. 2109226)
Perhaps those who are in favor of these data centers should spend more time and effort explaining the benefits and how it will help in our daily lives. But we see evidence of great changes coming as #1 describes, higher electric and other utility bills, which WE will shoulder, while some conglomerate will reap BBBillions. And like so many leaps in technology there is also a dark side. So many people will use these new tools to watch the world burn. China will not be the only bad player in the data games.
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Kate318 5/27/2026 9:56:29 AM (No. 2109242)
There’s something very fishy about how hard and fast these data centers are being pushed. Reminds me of the Covid shots.
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Mizz Fixxit 5/27/2026 10:18:25 AM (No. 2109247)
According to the current issue of the Epoch Times there are 3,100 data centers in operation in the USA. Another 1,800 data Centers are in various stages of development.
2 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
felixcat 5/27/2026 10:37:14 AM (No. 2109251)
Correction: Approval PROCESS not prices
1 person likes this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 5/27/2026 11:04:44 AM (No. 2109259)
We know these data centers are driving electricity prices up, very dramatically in some places, and will likely lead to brownouts are blackouts in some areas. They do use a lot of water and many of them are being built where there is little water so that is a major problem. Driving land prices up for regular citizens who already can't afford it. Forcing many people off the land that they planned on living out their life on.
We hear these data centers are needed but we never hear Why they are so necessary.
The best I can see is they are designed to take a lot of real estate, enough to effect our food supply, from the people and use up our energy and water while gobbling up every little detail of our lives for the rich "elite" building them and planning to run our lives.
Until I hear WHY they are necessary, I will consider them "very undesirable", to be nice.
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 5/27/2026 12:12:31 PM (No. 2109281)
You can bet that China will be funding any and all things which sow dissention and chaos in the USA. We really, really need to be doing the same in their open sewer of a country.
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
nelsonted1 5/27/2026 12:16:04 PM (No. 2109283)
The big industrial cities like Detroit have blocks and blocks of derelict homes and empty lots. Put them there! If there's a good house here and there hire a housemover to move them. Wouldn't Detroit like the property taxes?
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
rushie 5/27/2026 12:22:51 PM (No. 2109291)
Kevin O'Leary was on The Weekend Show and explained it very well. The. protesters and the money for them is coming from the. same people that protest everything. China. Not grass roots. He explained that they make. their power and. even. have it for. surrounding areas. He explained a lot but was mostly hot about. the money. funding. all this protest. Joey didnt agree with him said maybe Utah is different. He said Georgia people had bad water because of it. I think we need to listen and. learn. Data Centers are coming.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 5/27/2026 12:56:44 PM (No. 2109311)
People putting in data centers need to make them not harmful to the people who live nearby if they want to be welcomed. Don't raise electric rates, don't use up all the local water supply, and don't be and EYESORE.
2 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
JimBob 5/27/2026 1:43:23 PM (No. 2109339)
I see stories about these data centers, however this is the first I have read of organized, Communist Chinese-backed opposition to them. I, along with many others, though the opposition was from the local people being negatively affected by them.
I am of two opinions on these data centers.
For: A data center brings what -more Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin mining?- to the nation as a whole, but the effect is not local, the users may be a thousand or more miles away.
There is a temporary boost to sales taxes, restaurants, hotels and housing as the thing is being built, and a smaller increase in local taxes paid by the center, and local economics due to the permanent staff working at the center, many or most of whom will not be locals, but tech-type people who moved into the area to work at the center.
Against: I hate seeing farmland or forests obliterated and replaced with a huge building and a parking lot. Electricity use- where does the electricity come from? Is it going to put too much strain on the existing generating facilities and power grid, which was designed for the existing population, not the additional load from the center? Most people would rather not have a power station near them, but realize it is a 'necessary evil' if they want to have heat in winter, lights, air conditioning in summer, and the modern conveniences that are powered by electricity. Having a power plant next door to supply AI that is used by someone three states away..... not such a great deal.
Water usage: We hear about data centers using huge amounts of water for cooling, putting a strain on the local water sources. If this is coming from a plentiful supply, like a large river, not a problem, but if it's sucking up all the groundwater, and if the groundwater is not being naturally replenished fast enough, this is a HUGE problem.
There's two sides to every story, every installation.
Personally, I have little interest in AI (although I know it's coming), I would rather not see a data center in my area.
Perhaps Elon and Bezos' plans for orbiting data centers can be made to work, or Peter Thiel's plan for floating data centers can be made to work.
Either would be better than the present operations.
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
danu 5/27/2026 5:59:33 PM (No. 2109460)
could it be me? or just my wishful thinking...? this 'meta' destructiveness vs. farming is as mad as a bag of bees.
***fta: Woods have already been obliterated and people are finding animals in their yards because their homes are gone.*** :(
can't eat solar panels....
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
JackBurton 5/27/2026 7:23:09 PM (No. 2109493)
I have no idea what essential benefit AI would provide that would require all these centers to be built. On the radio this morning, the Steve Gruber show (I recommend) there was talk about how we are being tracked, license plate data that shows our movements, AI crunching data on everything we do financially, in social media. He suggested that AI was going to be a great tool for controlling us. Sure sounds logical to me.
2 people like this.
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China and leftist NGOs are behind the trouble. China must be exposed.