00:00A city council in Ohio spent months trying to keep a data center ban off the ballot.
00:05Then the state Supreme Court ruled, and hours before the deadline the council reversed itself on the very same night
00:13it laid out a plan to annex 600 acres for Amazon.
00:18Across the country, the people who decide where these buildings go are running out of ways to say yes.
00:26We begin in Trenton, Ohio, where the city council did something almost nobody expected.
00:33Trenton had originally rejected a citizen ballot initiative that would ban data centers inside the city.
00:40The petitioners took the city to the Ohio Supreme Court, and the court ruled in their favor.
00:46Even then, officials believed the measure would require a separate special election.
00:52Then the Butler County Prosecutor's Office hand delivered a legal notice saying the city could still place it on the
01:00November ballot if it acted immediately.
01:02Mayor Ryan Perry says they learned that only that night, the council passed it as an emergency ordinance on the
01:09spot.
01:10And here is what makes it remarkable.
01:12The very same meeting included the city's plan to annex 601 acres from Madison and St. Clair Townships for an
01:21Amazon Web Services campus.
01:23Both townships formally oppose it.
01:26A hearing on those objections is set for September 15th.
01:31That fight is now moving up to the state level.
01:34And two governors made it clear they are not interested.
01:37In New Hampshire, Governor Kelly Ayotte said she opposes building any data center in the state and plans to include
01:45a multi-year moratorium in her next budget.
01:49She pointed specifically at a proposed hyperscale project in Bow, saying New Hampshire does not have the energy supply,
01:57and that ISO New England confirmed to her a large data center would push regional prices up.
02:03The pause would not take effect until July of 2027 unless she issues an executive order sooner.
02:11House Democrats say they will propose a 24-month moratorium of their own.
02:17And in Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont said flatly that his state is the wrong place for massive AI facilities.
02:25Noting Connecticut's 2021 tax incentive program drew almost no interest and has since
02:31been scaled back at the local level in Prosper, Texas, a project called Tomahawk ran into a wall.
02:42The $580 million data center would sit on 37 acres near the
02:47intersection of FM 1385 and Parvin Road, about a thousand feet from residential property lines.
02:55Before the hearing, town staff had already received more than 400 written comments in opposition.
03:02Residents and non-residents spoke against it for over an hour, raising the electrical grid draw,
03:09the long-term water allocation, and the constant ambient noise from large-scale cooling equipment.
03:16Among the speakers was Mayor David Bristol, who stepped away from his official role and testified
03:22against the project as a private citizen. The Planning and Zoning Commission then voted seven to
03:28nothing to recommend denial. That recommendation is not binding. The full town council takes it up next.
03:37In Michigan, the question is not whether a town wants a data center. It is whether a town is still
03:44allowed to decide. Zeeland Township approved a fresh one-year moratorium on data centers and energy
03:51facilities. Repealing its previous moratorium at the same meeting and replacing it with a new clock.
03:58Supervisor Carrie Bosma said the point is to buy time to update the township's master plan.
04:05Even though no applications are currently pending, the context is a legal fight with RWE Americas over
04:12the Silver Maple Solar Project, in which the township is challenging a state law that strips local
04:19zoning authority over certain energy projects. RWE moved the case to federal court.
04:27Zeeland has filed to send it back to local jurisdiction. The company has paused its application
04:33before the Michigan Public Service Commission and scheduled public meetings with residents this month.
04:40The zoning fights are one pressure point. Water is the other. In Orange County, Florida, the county that
04:48contains Orlando, Vice Mayor Kelly Martinez Semrad has proposed a one-year moratorium on new AI data center
04:57applications, pointing out that the county's land development code contains no specific language
05:03regulating them. At all. Right now they are implicitly allowed under industrial zoning. Her report cites
05:11research showing a single modern facility can draw as much power as a hundred thousand homes and up to
05:18five million gallons of water a day. Against a projected county-wide groundwater shortfall of 96 million
05:26gallons a day by 20. 45. Commissioners take it up September 15. And in Virginia, Amazon quietly withdrew its
05:36application to renew a Potomac aquifer withdrawal permit for its King George Campus. After a state report
05:44warned the aquifer east of Interstate 95 cannot absorb major new withdrawals. And the reason all of this keeps
05:53escalating is the grid. In Texas, ERCOT now says it intends to finish Governor Greg Abbott's ordered audit of
06:01roughly 300 planned data centers by December 10. Abbott directed that audit in August, requiring
06:09comprehensive verification of every project moving through the interconnection process before any
06:16additional ones. Any additional ones may advance. The scale explains the caution. ERCOT is reviewing more than 474
06:24gigawatts of connection requests. More than five times the record peak demand ever recorded in the state. With
06:32roughly 90% of it data center load. The consequences are already rippling outward. ERCOT missed its deadline to
06:40classify large loads and could not begin the system-wide study in September as planned. Publication of its
06:48load forecast and reliability assessment is postponed. And the December capacity and reserves report may slip as
06:56well. Yet despite all of that, construction is still pressing forward. And in one Missouri city it just
07:04beat a deadline by days. Festus leaders voted 5-2 to annex three additional parcels along Highway 67.
07:14Tied to CRG's planned hyperscale data center campus. A $6 billion project covering more than 360 acres.
07:23The parcels join land the city brought inside its limits last year. CRG confirmed they are part of a
07:31conceptual plan that envisions the developer building the campus. And an operator taking it over afterward.
07:38Two council members argued for more time to study the issue and moved to delay. That motion failed.
07:45The annexation was finalized just before a new state law limiting annexations in Jefferson County
07:53took effect. A law Crystal City has now sued to challenge. Festus then canceled its September 14th
08:00meeting for lack of a quorum. And the money behind that construction is now bypassing the grid entirely.
08:09National Grid Ventures, the commercial arm of the British utility, has agreed to pay $1.75 billion
08:17for a 35% stake in Julent. A US power infrastructure developer, that price implies roughly a $5 billion valuation
08:27for a company most people have never heard of. The money funds project Kilby. A 2.67 gigawatt natural gas
08:36plant being developed with Chevron in West Texas. Co-located with and dedicated to Microsoft's planned
08:442 gigawatt data center campus. A 20-year power purchase agreement is already signed. And first delivery of
08:52power is targeted for 2028. It is one of the largest utility investments ever made in dedicated AI power.
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