By Charlie Johnston
Our reader and commenter, Judy, brought up the growing controversy over data centers being sited all around the country. Working a political campaign, I realized just over a year ago this month, what a huge issue data centers were likely to become, so I have done a lot of study on the matter.
There are both short-term and long-term questions on data centers. Let’s look at the three major short-term questions first.
- Power: Data Centers consume an enormous amount of power. On average, the electric bills of towns near data centers rise by 15-20% once the center comes online. The problem is compounded by the reality that in most places the increases keep coming, leading to spikes of as much as 267% over four years. While that is rare, spikes of 40% over the same time period are typical. If we are not in the infancy of data centers, we are certainly at the toddler stage. Governmental and Corporate promises to keep prices under control have, thus far, proven less reliable than their promises that the Covid shots were “safe and effective.” When you routinely get wildly inaccurate information from supposedly authoritative sources, you are a fool to put much faith in their claims going forward. Things could level out or spike wildly out of control. The “experts” are too often propagandists for you to know much of anything without doing substantial private research. For that, you need some specific skills. Otherwise, you risk jumping to indefensibly large conclusions from tiny amounts of data – and that only confuses things further. (Kind of like the supposed national “experts” routinely do when they are not outright lying.)
- Water: Data centers are also very thirsty. They consume enormous amounts of water to cool their servers. In areas that have vulnerable aquifers, data centers can quickly come to compete with local residents for water. This can create both cost and availability problems. In the worst cases, it can cause aquifer depletion. No one really knows how much thirstier data centers might get (though everyone involved has an opinion – often masquerading as “facts”). On this subject, too, there have been wild claims that do not even get in the general vicinity of facts. I sat in a meeting of county officials where data company hopefuls were promising that their project would consume no more water per day than three new households in the community. That was utter, bald-faced, poppycock. And the county was taking the assurance at face value without demanding an enforceable performance mechanism.
- Siting: In many areas, state legislatures irresponsibly made it open season for data center companies, allowing them to effectively bum-rush local communities that did not have effective means of regulating or stopping them. That could change the nature of a community overnight and create a major public nuisance rather than an opportunity for economic growth.
Short-term, the main problems with data centers have been and are resources and planning. There is plenty of land to site data centers without destroying the aesthetic benefits and character of local communities. In fact, there is plenty of land that sits adjacent to communities that, with good planning, can become economic engines rather than degrading eyesores that suck up precious resources.
In Texas, counties do not have zoning or regulatory authority over their unincorporated areas. That means that while towns, villages, and cities have some measure of control over how a data center can be sited and authority to regulate it, counties have no control except whether to offer a tax abatement. If a data center company wants to push forward regardless of any tax agreement, there is nothing the county can do about it.
Anywhere in the country, a municipality other than a county can annex land and then site centers right next to another municipality, protecting itself while damaging its neighbor. States must set up siting regulations. A municipality should not have sole authority to mount a project with profound regional consequences while denying those other municipal entities significantly affected any control over the process.
On the matter of power, President Trump has said that data centers must pay for their own electricity. I haven’t seen any statutory enforcement mechanism for that, though. Frankly, it is primarily a state issue, anyway. States must adopt clear rules.
Coastal states can set up desalination plants to provide sufficient water for data centers and to supplement existing water availability issues. As of two years ago, a 25-million gallon per day desalination plant could be built and brought online for $60-90 million dollars. From approval to operation takes an average of three to five years. (If your local officials tell you it is longer, it is because of unnecessary hurdles those officials have mounted). In other areas of the country, pipelines can be built to ship abundant fresh water. The land the nation of Israel sits on was once forbidding desert, which Israelis made bloom through desalination plants and pipelines.
As for energy, those states (all blue) which refuse to build and site new power plants are out of luck. Data centers cannot be sited within them without depleting resources and making the blue states even more unlivable than they already are. Of course, that does not mean blue states will not site them. Ordinary people always come last in blue states, if they are considered at all. Even in states that will allow new power plants to go up, things are going to have to be dramatically increased if they are to keep up with the demand. Several universities around the country have ventured into work on thorium-based nuclear power plants. Thorium is more plentiful, but harder to mine and refine, than uranium. The best quality of thorium is that it can be refined to run a power plant, but cannot be refined to make a bomb. It is significantly safer than uranium-based power plants while offering all the energy benefits.
The short-term problems are fairly easily solvable if we have the resolve and will to do it. But voters MUST make their state and local officials accountable, or you will have a helter-skelter patchwork that will probably do more damage than good.
Passions are very high – and growing – right now. There is a lot of information that does not hold up when you examine it. Many of the companies proposing data centers are giving rosy calculations which bear little resemblance to reality. They are engaged more in marketing than informing.
I am well aware that any time any socially-transforming technology makes landing, there is a Luddite tendency to exaggerate the dangers so as to keep things just as they are. Reality is that things never stay just as they are. In the mid-1800’s many folks in the Midwest organized to stop train stations from being established in their communities because it would change their towns from what they liked about them.
In the west, ghost towns are primarily towns that grew up in gold rush areas and then died off when the gold rush ended. In the Midwest, ghost towns are those towns that successfully blocked train stations from their borders – and then died because they cut themselves off from what was the rapidly developing primary means of transport – both of people and of goods. Things never stay the same. People either adapt or die. If they adapt well and prudently, they thrive. If they do it helter-skelter, they may kill off their communities. But trying to preserve a community intact in amber is an almost sure-fire way to kill that community off. Root hog, or die.
While I would not take the Luddite approach of trying to freeze everything in amber just as it is, there are serious long-term questions about data centers that should be dealt with. It is very difficult to do justice to those because we are caught in the switches. Trump has declared that AI is a national security issue that we must lead in – or face terrible new threats from hostile nations. He is right – and data centers are the vital nervous system for AI. If we were to fall behind in AI, hostile nations such as China – and even very small nations – with a vigorous program promoting such centers could quickly pose an existential threat. If that happened, we would never even get to consider how to harness AI to its benefits while recognizing and discarding the chaff that comes with it – for within a generation, we would no longer be the autonomous “land of the free.”
Science fiction movies of the 50’s and 60’s (Them, The Beginning of the End, The Day the Earth Stood Still – and many others) were expressions of visceral fears about what the larger, long-term consequences of nuclear power would be. Reflexive opposition to data centers is an expression of exactly that sort of visceral fear of AI. That fear is perfectly reasonable – and prudent. Pope Leo XIV began to address those fears with his recent Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. Notice that I say he began the serious conversation on it, not that he resolved it. He laid out some critical principles, though, in what I think is a very good starting place. More’s the pity that few will pay any attention to it. But that is the price to be paid when the hierarchy emphasizes trendy political issues rather than focusing on faith and morals. The world does NOT start treating the hierarchy as politically astute because of its grab for political authority; it starts ignoring it even in its area of genuine expertise and authority.
I am not worried about any sort of Terminator-like takeover of the machines. I am very worried about how this will dumb people down. Forty years ago, if I knew your name I also knew your phone number by heart. Now I’m lucky to remember my own, because my phone serves as a crutch to remember them for me. When Google came on the scene I was appalled a few years later at the huge profusion of what I called, “Google intellectuals” – people who knew no subject deeply but thought they could wing it by looking it up on Google. Just read our social media sites and you will see “Google intellectuals” swarming like ants to a spilled honey truck. Having superficial access to a host of issues does not increase critical thinking. It just allows midwits to think they are geniuses without knowing much more than they did three decades ago – maybe even less. And they are cocksure of their midwit fantasies, because a Google search allowed them to find supporting evidence of their position while they ignored all contrary data.
We are becoming dumber, while thinking we are becoming smarter. The truth is we are become technological wizards while degenerating into philosophical and theological tribes of competing monkeys. AI will only advance that disorder.
I am also concerned that AI systems too often go rogue, making false statements and then creating support documents that do not and never existed – to prop up their poppycock. AI programs are subject to the same dictum earlier computer programs were: Garbage in, garbage out. That they can go rogue and falsify data and documents to support those false premises is a terrifying reality in a world that increasingly is unable to discern truth through rigorous critical thinking and research. Mankind’s future could be less Skynet and more Mad Max. It is ironic that unchecked AI could lead us into a new dark age instead of enlightenment.
The key is to understand that AI can perform tasks with lightning speed. It can make connections between vast troves of data. But it does not have the spark of innovation, creative ingenuity, and deep insight beyond what data sets show. That is a human capacity. My main fear is that AI, in performing tasks brilliantly, simultaneously diminishes the creative capacity among the only species that has it in an advanced way, by falsely convincing them they don’t need it.
The short-term questions are resolvable, though I doubt we will do so in any comprehensive, coherent way. That is not terrible. Most major advances have come in fits and starts, only refined over time. The long-term questions have not yet been seriously tapped. They are complicated by the actual need for AI in military applications to insure our short-term survival. If we don’t survive as a free people, we won’t be able to worry long-term about AI at all.
Whenever I see such a conundrum, I ask myself whether God is intentionally herding us for His purposes. Right now, it feels an awful lot like we are being pushed into a cattle chute. If I did not know that God intends our reclamation, not our destruction, I would be very worried, indeed.
*********
The air conditioner on my car went out last week. Apparently, it happens to a lot of folks this time of the year in Texas, so I had a two week wait before I could get an appointment to get it fixed. Initially, I thought, “What the heck?” I was almost 30 years old before I had AC in my vehicles anyway, so it would be a perhaps nostalgic return to an aspect of my long lost youth. I quickly learned two things:
- Driving in the Chicago area without AC in the summer is an entirely different thing than driving around Texas without AC in the summer.
- Driving without air in your late 20’s is an entirely different thing than doing it when you are 70.
Once repairs are finished, I will be more grateful for AC than ever. (It would not surprise me if a lot of European World Soccer Cup tourists go back home demanding AC in their cars, too. Go, Freddy!)
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on X at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
A Sign of Hope 
Amen to the issues with AI, Charlie. So.well.said. Seems we would be given a great favor from God if He, by allowance or direct action, moved to bring down technology. While tech has been a tremendous gift, it has also become an arena where terrible, sometimes overwhelming, abuse continues.
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Technology–a double-edged sword…
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Thank you, Charlie!
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Thank you Charlie! Well said!JudySent from my iPhoneOn Jun 24, 2026,
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I love your logical, analytical mind! You touched on the bigger concern for me in your last statement on AI–that we seem to be being herded toward the same “cattle chute”–indeed, I saw/read a report that had an overlay of all the data centers and so-called “smart cities” and they lined up almost perfectly. There does seem to be a big push to get everyone out of the rural areas, doesn’t there? I’m glad you added that “trust in God” caveat. Good reminder for me!
(I too appreciate A/C more after not having it!)
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great assessment Charlie. Your write-up should be shared with every municipality so that effective decisions can be made.
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! … PS:
https://dwightlongenecker918309.substack.com/p/the-annunciation-visitation-and-the
https://patriotpost.us/alexander/128617-the-real-iran-deal-2026-06-24
https://www.markmallett.com/blog/hope-and-ultimate-despair
https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/americas/parents-sentenced-to-prison-in-brazil-for-homeschooling-and-excluding-gender-related-content
YEP ;-( …..
https://petergrandich.com/the-most-politically-incorrect-i-ever-have-been-but-a-crisis-most-are-totally-unprepared-for-has-arrived/News Ya WILL NOT see on/in ABCNNBCBS….NPR/NYTimes/WashPost .. https://ewtn.co.uk/article-56000-killed-in-nigerias-ethnic-and-religious-violence-christians-disproportionately-affected/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/06/24/occupy-wall-street-now-officially-controls-the-democrat-party/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/06/24/president-trump-cancels-bill-signing-event-due-to-republican-intransigence-on-save-america-act/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/06/breaking-obama-judge-permanently-blocks-trumps-proof-citizenship/
https://newsbusters.org/
GOD SAVE ALL HERE!
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I appreciate your detailed, thoughtful analysis as always. I wanted to call your attention to a company that I have been working with for the last couple of years that has done a significant amount of work rearchitecting LLMs to run on small computers like an Apple Mac Mini or an Intel NUC. They are involved in quite a few hearings around the country where they demonstrate that data centers are not necessary for AI.
Here is a quote from a recent Substack: “Our central argument – which we make both here on the Black Swan Files and in monthly webinars with industry experts – is centralized computing is at end of life. Data centers on every corner – the current desire of the ancient tech companies surprised by A.I. will end up as abandoned, stranded assets – like the JC Penney or SEARS mall.
“…These software firms will BS you that A.I. needs these data centers. We, at the Black Swan Files – show you that in every industrialized country outside the U.S. other countries are achieving A.I. success without massive data centers. Why? Because they do not have Oracle, Palantir and Microsoft writing checks to their politicos – they have honest, or pretty much honest politicos who know the score. We at The Black Swan Files show up in counties across the U.S. demonstrating applications – which consume an entire data center – running on a computer you can hold in your hand. Oracle, Palantir, META and the rest won’t adopt these new technologies – because they cannot. While Oracle, Palantir and the rest cannot retool their stuff – other companies are coming out of nowhere with similar applications that ARE retooled. Any Oracle application on planet Earth can be moved to low I/O technology – in 90 days or less, for 1/10th what it costs to run it in Oracle – can run on an Apple mini costing $4,000 – using the power of a kitchen microwave oven. Oracle can’t move those applications – because they need that 10X revenue – but nimble software companies are now eating away at Oracle, Palantir and others – at 1/10th the cost. Without data centers.”
Substack link here: https://open.substack.com/pub/theblackswanfiles/p/the-great-ai-surprise-software-industry?r=29j5dl&utm_medium=ios
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Thanks for weighing in, Bryan. I hope that proves out. If it did, it could save a lot of angst, at least on the data centers.
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Hey, Charlie, what a great picture at the top. :-))
My belief on AI dat centers is that they are needed but that many will end up as stranded assets. Depreciation on the assets is absolutely fierce, and I agree with Bryan that a lot of AI power can be made local and ultimately will be. However, I do still see the need for large institutions and governments to have access to concentrated or large-network AI power, so some will be built and kept up. In fact, AI will become ubiquitous as the kinks are worked out – it will be local *and* widely networked, with use more at the local area and training and learning at the regional level. For example, as people shift over to electric cars that are increasingly capable of operating on their own, there will still be a need for training, development, traffic projections, and much more that will best be done via data centers.
As usual, Trump is operating at a few different levels on this. One of those levels is perceiving that AI data centers are forcing functions for our electrical grid, which was teetering on obsolescence and failure in many parts of the country. After decades of regulatory capture and dumbing down of the sector, AI is forcing vast reworking of our entire electrical grid and the technologies that feed it. This will be very beneficial in the long run but is painful to many in the short run. A power revolution has to be forced due to massive regulations making electrical providers into stodgy utilities. That will now be forcibly altered.
Finally, there will be increased resolution to some of the more egregious problems. For example, I recently read that Nvidia may have developed GPUs and other equipment that can run reliably at (I think) 25ºC. This would allow most water to be recycled after cooling rather than having to pull in cool fresh water from an aquifer. I am looking for confirmation of that, but it’s advances in equipment, energy, location (like space) that will ultimately tamp down some of the worst problems directly associated with AI data centers.
I think the most difficult problems are human-level, just as you say. On the one hand, if properly arranged, every student could have an amazing mentor helping them learn instead of having all kids attend deadening industrial school systems. However, the potential damage to our ability to think could be enormous.
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Steve BC, the vast majority of cyber students are using AI to cheat. I have talked about it with many teachers. They are not using AI to learn. It is a very unique student that uses Ai to learn. Of this, there is no doubt.
I would not call all schools deadening institutions. There are a lot of students that need the structure of school. A lot of students use all the resources of a good school and turn out brilliantly.
I am sure there are some boring classrooms. There are also stimulating classrooms.
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Judy, you are correct that AI is now used to cheat a very high proportion of the time. I wasn’t talking about AI as a consultant but AI as a robotic mentor, a very different item, an item I believe will soon be created. We have to see that change before current school cheating can be curbed. Personally, I don’t use AI right now.
On industrial schools, yes, some are good and some students need more structure than others, but in my experience, most schools deaden initiative, creativity and the desire to learn. I’m a scholar. I love to learn. I should have thrived. I hated grammar and high school, and I felt better at the college level because I had more freedom. How many children drop out? How many learn-to-tests? How many have their love of reading crushed?
Schooling has become a vast bureaucracy mostly run by non-teachers wasting massive amounts of taxpayer money, usually not allowing parents to choose their children’s schools or to keep them safe from DEI, undesired vaccinations, transgender baloney, Story Hour travesties, ADHD drugs to control normal child behavior, and so much more. Despite many good teachers, the system is dumbing children down and even physically and emotionally harming children in massive numbers.
I have an 1870s high school math book that teaches calculus through differential equations. Most college students these days couldn’t even read it, let alone understand the concepts and math.
Just as our farming system and our health system and our election system and our legal system and our immigration/citizen system and our financial system have all been systematically trashed over the past hundred years by evil people, so too has our education system been wrecked by those same people, all of this despite tens of millions of good people like you trying to keep things together.
I hope you and so many others will keep trying, as there is now some real hope that these travesties can be reversed and our society restored. If your experience in the education system was a positive, if you were a good teacher and saw your students light up from your efforts, it’s now important to spread that positive experience throughout the entire system, top to bottom, bottom to top, or education will remain systemically broken, by design.
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At the end of the year my students (from the best to those that struggled) regularly told me that I was a very good teacher. So did parents. There are still many out there, Steve. I shall remember this with great satisfaction because I always wanted to be the best I could be for them….I would say that you are a unique individual, Steve.
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Well, Judy, yes, I am a bit weird, LOL, but I am not at all unique, and the statistics about the public school system in particular bear me out. I am very aware that there are *many* excellent teachers out there in the system, and they do wonderful work. This is not a hit on the teachers but the system they and the students must live in.
I’m delighted to hear you are one of those good teachers. I have a friend who was a teacher of Spanish in a public high school, and his students loved him as well. He retired a few years ago. Over the last few years of his teaching there, he saw a very large drop in student engagement and lots of other problems, administrative overload, instructions from the administrators that he thought were either junk or crazy, meeting after meeting. He *loves* teaching, but by the end of his career he could not wait to leave.
There are good people in every single one of our broken systems. They do as much great work as they can. But that does not change the fact that these systems are often fundamentally broken. Else why are we here with Charlie trying to reimagine and rebuild our entire society from the ground up?
If I may make a prediction, let me say that I believe in 2050 that our education system will look and be unimaginably different and better than it is now, on every front. I also believe many of today’s massive school buildings will be stranded assets. I intend to live to see that year, so I will report back about what I find. 🙂
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SteveBC, schools are definitely are reflection of the society around them. All of a society’s problems are brought into the school in many ways and on every level. And right now our society has very, very complicated problems as well as divisive political issues. However, I think the traditional classroom is the format of schools all around the world. In Japan and East Asia, the traditional classroom produces high test scores. However, these students also do a lot of study outside of the classroom and those societies have a strong emphasis on learning and self-discipline. In Japan students actually clean the school as a part of teaching them character and community responsibility. American students would never do this. In fact, many American students trash the classrooms and the lavatories. This is a huge discipline problem for administrators and teachers. Often there is a cost to taxpayers. There are also drugs, gangs, ADHD, poverty, the rising rates of autism, weapons brought into the school, political influences, lack of parental involvement, and more. When students flock from a failing public school to a rather successful public school (especially at a later age), the test scores will always become lower in the previously successful school because the new students come in as low achievers and attitudes that are hard to change, though the parents hope for this when they make the move. There is a need to catch up and this often does not work very well. My point is that low test scores are a complicated problem in the USA. While I think the classroom is confining for some, it works for many. Students are offered a lot of extracurricular activities that can be invaluable. I think that the school buildings will still be standing in 2050. Some things will change, but the buildings will still be useful for classrooms.
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Judy, I am in agreement with this post of yours. Even in 2050 there will indeed be a need for groups to learn together. We only disagree on the extent to which that will be true. I expect far more variety, as well as a return to more experiential learning and direct mentorship. Meanwhile, though, we have all the problems you mention and more beside still very much on our plate to solve.
And my compliments to you for being such a good teacher. You probably taught well over a thousand students in your career and taught them well. That is wonderful contribution, not just to them but far beyond them to all those they later touched in their lives, spreading like ripples over a pond. 🙂
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Astute observations, Steve, some that get close to the heart of things. I, too, am familiar with data companies doing some heavy research on cooling strategies that would mitigate the vast thirst of these centers. I was intrigues by what Bryan wrote – and it will open up a new line of inquiry for me. Anything you can add on that subject would be most welcome.
The key is the fear that a lot of these are going to end up as stranded assets – and that is a big one. I am more familiar than I want to be on the damage done by abandoned oil fields – and they are relatively small in comparison to the scope of the data centers. We are also facing the reality of abandonee windmills – which I think is going to become a huge issue in the next few years. I think it is bad enough that we will come to see the “green” technology of wind power as largely an environmental failure that left a host of ongoing environmental problems in its wake – without helping the grid in any significant way.
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Data centers will be filled with valuable materials, so although the buildings for an abandoned data center and the parking lots will remain, the insides will be torn out and largely recycled.
I actually believe that one major industry over the next 100 years will be tearing out old structures for recycling while the land is restored to grass or forests.
Once power becomes truly cheap (which is another story), using plasmas or other high-power mechanisms to break any kind of garbage down to its constituent atoms for re-use will become big business. Even old wind farms will have their structures removed and recycled, especially if individuals or local governments decide to make that happen using that new tech.
Until then, though, we are going to see more and more useless eyesores on our landscapes.
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https://substack.com/@omega4america/note/p-203647053?r=29j5dl&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
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Here is one example of how Fractal computing has been applied to stop election fraud in Wisconsin. By comparing voter rolls to state property tax records, USPS National Change of Address records, and the SSA Death Registry, they have been able to challenge mail in BALLOTS from locations that by law are prohibited from receiving a mail-in ballot. Challenging the ballot and not the voter cannot be argued to disenfranchise a voter because that voter can still vote in person if legitimate.
Fractal can do these analyses because their technology runs much faster on much less hardware than would be required if they ran on old relational database technology like Oracle. For example, they can run multiple snapshots of the full Federal Election Commission database in less than a day on an Apple MAC mini. The FEC database of 680 million records runs in a data center the size of a city block and takes almost a week to run a single snapshot for a single period of time.
Omega4America is run by the Fractal team to help citizen groups audit their elections using public records. They currently run voter roll analysis as described in this video in 26 states.
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I read the article. I do not understand the technology they talk about but I understand retooling and how a stock can tank if a company admits a flawed approach. The article also said that other countries are not building gargantuan data centers. However, I did a Google search, and the search says that other countries are building the same type of data centers. And, yes, people are protesting because they want to build near populous areas. I have also read that China is building them far away from populous areas. China’s pace is much slower than that of the USA so I do not see the actual need for the massive number of proposed centers In the USA . The people proposing these things are like addicts or drunken sailors with no thought for the people they impact. This fast roll out has no regional planning for what will cause huge and lasting ramifications. All for something that may be obsolete in a few years. The whole thing lacks common sense. Once they are built, the damage cannot be undone. I am absolutely furious that at Donald Trump for not allowing the EPA or some other agency to have some say in the matter. If he totally ties the hands of the EPA, then he should create some agency at the federal level that enforces common sense restrictions so that rural communities (which do not have the resources to fight big Tech) can be healthy places to live. We all know that politicians can be bought at all levels and I certainly believe it is happening. If the building of data centers was submitted to a referendum vote, the proposals would be vastly reduced. Trump claims to care about the USA and its citizens, but if he does not actually work to protect ordinary citizens from the overzealous building of these things, then he has forgotten who he works for. Many of these rural areas voted for Trump and they certainly feel that this is the ultimate betrayal. They are now his sacrificial lambs for what he considers a “win”. If these monsters are going be built, they should not have first access to water and electricity, they should not benefit from tax incentives, and they should be built far away from populous areas. They should build their own power sources and find alternatives to water for cooling. Oh, but that would cost the tech billionaires too much money and it would also slow them down, so this is not being considered! I believe that data centers, especially data center clusters, suck the life /resources out of a region (even in area prone to drought) and that the number proposed are not sustainable nor required because we already have so very many, and vastly more than any other country.. In the end, nearby communities will die like the old gold rush towns, though the reasons may not be exactly the same. People will not be able to sell their homes and they will likely suffer from health problems or lack of clean water. My area already has a very high cancer rate even without these centers. ……Charlie, I do not believe that one can really compare the massive data center roll out to the early building of railroads. At least the railroads brought some long term benefits to local communities. Data center do not bring long term benefits to local communities. They simply saddle them with a colossal number of vexing (and maybe some unsolvable ) problems. Big Tech thinks average citizens are like annoying insects that must be dealt with. They babble nonsense at citizens in local meetings, but they would swat at us if they legally could. Just get us out of the way. In my local area, even before actual approval by city council, developers are already felling trees and clearing vast amounts of land. Animals such as groups of deer are turning up in the streets of small towns and other odd places because their habitats have been destroyed. This confidence, in advance of actual approvals, smells of bribed politicians. These politicians will be voted out as soon as possible.. .You know, most state constitutions say that its citizens have the right to clean air and water and a healthy environment. These first principles are being totally forgotten and dismissed. For me, this is unfettered capitalism at its worst. And, no, I cannot believe that these ugly concrete beasts planted near our home landscapes, each one with a ravenous need for basic resources, are somehow part of God’s plan. I believe it is part of the enemy’s plan.
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Judy, this is not a rebuttal, but just sharing a fact: Google has had a plant on the banks of the Columbia here in Oregon for 20 years. Somehow, the city, the people and google have managed to survive. Google donates millions of dollars to the local economy. I don’t know if it is evil or good or neither, but like I said, 20 years. 🤔
God help us all to sort it out. God bless us all, katey in OR
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://catholicexchange.com/christianity-and-the-decline-of-pagan-cults-in-late-antiquity-part-1/
https://onepeterfive.com/open-letter-to-his-holiness-pope-leo-xiv-and-to-the-cardinals-of-the-holy-church/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/renewing-catholic-schools
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/bach-tartan-army-and-ordo-amoris/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/of-scapulars-and-cassocks
https://catholicexchange.com/chara-the-vanguard-of-the-church/
https://catholicexchange.com/constant-online-theological-debates-are-turning-young-women-away/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/06/25/exclusive-on-dobbs-anniversary-rep-andy-ogles-introduces-bill-that-would-remove-face-act-protections-for-abortion-clinics/
https://stpaulcenter.com/posts/what-is-the-catholic-view-of-the-rapture
https://tmattingly.substack.com/p/crossroads-yes-the-genesis-rainbow
https://spiritdailyblog.com/mail/mailbag-intuitive-discernment
https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=10136
https://dwightlongenecker918309.substack.com/p/the-problems-with-traditional-worship
https://thefederalist.com/2026/06/25/after-250-years-our-american-republic-is-coming-apart/
https://zeale.co/
https://redstate.com/
https://townhall.com/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
https://hotair.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
https://www.whatfinger.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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Musk has proposed locating the data centers in space, orbiting the Earth. There is limitless unblockable solar energy and space is cold enough to solve any overheating problems.
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Can you imagine the cost of building these in space? Then they would need maintenance with specially trained crews. It seems unlikely. We will see if he make an attempt to do so.
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://onepeterfive.com/last-friday-in-sacred-heart-month/
https://catholicexchange.com/how-to-witness-miracles/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/in-support-of-catholic-superstition
As far as I’m concerned, the entire SSPX Brouhaha is just another satanic distraction! I will simply point out that The Vatican is OK with Red Chinese picking Bishops but the SSPX can’t? .. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/what-are-pearls-examining-sspxs-declaration-faith/ .. https://onepeterfive.com/the-second-sspx-confession-of-faith/ .. “When de Balloon Goes Up” all that counts is YOUR Faith/Values and YOUR Family/Friends in YOUR 50 sq miles!!!
https://dwightlongenecker918309.substack.com/p/individualism-the-blame-game-and
https://mailchi.mp/marian/its-july-and-our-lady-is-here-to-help-marian-month-ahead-living-divine-mercy-weekly-videos-june-25-2026-5427872
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/06/25/democrat-states-allowed-330000-abortion-pills-to-kill-babies-in-pro-life-states .. Ya need more evidence that the godless Global Left hates babies .. SICK! ..https://www.foxnews.com/media/gross-slate-piece-comes-fire-suggesting-usha-vance-pregnancy-political-strategy
https://spiritdailyblog.com/spiritual-warfare/fighting-the-enemy
https://catholicexchange.com/christianity-and-the-decline-of-pagan-cults-in-late-antiquity-part-2/ … speaking of Cults! De DemonRat Party is being taken over by Marxist Jihad Cult .. https://gellerreport.com/2026/06/the-new-jihad-caucus-in-congress.html/ .. THEY have lost Serpent Head! .. https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/veteran-democratic-political-strategist-i-dont-want-to-be-in-a-political-party-that-denies-the-right-of-the-state-of-israel-to-exist-rmzghstq
https://www.catholicleague.org/americas-malcontents-upfront/
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/unshackled-friday-june-26-2026-c
https://defendingtherepublic.substack.com/p/good-news-friday-7cb?
https://adanestorwc.substack.com/p/they-called-me-shortsighted
https://zeale.co/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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Thanks for covering some the stewardship angle.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want a data center in my backyard either, but I don’t consider that potential problem so much as the symptom.
We get scared or outraged over the land/power/water/resource consumption while often ignoring the voracious appetite they serve: ours. These data centers exist because we demand instant streaming, infinite scrolling, and constant connectivity––which arguably renders us less connected than ever.
Data center buildings that may eventually be vacant and crumbling? How’s that any different than the mountainous landfills (2,000 active and 10,000 closed landfills in the U.S. alone)? There’s one north of here that spans nearly a 100 acres and stands about 4 stories high.
From the get-go, the Bible speaks of abundance. The issue isn’t scarcity. It’s stewardship. And, as usual, we’re up against greed and endless accumulation (including our own shortcomings on those fronts).
Ironic, because we do have unprecedented abundance, yet always seem to feel perpetually unsatisfied. On some of these issues, I think we spend too much time worrying about what someone else seems to be taking away from us, despite the true abundance God graces us with.
Data centers enable a convenience that masks the real problem: we consume from habit and comparison, not necessity. Witness the parable of the talents for a reminder that wisdom lies not in hoarding or wasteful excess, but in faithful stewardship.
Whether it’s a sprawling complex or a small, box-sized thing sitting on your desk, the question isn’t whether resources exist to power our lives––they do. It’s whether our consumption patterns reflect gratitude and wisdom, or merely engage appetite.
Back in the 60’s I couldn’t imagine such things as the current AI infrastructure, but got some inklings in shows like “Lost In Space.”
Robot never went rogue, but in episode 20 (“War of the Robots”), he is pitted against a rogue, sinister machine named Robotoid. It seems Will repaired the old robotoid which caused Robot to ‘feel’ replaced and jealous. When Robotoid eventually turns on Will’s family, Robot goes rock ’em sock ’em and destroys it to save the day.
Fast forward to the 2018 Netflix reboot where Robot frequently goes rogue and attacks humans due to being reprogrammed.
What might 1960’s Robot say?
“Danger, Will Robinson! The danger is within!”
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Very good points, MP.
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Off topic: I do not know why, but I cannot simply press “like” on this board these days. I wonder what the glitch could be. Does anyone else have this problem?
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Judy, you have to be logged in before trying to Like any comments.
Logging in will give you a black bar across the top of your active browser window.
If you don’t have a black bar across the top, then you have to log in. Simply go to any “REPLY” button, click it to open a reply window, and look along the bottom for a few icons to click to log on in various ways. If you don’t see those icons, then type a single letter into the comment area of the Reply box and they should appear.
Once you have successfully logged in, I recommend that you reload the page using the toolbar at the very top of your browser window, and then everything will work properly.
You can prove you “got it” by clicking the Like button on my reply. 🙂
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://www.aleteia.org/2026/06/26/how-to-pray-the-chaplet-of-st-raphael-the-archangel/
https://www.aleteia.org/2026/06/26/how-augustinians-rescued-the-icon-of-our-lady-of-perpetual-help/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/why-being-rather-than-nothingness-part-xv
https://veilofveronica.blog/2026/06/24/a-disappointed-heart/
https://www.ncregister.com/features/lukas-father-tiernan-president-truman
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/beach-reading-for-americas-250th/
Any Region 8 members know anything about these folks? .. https://missionofdivinemercy.org/
https://onepeterfive.com/two-paths-of-catholic-traditionalism-campos-the-sspx-and-the-debate-over-communion-with-rome/
Hey Guv “Hair-Do”! I’ve got a better Tax Plan!! Let’s tax career Uni-Party Politicians 90% on all THEIR mysterious WEALTH “accumulated” during THEIR long years as “Public Servants” .. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/06/gavin-newsom-calls-national-billionaires-tax-trigger-economic/
https://thefederalist.com/2026/06/26/democrats-communist-revolution-will-destroy-america-if-the-right-doesnt-take-it-seriously/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/06/27/why-is-the-ukraine-war-hardest-to-end/
https://patriotpost.us/digests/128664-mid-day-digest
Of course, The Usual godless DC Swamp Uni-Party Coruptocrats & THEIR PuppetMasters are not happy about it .. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5943239-building-bridges-church-state/
https://zeale.co/
https://www.breitbart.com/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
https://floppingaces.net/
https://freebeacon.com/
https://hotair.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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Today, June 27, is the feast day of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I have always liked this title.
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://onepeterfive.com/in-illo-tempore-5th-sunday-after-pentecost/
https://catholicexchange.com/christs-hard-lessons-in-discipleship-13th-sunday-in-ordinary-time/
https://media.benedictine.edu/this-sunday-love-christ-more-than-family-and-he-will-love-them-more-than-you
https://apnews.com/article/vatican-raphael-restoration-renaissance-fcdc1c3a4641badd42fe121a56e4cd91#
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/therese-nietzsche-take-the-elevator
https://townhall.com/columnists/ryanbomberger/2026/06/28/after-dobbs-will-we-get-life-right-on-americas-250th-n2678254
https://firstthings.com/confession-isnt-therapy/
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/uniforms/
https://spiritdaily.org/blog/unpacking-our-ladys-urgent-call-for-our-entire-family-lineage/
https://www.wnd.com/2026/06/legal-team-delivers-much-needed-lesson-religious-rights/
https://www.breitbart.com/social-justice/2026/06/27/leftist-minnesota-school-board-clerk-wants-dogs-to-ps-on-white-corpses-at-christian-cemeteries/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/father-carlos-martins-recounts-chilling-exorcism-claims-woman-moved-objects-without-touching
https://www.breitbart.com/america250/2026/06/27/exclusive-dinesh-dsouza-how-thomas-jefferson-made-america/
https://zeale.co/
https://www.breitbart.com/
https://citizenfreepress.com/
https://freerepublic.com/tag/*/index
https://www.wnd.com/category/front-page/
https://newsbusters.org/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://catholicexchange.com/jesus-i-trust-in-you-five-simple-but-powerful-words/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/is-the-true-catholic-church-distinct-from-the-institutional-church
https://catholicexchange.com/the-mission-of-saints-peter-and-paul/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/dead-fathers
https://spiritdailyblog.com/apparitions/the-question-of-a-great-sign
https://christiannewsalerts.com/christian-father-of-four-killed-by-muslim-co-worker-in-pakistan-after-dispute-over-shared-water/
https://dwightlongenecker918309.substack.com/p/on-finding-oneself-a-rock-to-kick
https://catholicexchange.com/protecting-creation-in-the-digital-age/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/06/28/usmca-status-canada-in-recession-mexico-gdp-grows-double-expectations/
This Lady is worth listening to! …. We are witnessing Tthe Suicide of the West .. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/06/28/raising-children-in-the-21st-century-a-culture-of-instant-gratification-raised-on-singular-views-of-victimhood/
My Ol’ Navy Dad was a big fan of Tail Gunner Joe .. https://joehoft.com/roger-stone-mccarthy-was-right .. I’m guessing that before too long we will learn that “Tail Gunner” Traditional Catholic Types Had It Right all along when Truth is Told about the hijacking of Vatican II by the Lavender Marxist Left!
https://defendingtherepublic.substack.com/p/communism-the-less-you-have-to-eat?
https://www.steynonline.com/16276/a-top-down-willed-failure
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/excessively-enthusiastic-monday-june
https://zeale.co/
https://thefederalist.com/
https://justthenews.com/
https://townhall.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Happy Day 😉 Pray for Peace, The USA & Prepare!!
https://catholicexchange.com/after-the-enthronement-living-the-sacred-heart-devotion-as-a-family/
https://www.catholicleague.org/religious-roots-of-american-freedoms/ .. https://www.catholicleague.org/who-are-the-most-and-least-patriotic/
https://catholicexchange.com/we-need-fear-of-the-lord/
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/06/29/pro-life-states-get-victory-against-mail-order-abortions-in-appeals-court-ruling
https://knowingisdoing.org/blog/when-you-divorce-christ-your-ministry
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/family-bonds-as-occasions-temptation/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/turn-east-young-man
Well! When it comes time to Fix Bayonets, I’d rather have a SSPX Cleric in my foxhole than some close “nephew” of Cdls Cupich/McElroy! .. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/sspx-profession-faith/ .. https://catholicexchange.com/how-the-sspx-preserved-single-sex-catholic-education/
https://catholicmissionarydisciples.com/news/cynicism
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/mary-in-islam-setting-the-facts-straight
https://spiritdailyblog.com/news/the-lost-sermons
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/is-the-true-catholic-church-distinct-from-the-institutional-church
https://adanestorwc.substack.com/p/they-never-read-me-right
https://rmx.news/article/my-bloodline-ends-with-me-german-feminist-activist-calls-for-white-people-to-stop-having-children-and-accept-refugees/
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/slaughtered-tuesday-june-30-2026
https://zeale.co/
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/
https://townhall.com/
https://thefederalist.com/
https://justthenews.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! … PS:
https://dwightlongenecker918309.substack.com/p/guardian-angels-the-shadow-of-temptation
SCOTUS votes to destroy The Republic X Two! These decisions guarantee that The USA as founded will be “Gone With The Wind” in two generations! DemonRats will vote early & often for weeks after Election DAY and undocumented DemonRats become instant “VOTING” Citizens at Birth!
DemonRats and RINOs in Congress will not pass any legislation to overcome these SCOTUS Votes! ;-( ….. but we look to God for Devine Assistance as did our Patriots of Old 😉
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/06/29/scotus-rules-5-4-permit-counting-mail-in-ballots-that-arrive-after-election-day/
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2026/06/30/scotus-affirms-birthrTheseight-citizenship-rejects-trumps-reform/
https://patriotpost.us/digests/128741-mid-day-digest
https://www.americanthinker.com/
https://citizenfreepress.com/
https://freerepublic.com/tag/*/index
GOD SAVE ALL HERE!
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I design applications to test the power ICs and circuits used to power the data centers. Our company is experiencing record earnings for AI testing. It is all real and power expected to tripple in a few number of years as AI processors advance.—- Sent from Doug’s Back PackYou can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” – Ayn Rand
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