announced a plan<\/a> for voluntary standards that new data center proposers will have to adhere to if they want state government support. Those include energy affordability, transparency, community engagement, economic development, and environmental protection.\u00a0<\/p>\nResidents who asked questions used only their first names.\u00a0<\/p>\n
John from Dublin Borough asked what residents can do to stop data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay organized,\u201d said Coleman. And he told them to contact their other elected officials to let them know their opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFolks, you\u2019re a lot more powerful,\u201d Coleman added later. \u201cIf you show up at meetings, I saw Allentown tabled one. Obviously, developers don\u2019t like it when people show up either. That\u2019s opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStacy Garrity, she\u2019s the state treasurer,\u201d said Coleman of the Republican running for governor against Shapiro. \u201cShe\u2019s calling for a complete pause on data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman said other, more sparsely populated states like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico would make better sites for data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anne from Bedminster said she\u2019s a Democrat and has also been an information technology professional for more than 45 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an issue for our country, no matter where you\u2019re talking about putting them,\u201d said Anne. \u201cThese are just giant server warehouses. And they use huge amounts of resources. And there are other technologies up and coming that would allow us to use less resources, a lot less\u2026That\u2019s what we should be asking these corporations that want to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anne said she is \u201ctired\u201d of the excuse that data centers provide jobs. The initial construction jobs will end once the centers are built, she reasoned, and then they will employ only a small staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to educate yourselves,\u201d Anne said. \u201cBig tech is running all over you because you do not understand enough about what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman appealed to populism, noting widespread hostility to data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty percent of constituents in the Lehigh Valley and Upper Bucks don\u2019t want data centers in their backyards,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is really a bipartisan issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
His argument was aesthetic and ecological.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are going to destroy communities, kill the environment, they\u2019re going to hurt wildlife,\u201d said Coleman. \u201cAnd we haven\u2019t even talked about pollution. Some of these use diesel generators. The whole point is to pump the brakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brittany from Emmaus said the American Lung Association already listed the Lehigh Valley as the 50th most polluted in the U.S. She asked him to talk about the impact data centers would have on air quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe diesel generators not only pollute the air with noise and low frequency waves that can hurt animals, wildlife, with bald eagles around,\u201d he said. \u201cWith combustion, they produce emissions in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the machines need cooling; they used 21.1 billion liters of water in 2014. And by 2023, he said, the Department of Energy estimated that figure grew to 66 billion liters of water, over half a million acre-feet of water per year.<\/p>\n
And there is a danger for firefighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are massive buildings,\u201d said Coleman. \u201cThey have complex floor plans, ultra-secure perimeters, high-value equipment inside, and it reacts poorly to water. All the while, housing backup power systems that include dangerous lithium batteries that can become explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n
John from Lowhill Township mentioned he\u2019s an electrical engineer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe documented noise pollution from these centers is tremendous,\u201d he said. \u201cWith data centers, it\u2019s constant. They\u2019ve had communities literally go out of their minds with the noise because they can\u2019t sleep. Their whole biorhythms are affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others believe some of these concerns are overblown.<\/p>\n
\u201cData centers have unfortunately become the latest target of a broader techlash, despite being an essential piece of infrastructure in the digital economy,\u201d said Juan Londono, a policy analyst with the D.C.-based Cato Institute. \u201cDespite their recent surge in notoriety in relation to AI, data centers have been around us for decades. The websites you browse, the TV series you stream, the video calls you take with your family, and the emails you send all depend on data centers to host, process, and transmit information. Their use extends way beyond AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Londono admitted that the power grid might not be able to handle the extra demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cElectric utilities are not prepared for demand growth, and they have resisted efforts by large customers and others to create new electricity supplies,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, instead of banning their construction, policymakers should leverage tech companies\u2019 willingness to spend to either update the grid or increase energy supply by allowing them to go off-grid.\u201d<\/p>\n
And noise levels could be addressed through zoning changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, claims about water use, emissions, or heat impacts are largely based on half-truths, misleading statements, or outright falsehoods,\u201d Londono said. \u201cUnfortunately, as these talking points gain traction, they have spurred an anti-data center movement that will do more harm than good to these communities, who will miss out on potential new AI-related jobs and tax revenues.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the residents who phoned into a June 10 telephone town hall held by state Senator Jarrett Coleman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1609,153,155,154,197,2116,2328,4517],"class_list":["post-219655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bucks-county","tag-data-centers","tag-energy","tag-jarrett-coleman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}