Three Visionary Solutions For America’s Data Center Crisis

With the midterm elections approaching, politicians have stopped lecturing us about the evils of data centers and turned their attention to winning votes. Suddenly, the data center conundrum is on the back burner, like tort reform or the national debt. But, as with those issues, ignoring data centers won’t solve the riddle. The challenge only grows over time.

Let’s start with a simple truth: America needs data centers. Our tech-heavy, streaming and binge-watching, phone-addicted culture demands their construction. But they should not be built everywhere, nor should they be forced upon unwilling communities.  Data centers are a national challenge, so let’s explore some solutions.

Unlike George Costanza on “Seinfeld,” I am not pretending to be an architect, nor am I an urban planner or builder.  But I am trying to start a national conversation while our politicians are more interested in demagoguing problems than solving them.

Here are three ideas:

Proposal One: Match The Money With The Land

Unlike liberals’ pet wind and solar farm construction projects, or the fantastical failure of California’s high-speed rail, data centers do not need taxpayer dollars. Tech companies have plenty of money. What they need is land. Another group has land and is beloved by the public but seeks tax dollars for construction projects: professional sports teams.  Marry them.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul secured an $850 million taxpayer check for her hometown Buffalo Bills, who had threatened to leave the state without a new stadium.  Their new location is a 250-acre site. Simultaneously, Gov. Hochul issued a moratorium on data center construction in New York State, prohibiting private dollars from acquiring fractions of that land. The solution? Put them together. Imagine those 100+ acres of parking lots with underground data centers.

If you think big tech won’t pay, just know that META is spending $50 billion on data centers just in Louisiana. That makes Buffalo’s new $2.2 billion stadium seem cheap. A governor serious about development and protecting taxpayers would strike a deal for tech companies to foot the bill. They get data centers, the Bills get a new stadium, and the city gets jobs and revenue. In this scenario, the taxpayers don’t pay a dime, and everyone wins.  Maybe even the long-suffering Bills.

Nine more NFL teams want new stadiums in the next few years. So do four MLB teams. Add to that list colleges and universities, and the millions of acres of vacant parking lots that could be retrofitted for underground data centers. What’s lacking is vision, matchmaking, and political will.

Proposal Two: The Humming Ugly Box Problem

Construction companies will try to build data centers as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Local zoning laws and ordinances will demand certain sound-buffering construction materials to mitigate noise. They could also compel data centers to be something other than drab, ugly boxes. A solution to both problems: bury them.

Yes, it is more expensive, but the projected revenue from data center construction outshines immediate construction costs. Tech companies must build goodwill with the community, so why not bury some data centers and keep the land above as open green space? This also helps cooling costs, since these centers aren’t baking in sunlight for hours a day. It keeps rural communities happy: tax revenue without the three-story beige box and the sound. A governor needs to use some political muscle to try it. It could be a winning option.

Proposal Three: Go Where The Energy Is

Rather than expending effort to bring energy to the data centers, bring the data centers to the energy. For many months this year, the supply of natural gas in the Permian Basin, the fossil fuel mega-site straddling the Texas-New Mexico border, was so abundant that prices went negative. The region produces more natural gas than the current infrastructure can manage. America is years behind the curve, the result of every pipeline protest and Biden administration permit denial. While the world needs more natural gas, the Permian is flaring it.

Why not move the data centers to the Permian? Build natural gas power plants in the region desperate for a customer. This mostly desert, uninhabited area can power AI with reliable, abundant, cheap electricity. No more protests. No more farmland sold to developers.

Four: A Combination of All Three

Right now, data centers are built in convenient locations, hurting the aesthetics of small towns with ugly, boxy buildings that hum, even commandeering valuable farmland.  It does not have to be this way. They are solutions, probably many more that can fit in one column. Sadly, our elected officials are not focused on solving problems. It is better politics to run on a problem than to fix one. It is a better campaign to “tackle” and “take on” than to resolve.

Data centers are coming. We can either think of creative ways to get a good option, or we can watch candidates cut more valueless campaign ads.

I provided three ideas as a starting point. Unlike George Costanza, I’m willing to admit I am not an architect. Imagine what we could accomplish if a real architect gave data centers some thought.

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Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia.  Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF