Mr Tulip said:

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For Baylor University, you get a renown educational institution in your town. You get students, professors, other employees, and community engagement. There's a tremendous return.

Even for the golf course (which aren't exactly your shining beacon of responsible land use), you get golf pros, maintenance, facilities, and the ability to play golf, if that's your thing.

For a data center, you get 10 permanent jobs and a way to generate wealth for people who don't live there.

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An average operational data center typically employs between 50 and 200 permanent workers, depending on its capacity and business model. Staffing scales with power (megawatts) and automation, with common workforce benchmarks breaking down as follows:Small Facilities (15 MW): 8 to 15 operational staff.Medium Facilities (520 MW): 15 to 35 operational staff.Large & Hyperscale (20100+ MW): 50 to 200+ employees.The workforce spans several on-site roles, including critical facility technicians, network engineers, facilities management, catering, and 24/7 security personnel.

perrynative said:

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Riesel now in the cross hairs. The coal plant did not provide tax revenue that was projected.

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That is because the coal plant sued the appraisal district to lower their value. They won. The plant is valued very low for what it is.

Mr Tulip said:

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Yeah. Texas just goes ahead and rebates those taxes:

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/08/texas-data-centers-sales-tax-break-billion-dollars/

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The state doesn't have a property tax. Local jurisdictions can give these data centers come some sort of break on property taxes, if they choose.

The state is giving the data centers a sales tax exemption. Of course, if the data centers build and buy whatever they need outside of Texas, the state doesn't get any sale tax revenue anyway.

Big12Bear said:

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Nonsense. They use way way way more than a golf course. And it's nonstop. I'm not even one of those eco loons, but these things are really bad by any metric that doesn't involve padding the coffers.

Neighboring Hill County has already put a moratorium on them, Many more to follow. But they are trying to ram these things through without proper vetting at lightning speed.

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It depends on whom you talk to.

I don't trust political activists or propaganda.

I'd like to get the information myself. I am perfectly capable of examining water usage as I wrote a 61-page dissertation on the subject matter in 2003. I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but what I learned while researching for my dissertation is that sometimes claims are overstated for political use in this field - and sometimes they are understated for political use in this field.

I imagine it depends on the size of the project. I am quite aware of the Hill County project. It is a massive development. While it will flush cash into the Hill County economy for the time being, who knows what the long term gains or costs will be with an operation like this.

They're going to have to develop them somewhere unless people want to go back on technology 20 years, which some of us wouldn't complain about.

Volunteer said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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Yeah. Texas just goes ahead and rebates those taxes:

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/08/texas-data-centers-sales-tax-break-billion-dollars/

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The state doesn't have a property tax. Local jurisdictions can give these data centers come some sort of break on property taxes, if they choose.

The state is giving the data centers a sales tax exemption. Of course, if the data centers build and buy whatever they need outside of Texas, the state doesn't get any sale tax revenue anyway.

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If they are buying it out of state and bringing it in for use in the data center, they would owe use tax (the companion to sales tax) on it absent the exemption.

Big12Bear said:

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Nonsense. They use way way way more than a golf course. And it's nonstop. I'm not even one of those eco loons, but these things are really bad by any metric that doesn't involve padding the coffers.

Neighboring Hill County has already put a moratorium on them, Many more to follow. But they are trying to ram these things through without proper vetting at lightning speed.

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Assuming we are talking about closed loop cooling data centers (which almost all of these being built are), they don't even come close to using the amount of water a golf course does and its mostly in the initial fillup of the system, after that the water usage is very minimal (mostly restrooms, janitorial services, & landscaping).

Hill County also screwed themselves (and cost their taxpayers a lot of money) by placing an illegal moratorium on it (even after being advised it was illegal).

Redbrickbear said:

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Big12Bear said:

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Nonsense. They use way way way more than a golf course. And it's nonstop. I'm not even one of those eco loons, but these things are really bad by any metric that doesn't involve padding the coffers.

Neighboring Hill County has already put a moratorium on them, Many more to follow. But they are trying to ram these things through without proper vetting at lightning speed.

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Not really.....they are in the same ballpark

[mid-sized data center can use over 100 million gallons annually, roughly equaling the consumption of 1,000 U.S. households.]

[A typical 18-hole golf course uses an average of 300,000 to 312,000 gallons of water daily, totaling over 90 million gallons per year]

Would be interesting to see how much Baylor uses....probably well over both of them

The real problem with Data centers is they are God awful ugly (but of course most of what modern architects build is ugly. And being close to any center like that is bad for human health...but of cause most industrial stuff is bad as well.

PS

All the Data centers in the country don't even come to a fraction of the water use that golf courses take up....

[On a national scale, U.S. golf courses consume over 500 billion gallons of water annually, whereas all U.S. data centers combined consumed about 17.4 billion gallons in 2023]

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What type of data center are you basing your "100 million gallons annually" number on? I don't think its based on any that are being built recently.

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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Jackson Bear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Aren't most of these data centers building their own power plant?

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I think the LL data center will generate its own power or at least a lot of it and will recycle waste water and not have to draw much water at all. That is why they are interested in partnering with Lacy Lakeview. LL can sell its waste water which the data center will treat and recycle much like a car wash does.

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I was told (no idea if it is true) that the closed water system is only closed up to a daily temp of 94 degrees. At that point they supposedly have to pull from an external water source.

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This is not correct, thats not how closed loop systems work. However, I have no doubt that you heard that from somewhere. The amount of misinformation out there about data centers is insane, you should question everything you hear.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5920573-openai-chinese-influence-operators/

OpenAI revealed Wednesday that influence operators, likely based in China, used ChatGPT accounts to push certain narratives about American artificial intelligence and technology policy debates.
In a report, published Wednesday, the AI firm said it discovered two clusters of ChatGPT accounts "likely originating" from China, one of which created social media comments and pictures alleging data center buildouts increased electricity prices for families in the US.

The second cluster, according to OpenAI, also published negative comments and images stating tariffs are "attempts to dominate technological competition." These prompts also allegedly instructed the model to not include Chinese President Xi Jinping, but only President Trump.
It also allegedly targeted OpenAI itself with allegations about compromised user data, the firm said, adding it was able to link multiple social media accounts to the cluster, and the ChatGPT accounts were banned.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said they were not familiar with the specific allegations but "firmly oppose any groundless attacks or smears against China."

The report from a leading AI lab comes as speculation swirls in Washington over how Chinese operators could be impacting America's ongoing debate over AI, and the massive data centers needed to power the technology's development.
Various claims have surfaced in recent weeks about the alleged role of Chinese influence operators in broader backlash against data centers, which is being seen on federal, state and local levels. It is not clear the extent to which these operators could be acting.
Millionaire investor Kevin O'Leary went viral last month for claiming foreign interference associated with the Chinese government is partly to blame for the backlash against American data centers.

O'Leary said he saw a dramatic increase in social media messages about his Utah data center project last month, and when his team tracked the messages, some had the same IP addresses and suspected bot activity.
At least one official with the Trump administration and other Republican lawmakers have echoed, or at least sought more information, on these recent claims.
"Any place that's trying to build data centers is getting bombarded with foreign-directed propaganda to try to block these from being built," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business late last month.

Last week, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) along with Reps. John Joyce (R-Pa.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) sent a letter to the FBI and the co-chairs of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, requesting information about evidence that "strongly suggests" foreign influence campaigns.
"The fact that Chinese Communist Party-backed entities and other foreign adversaries may be attempting to influence decisions related to American data center infrastructure puts into perspective how serious of a fight we are in," the letter stated.
The spokesperson for the Chinese embassy further told The Hill China "believes in a people-centered approach to AI and advocates openness and inclusiveness to ensure AI is a force for good and for all," and touted the country's Global AI Governance Initiative.