Oldbear83 said:
" Except for all the infrastructure they're bringing and tax base they're creating."
Zero new jobs, sucking up limited resources people need, sub-predicted ROI where we have numbers ...
It's like calling a cockroach infestation a bonus.
You have it exactly backwards.
They do create jobs. They create even more tax base.
They don't suck up limited resources. They bring the tax base necessary to bring resources to where they are needed.
Ex: I will be meeting next week with a couple of board members of a small water system, ca 600 meters. They have a 275k gal/day drawing right on an aquifer system which covers a large area of the state. They are AT their pumping limit. Compounding this problem, the water level in their well is dropping inches/feet per year. They can get a small amount of water from a large nearby city, at great expense, and with a total lockdown on development of any meaningful commercial or industrial tax base = that larger city will give them a drip line of water to keep them alive while they slowly die....and ensure that all the development in the area steers around that area. This system has a permit to drill a well. But it costs about twice what they can debt service.
Greatest irony of all: the entire western boundary of their service area (CCN) is....the Brazos River. 1.8b gals/day flow right by them. That's 1,800,000,000 gallons per day. 1.8 BILLION gallons per day. But Brazos River water is saline enough that it must be pre-treated before it can be purified for human consumption (to prevent the purification equipment from scaling up). The cost of pre-treatment, purification, and pumps and piping is even more expensive than the well.
The Data Center is going to bring enough tax base to fix that water problem. They can guarantee to buy enough water to make the solutions cash-flow. All they ask for is to hook everyone in the system up on sewer in order to produce effluent to cool the Data Center. The DC will pay for all the infrastructure to collect the sewage, pipe it to the DC, and treat it on-site All it costs in Brazos River water is 1.5mgd = less than 1% of what's flowing buy that water system every day unused.
We do not have a shortage of water.
We have a shortage of water pipe.
Data Centers are bringing the pipe.
We had a $1b cardboard plant locate in our area in 2024. Uses 1mgd. That's $1000 dollars of tax base per gallon. Nobody squawked about that.
This DC I'm working with is a $15b investment. Will use 1.5mgd. Thats $10,000 dollars of tax base per gallon. And people are losing their minds.
Makes no logical sense whatsoever.
It is amazing how far from reality the narrative is on data centers. We've got small, marginally viable water systems all over the state, struggling with declining groundwater resources. Meanwhile, the Brazos river alone dumps 5.4B gallons of water per day into the Gulf of America. 5,4000,000 gallons per day. Billion. With a B. That's about 1000 data centers worth of water. Not arguing for a 1000. Not arguing for 500. But perhaps enough water for a hundred or so would make sense. as long as they bring the pipe.
We've got to quit mining ground water and start developing surface water.
It will take tax base to do that.
The Data Centers are bringing the tax base.
(Rinse & repeat on natural gas infrastructure, electrical generation, electrical infrastructure, etc.....)