00:00One data center project asked for half of an entire county's electricity.
00:05And now that county wants to slam the door.
00:08From Spokane to Long Island to Virginia's data center alley,
00:12communities are freezing permits and fighting power lines.
00:16Even as forecasters warn that a fifth of America's electricity will soon feed these machines.
00:22And Wall Street just closed a $40 billion mega deal.
00:27We begin in Spokane County, Washington, where a single number changed the entire conversation.
00:35Utility provider Avista revealed it had received an energy request for a proposed data center of
00:41500 megawatts, roughly half of everything the county currently consumes.
00:48Avista has since paused processing the request.
00:51But the shock lingered.
00:53On Monday, County Commissioners Chris Jordan and Amber Waldreff announced plans for a nine-month
00:59moratorium on new data center building permits across unincorporated Spokane County, running
01:07until just after Washington's 2027 legislative session ends.
01:12The pause would give staff time to study impacts on ratepayers, natural resources,
01:17and neighborhoods, coordinate with local power and water providers, and write the county's
01:24first real rules for data centers, covering zoning, water, power, and public participation
01:32in permitting.
01:33When one project can demand half a county's electricity, officials say the old playbook no longer applies.
01:42In Spokane, New York, residents packed a heated public hearing, warning that data centers could
01:57strain the island's electric grid, drive up utility bills, generate relentless noise, and
02:04threaten the region's sole source aquifer.
02:07The underground water supply every resident depends on.
02:11The town board's answer was unanimous.
02:14An 18-month moratorium on all new data center applications.
02:19Brookhaven's Industrial Development Agency won't even entertain proposals during the freeze.
02:25The town will use the time to write its first-ever zoning regulations for data centers,
02:30covering energy and water consumption, environmental impacts, public safety, infrastructure capacity,
02:39and noise.
02:40No applications are currently pending.
02:43And that's exactly the point.
02:45Brookhaven wants the rules locked in place before the industry ever comes knocking.
02:51That local resistance is now spilling into regulators' dockets.
02:56And it has reached the very heart of the industry.
02:59Data Center Alley itself.
03:02Loudoun County, Virginia, home to the world's densest concentration of data centers,
03:08asked state regulators Monday to suspend their final order approving Dominion Energy's Golden Mars
03:15transmission line, a route that would cut through the Ashburn and Sterling communities.
03:20The consent motion, filed with the agreement of both Dominion and Loudoun County Public Schools,
03:27landed just hours before the State Corporation Commission's jurisdiction over the case was set to
03:34expire 21 days after its June 29 final order.
03:39The county says settlement talks over an alternative route have made meaningful progress.
03:44And a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the school board is set for July 29.
03:51When even the capital of the data center world is fighting over where the power lines go.
03:57No route is a sure thing anymore.
04:00And the reason these fights keep multiplying comes down to one thing.
04:05Power.
04:06And the forecast just got dramatically bigger.
04:09Bloomberg NEF now projects that data centers will consume 20% of all U.S. electricity by
04:162035, one in every 5 kilowatt hours in America, up from about 6% today.
04:24The research firm nearly doubled its outlook, projecting 194 gigawatts of data center demand,
04:31an 83% jump from its forecast just seven months ago.
04:36The regional numbers are even more striking.
04:39In the PJM grid stretching from Virginia to Illinois, roughly a third of all electricity would
04:45flow to data centers.
04:47In Texas, more than a fifth of ERCOTs generating capacity.
04:53After two decades of essentially flat demand, America's grid is being asked to grow faster
04:59than at any point in modern history.
05:02And every community we just visited can already feel it coming.
05:07The pressure on the grid is only half the story.
05:10Water tells the other half.
05:13In Sacramento, California lawmakers just passed a first-of-its-kind bill requiring data centers
05:19to disclose their projected water use before local governments can approve them, and to certify
05:27their actual consumption every year once they're up and running.
05:30The measure now sits on Governor Gavin Newsom's desk.
05:34The timing is no accident.
05:36The International Energy Agency estimates a single 100-megawatt data center in the U.S.
05:43can consume roughly 500,000 gallons of water per day.
05:48And a Guardian analysis found that a 809 data centers planned across the country, 517, nearly
05:57two-thirds, are slated for land that has been in drought within the past year.
06:02California is betting that transparency is the first step toward keeping the taps running
06:07for everyone else.
06:11State and city leaders are taking notice.
06:14And out in West Texas, El Paso just wrote one of the toughest local rulebooks in America.
06:21After nearly six months of public engagement that drew more than 2,300 comments, the city
06:28council approved a data center policy framework that ends business as usual for hyperscale developers.
06:35Every future hyperscale project must now win a special permit, with public notice, plan commission
06:42review, a public hearing, and a final vote by the council itself.
06:48The framework layers on enhanced standards for water use, energy demand, wastewater, noise,
06:56lighting, and ecological impact, and the most striking provision of all.
07:01While El Paso is eliminating local economic incentives for future hyperscale projects entirely.
07:08With Meta already building in the region, the message to the next applicant is unmistakable.
07:14You can come, but you'll play by our rules.
07:17And you'll pay your own way.
07:20Yet despite that regulatory wave, developers keep hunting for sites.
07:25And in Oregon, one of them is circling a ghost from the last tech boom.
07:31In West Eugene, a mystery buyer has the former Hinnock Semiconductor Plant under contract.
07:38A 1.2 million square foot factory on 200 acres that has sat largely dormant since.
07:45It closed in 2008.
07:47Taking 1,400 jobs with it.
07:49Land use attorney Bill Clues filed a zone verification request asking the city to confirm that a
07:56data center would be a permitted use on the site.
08:00Alongside manufacturing, research, and warehousing, owner after owner, Avago, Corning, and now Stratocash,
08:10has failed to revive the plant.
08:12And Stratocash itself is showing signs of financial distress, selling properties and
08:18laying off workers.
08:20Neither the buyer's identity nor its plans are confirmed.
08:24But if the deal lands, a factory that once made memory chips may soon be storing memories
08:30of a very different kind.
08:33And the money chasing those sites has never been bigger.
08:36Which brings us to our kicker.
08:39A consortium of the AI Infrastructure Partnership, Abu Dhabi's MGX, and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure
08:47Partners closed its acquisition of 100% of aligned data centers on Tuesday.
08:54At an enterprise value of roughly $40 billion, one of the largest private investments in digital
09:01infrastructure ever completed.
09:03Aligned, purchased from funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management, spans 51 campuses with more
09:10than 6.4 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity across the Americas.
09:17Northern Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Ohio, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and beyond.
09:25The new owners immediately committed another $5 billion to fund expansion.
09:31With CEO Andrew Schaap staying on and headquarters remaining in Dallas.
09:37Communities may be pushing back harder than ever.
09:40But the biggest money on the planet just doubled down on the build out.
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