00:00A city council meeting meant to pause data centers erupted into fistfights.
00:05Another city passed its own pause unanimously, and in Texas, the state is suing to keep data
00:12center locations secret. A vote meant to pause data center construction in Memphis ended in a
00:20brawl. On Tuesday night, more than 100 people packed the city council chambers in Tennessee
00:26as members prepared to take up a proposed moratorium on data center projects. Instead,
00:34the meeting descended into chaos. Fights broke out in the lobby, with one woman slapped and another
00:40having her hair pulled, and a separate fistfight erupted between attendees. Councilwoman Yolanda
00:47Cooper Sutton argued with protesters and with council member J.B. Smiley before she was pulled
00:54from the meeting. Police were called, but no arrests or injuries were reported. Resident Amber Lowe said
01:01people feel invaded by strangers and had not been told enough about what is coming. Protesters chanted
01:08this is our city, and the vote was pushed to October 20th. Out west, another city just hit the brakes.
01:17Oakland City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday for an immediate 45-day moratorium on
01:24new data centers, passing it as an urgency measure that needed seven votes. Council member Carol Fyfe
01:33introduced the pause after Bering Companies proposed converting the ground floor of a downtown building
01:39near 20th and Franklin Streets into a data center. With AI research offices on the upper floors,
01:46speakers raised concerns about water, the grid and air quality, and Dr. Elizabeth Doherty warned that
01:54Oakland already uses 60-70% of McCollumie River water. Mayor Barbara Lee called it a moment for the public
02:03to weigh in. A community forum is set for October 24th in West Oakland while the city studies its
02:10options. That opposition is now making its way into courtrooms, and in Texas the fight is over who
02:19gets to see the data. The Public Utility Commission of Texas filed suit Tuesday to block Attorney General
02:26Ken Paxton's office from releasing survey records about data center locations. The commission argues that
02:34two fields, a facility's county and its regional water planning area, could help someone plan an act of terrorism
02:42when combined with operational details like electricity, demand and water consumption. The survey went to 377 data
02:51center and crypto mining facilities. And only 90 had responded by August water planning groups need that
02:59geography to project future industrial demand. So the dispute pits security claims against the public's
03:07ability to track where the power and water are going. And the reason this fight over data keeps gaining
03:15momentum comes down to one thing. Power. In the Midwest and South, grid operator Miso has asked federal
03:23regulators to approve a fast-track process for pairing giant new loads with new generation. The proposal,
03:31called the Large Load Addition Resource Study, would run a 120-day study for loads above 200 megawatts
03:39that bring their own generation in the same local resource zone. Applicants would have to bring the plant
03:46online within three years, keep load and generation paired for at least 15 years, and put down
03:53non-refundable deposits to weed out speculative projects. Miso wants approval by December 2nd to start the
04:01first study period in early 2027, after FERC found in June that its existing large load rules fell short.
04:11The pressure on the grid is only half the story. Because water tells the other half. And in Texas some
04:19of the biggest
04:19checks are being written for it. The Texas Tribune reports that data center companies have donated or
04:26invested more than $343 million across Texas communities. Rowan Digital Infrastructure committed
04:34$38 million to Temple, including $25 million for water infrastructure and $10 million for aquifer storage.
04:43Lancium is supplying 1 million gallons of water a day to Childress at no cost. And QTS is helping replace
04:52a
04:52water tower in Turkey. A project of $3 to $5 million. Temple's Mayor, Tim Davis, called investing in a current
05:01community need very generous. Whether such gifts settle residents' worries is a question that still hangs over rural Texas.
05:11State leaders are taking notice. And Texas shows how far that can go.
05:17Governor Greg Abbott's data center audit is now underway at ERCOT, which aims to file by December 10.
05:24About 300 data centers of 75 megawatts or larger sit in the batch zero process. And ERCOT will also run
05:33community impact reviews on data centers and crypto facilities of 25 megawatts and up. The interconnection queue
05:42totals roughly 474 gigawatts. About 90% of it data center requests. Much of it likely speculative or
05:51duplicative. The pause on new grid connections began August 3rd. 17 large loads totaling about 6.6 gigawatts
06:00still face verification before. Energizing late this year. And ERCOT's Chad Seeley said the goal is to
06:09head toward a December 10 filing. Yet despite that regulatory wave, construction is pressing forward.
06:17In Fort Worth, Texas, Colivore has a $430 million data center planned at 14,700 Heritage Parkway,
06:28a facility of about 156,500 square feet. Construction is scheduled to run from December of this year to
06:37December 2028. Near Austin, Skybox and Prologis are developing a $550 million single-story core in
06:47Shell. Building in Hutto planned for data center use. Both projects show that even as local governments
06:54debate pauses, developers are still filing plans and lining up sites across Texas. The filings are the
07:02latest sign that the state remains a magnet for capital. Even while its own grid audit is still
07:08underway. And the financial commitment behind all that construction is staggering. ConstructConnect's
07:16report says data center construction spending has reached $98.5 billion so far this year across 153
07:26projects. August alone brought $14.4 billion across 17 projects. The average data center now costs $1.18
07:36billion in covers about $107,000 square feet. And data centers account for 24% of all non-residential
07:46building starts. Spending is moving inland, with Texas leading at more than $22 billion. The firm is
07:54tracking 65 more projects worth $26.1 billion expected to break ground before year-end. And power infrastructure
08:04starts have surged more than 119% year-over-year.
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