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Governor who touted Texas as AI "epicenter" pauses data center grid connections:
Nowhere is the US data center boom bigger than in Texas. But less than a year after declaring Texas the "epicenter of AI development," Governor Greg Abbott has declared a moratorium on all new power grid connections for data centers—at least until developers provide more information about their projects' potential impacts on the grid and communities.
The Republican governor directed regulators in an August 3 announcement at the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the grid operators at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to perform a "comprehensive verification and audit of all data centers advancing through ERCOT's interconnection process." As an independent system operator, ERCOT oversees a power grid that operates separately from the rest of the United States and provides services to most of Texas.
Texas has aggressively courted data center development with its availability of cheap land and relatively abundant energy resources, along with offering state incentives, like tax breaks and fewer regulations. That puts the state on track to surpass Virginia in becoming the largest US data center market.
But the recent AI boom and the accompanying frenzy of data center development threaten to overwhelm the Texas grid on paper, despite the state leading the country in adding new power generation. The ERCOT interconnection queue currently includes more than 1,800 projects representing over 474 gigawatts' worth of requests to connect to the Texas grid—more than five times Texas' record peak electricity demand—and about 90 percent of those power connection requests come from data centers.
"That unprecedented load growth could endanger the reliability and stability of the Texas electric grid," according to the statement from Abbott's office.
[...] The new directive from Abbott requires audits of data center projects that include how much data centers would depend on the ERCOT grid for power, along with obtaining projections of data centers' annual and peak electricity consumption. The directive further requires information on how much individual data center projects depend on state financial assistance, along with details on each data center project's ownership and controlling interests.
Abbott also directed state regulators and grid operators to discover the extent to which data centers' cooling systems and water usage may draw upon local water supplies needed by local communities. However, the governor's directive does not mention the fact that data centers often use much more water through their power generation sources than directly through their cooling systems—a fact highlighted by researchers like Shaolei Ren at the University of California, Riverside.
[...] Abbott's directive also seeks to increase scrutiny of measures that data centers are taking to "reduce impacts on neighboring property owners and communities, including noise mitigation, light controls, setbacks, traffic improvements, emergency response coordination and other community protection measures."
But the directive conspicuously neglects to mention local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions associated with data centers. Nonprofit newsroom Floodlight has reported that AI companies used a local permit loophole in Texas to install gas-powered turbines and backup diesel generators on site at new data center campuses—all without requiring more extensive environmental reviews or outreach to local communities.
Notably, the Texas pause on data center grid connections does not apply to data center projects that are building their own on-site power generation to get up and running as fast as possible. That "behind-the-meter power" strategy has become increasingly common among tech and AI companies like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, OpenAI, and Anthropic, according to research by market intelligence platform CleanView.
Such behind-the-meter power typically relies on natural gas. But with lengthy order backlogs for combined-cycle gas turbines, CleanView says data center developers are turning to alternative sources, such as "mobile gas generators strapped to semitrucks" and "aeroderivative turbines originally designed for aircraft and warships."
Texas leads all US states in total announced behind-the-meter capacity for data centers by having 40 gigawatts of such announced capacity. That factor is driven by the Texas Permian Basin gas supply and "extensive pipeline infrastructure" along with the "state's permissive regulatory environment," according to CleanView.
Despite the oversight gaps, the Texas moratorium on data center approvals "throws a massive wrench into ERCOT's plans to bring data centers online," according to E&E News. The Texas grid operator has been seeking to connect data center projects to the grid in groups, with notifications for the coveted first group known as "Batch Zero" planned to go out by the end of this week. But ERCOT officials said they will postpone the Batch Zero process while working with state regulators to carry out Abbott's directive.
Abbott's change of tune on AI data centers comes as the incumbent governor has "seen support erode over concerns about data centers and extra-high-voltage transmission lines built in rural areas," E&E News reported. It also pointed to polls showing Texas voters generally opposing data centers in their communities—part of a national trend among Americans—and Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa running just one percentage point behind Abbott in a recent Fox News poll.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @04:52AM (11 children)
As opposed to eating what farms with empty water tables produce? My take on that is that if water scarcity is so bad that data center water consumption is a genuine problem (rather than a fake one), then it's far more of a problem for the agriculture that uses vastly more water!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @06:01AM (10 children)
I conclude that you don't actually know much about agriculture. Most crops that use a lot of water are grown where there's a lot of water to spend, or depend on an existing irrigation project to import water. The vast majority of ag is either dryland farming (primarily wheat, subsisting on barely enough rain) or livestock (using land too water-poor to grow any crops whatsoever. No one raises livestock when they can have the higher and more reliable profits of crops.)
USDA numbers, about 200M acres devoted to ag, 53M are irrigated. In some states because they have to (CA, UT), in others because they can (MS).
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Online_Resources/Farm_and_Ranch_Irrigation_Survey/fris_1_004_004.pdf [usda.gov]
In any case, I find your entire argument spurious.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @07:36AM (9 children)
Or pump it out of the ground till they run out. And while we're speaking of best practices rather than the real world, keep in mind that data centers can use a lot less water too. "Dryland" data centers need not be a water hog either. Just like agriculture, data centers can use much less of various non-electricity resources and cause much less externalities like noise pollution.
I see that more as an indication that you can learn something from this.
My view is that there's one big thing a data center can't avoid - high density electricity consumption. Everything else, including water consumption, can be addressed at modest cost should they choose to do so. In return, it can generate some of the highest economic value for the resources consumed of any endeavor on the planet.
I think the real problem right now is bubble psychology. A sector (AI) is so obsessed with growth that they cut a lot of corners and put out a pretty shoddy product. Get it built and worry about the problems that poorly planned development causes later. Maybe once that bubble collapses (along with the associated reactionary hysteria) we'll be able to think about how to integrate them into our world. Rather than blanket bans on data centers, let's figure out how to do them well.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @02:48PM (8 children)
There's an obvious way to do them well: How about datacenters take over the abandoned industrial sites that litter the northeast, and come with abundant power and water and fat-pipe networks, and no one gives a shit about the noise because it's less than a steel mill.
Instead it's what's going on less than 30 miles from me -- a datacenter out on the prairie that's got Northwestern Energy convinced they can pivot to that captive audience, and sucks to be a residential customer. Where they plan to get water is another problem -- the ready water in that area is too alkali for ANY use. Perhaps fortunately, we're a first-come water rights state, so they can't just suck the irrigation ditches dry, and that grade of well needs state approval. But there are no big wells out there because there's not much water to be had, and if they drill one and start pumping at that volume, it's going to dry up every ag well (mostly cattle watering stations and the egg ranch) for miles around. Most people who live out there haul their water as it is.
Farmers can't just suck out all the water they want, either. That's regulated and limited (in California, to the point that most ag has already literally dried up). But it appears datacenters plan to end-run those regulations.
I wouldn't object if datacenters had to bring their own resources. But they don't, they outbid local electric companies so everyone's rates go up (little-known fact, electricity is an auctioned commodity, and the highest bidder wins), and they evidently intend to monopolize water where that resource is already scarce. And then they want tax breaks!
Go to Detroit, or Pittsburgh, where the city will GIVE you the land tax-free and the resources are already there in surplus. But instead they target the rural states, evidently because they see us as suckers who are desperate for the ten jobs they bring..
Then when the bubble does burst, we'll be left holding the bag.
Your argument, which appears to boil down to "datacenters are better than farming because datacenters use less water than farming" is ridiculous, and you appear to have a monolithic view of water availability. There are locales where water is abundant or even excessive, and others (most of US west of the Mississippi) where it's already too scarce. Explain why a datacenter is better placed where that resource is already squeezed. Because that is what is happening.
But I've seen you make the argument that datacenter noise is not a problem because the land was available and that it was next to established residential is irrelevant. Would you say the same if your next door neighbor started an industrial-sized pig farm??
Maybe that should be the criterion: If the location wouldn't permit a massive pig farm, it shouldn't permit datacenters either.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:06PM (7 children)
I also see the same situation in Montana. Rural states are more places where data centers make sense.
As to your alleged bag, what's really in there? At worst, it's just a Mysteries of the Abandoned applicant that your community can just let go to seed without a second thought. It won't even have the usual environmental problems of a typical post-industrial abandoned site.
You just answered your own question. When said datacenters replace agriculture with any sort of water consumption, they lower demand for that water. The "too scarce" resource is less scarce.
Here's what I actually said [soylentnews.org]:
Data centers can be quiet just like your neighbor can avoid playing music loud enough that your molars ache. There's plenty of technological and biological answers out there to reduce noise levels. OTOH, there's only so much you can conceal the smell and other pollution of a huge pig farm. Your county just needs to pass modest noise ordinances (with teeth) to keep the more passive-aggressive AI bros in line.
The real problem here is governments at all levels that don't have the integrity to keep data centers in line. It shouldn't be that hard.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @06:16PM (6 children)
"You just answered your own question. When said datacenters replace agriculture with any sort of water consumption, they lower demand for that water. The "too scarce" resource is less scarce."
And now food (which is a lot harder to live without) is more scarce and more expensive. Exactly what have you achieved??
Your arguments only make sense if you're invested in expanding datacenters, and couldn't care less about the impacts.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:56PM (5 children)
What food is that minuscule amount of dryland agriculture actually producing? You can make that food cheaper a lot faster by ending agriculture subsidies.
To give a feeling for how little space data centers use, the total land area of data centers global, including buffer space and support infrastructure, was around 400k acres in early 2025. That's about half the acreage used for alfalfa growing in the state of Utah. Even if we were replacing the most valuable farmland on the planet with those data centers, it wouldn't have impact on global food prices. It's way too small.
We have yet to take a serious look at those alleged impacts!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 11, @01:08AM (4 children)
Lessee, 400k acres at an average of about 12 tons per acre, 3 or 4 crops per year (in SoCal it's 12), 50 pounds per day per dairy cow, in milk-days that's an awful lot of milk no longer being produced (several billion pounds per year, or about half a month's national supply).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 11, @09:59AM (3 children)
700k acres per year of lost agricultural land.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 11, @01:46PM (2 children)
So your logic is "because A is a problem, and B is slightly less of a problem, B is not a problem."
"They cut off my right hand, but they only cut off my left fingers, so that's better!"
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12, @02:35AM (1 child)
More A is a problem we don't do much about due to apathy and whatnot, and B is much less of a problem than A. Thus, why should we treat the B problem so seriously?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12, @11:25AM