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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, @08:26AM (18 children)
Agriculture not growing as a market is a red herring. My point behind the opening of agricultural fields, which does happen, was to illustrate the double standard that is applied to data centers and if we really cared so much about consumption of resources or pollution, then aside from the huge electricity consumption, we'd do better in our metrics by replacing agriculture and residential real estate with data centers!
Here, modest water usage is hyped while the much higher water usage of agricultural fields - even in arid regions - is ignored. For example, one of the stories in SN was about Utah data centers and of course, the water they use.
My linked post [soylentnews.org] mentioned a comparison between the water usage of a Utah data center project (that was in the process of being massively downsized) and corn. Let's do a better comparison: between that data center and alfalfa [sltrib.com], a crop with 780k acres grown in 2017. This is some real world "dryland" farming.
Let's get a feel for what an acre of data center does versus an acre of alfalfa farming. The acre of data center as described in the associated story to my linked post consumes 400kW per acre (3 GW over 7600 acres) and 20 gallons of water per acre per day (150k gallons day/7600 acres). What does an acre of alfalfa farming do? It grows almost 4 tons (3.8 tons) of alfalfa with water consumption of 450,000 gallons over the course of the process to grow a ton of harvestable alfalfa with pretty low power consumption - which I'll ignore. Let's suppose that one such crop is grown a year. Then that's roughly 4700 gallons of water consumed per acre per day (averaged over a year). It's crudely over a factor of 200 times larger water consumption than the data center!
That's the irrationality of the anti-data center movement. I keep getting told how bad data centers are supposed to be, but routine use of land often is much worse by the very metrics that are supposed to damn data centers!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09, @09:11AM (1 child)
7600 acres is pretty close to three miles by four miles. That's a rather large building.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:45PM
My understanding is that the original amount from that Utah example was over three campuses and multiple buildings on each campus.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09, @09:34AM (8 children)
Farms tend to produce food for people. Data centers produce no food, and they train AI models that take people's jobs away. Maybe you'd be aware of this if you weren't a corporate bootlicker.
I bet if we knew the financial background of the people who post here against climate change mitigation or in favor of data centers, we'd find they have some serious financial interests in Big Oil, Big Tech, and Big Data.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @02:09PM (4 children)
khallow is a libertarian, of the sort that believes anyone should be allowed to do anything, and the effects on others are their problem.
One need not be Big Oil to be skeptical of "climate change". Myself, I used to think it was a Thing. Then I looked at data from longer than 20 years ago, and became downright alarmed at the long-term cooling trend and (until very recently) declining CO2 that was rapidly approaching an all-life extinction event. That's climate change, right??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:42PM (3 children)
What effects on others? I'm tired of the hand-waving about phantom effects. I get that current, poorly regulated data centers cause problems with electricity prices and noise externalities. But much of the alleged problems are just flat wrong or meaningless (such as the repeated observation that data centers don't employ many people). And my principle is that if the effects on others is negligible, then anyone should be allowed to do it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 10, @02:01AM (2 children)
Hey, don't believe me when I say they employ relatively few people... believe one of their own mouthpieces:
https://dcgeeks.com/jobs-data-center-create/ [dcgeeks.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 11, @10:06AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 11, @01:52PM
Yeah, I was surprised that it was as "high" as it is (but that being their job, I expect it's optimistic). It's still barely a rounding error in the job market.
And considering where some plan to locate, it''s not going to be locals; it's going to be guys from India who are willing to sleep on a cot in the office.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:23PM (2 children)
So what? Food isn't our only need. "Take jobs away" is propaganda for the many things data centers actually do - running financial systems, business operations, sales, AI whatever, and so on.
In other words, why argue in good faith when you can ad hominem instead?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09, @07:10PM (1 child)
Oh, come on! When people protest data centers, they're almost exclusively talking about hyperscale data centers, which are generally being used to train specific types of AI models. And those AI models are causing job losses. When your initial response is to be willfully obstinate, it's a sign that your position is very weak.
Food is a much more important need than training AI models, and you know it. The AI industry is driven by tech bros who hate America, want to see Americans out of work, and to drive up the costs of basic needs for the American people while putting them out of work. The backlash to the industry wouldn't be nearly as severe if the industry wasn't driven by a bunch of America-hating misanthropes. That's a valid conclusion based on their callous disregard for the impacts their industry and their beloved data centers have on others.
You've made similar arguments many times, including in the recent past. Your immediate defensiveness about this suggests that you're angry because it's uncomfortably close to the truth. Your response only reinforces my position that many of the pro-AI or anti-climate change mitigation posts here are driven by people who have financial stakes in those matters.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @11:18PM
Ok, let's look at the US. Peak recent employment was 61.8% at the start of 2020 soon to drop 10% of the population to 51.2% in April 2020 due to covid. It recovered to just over 60% for a few months in early 2022 before declining again. In July 2026, it was just under 59%.
So how can you tell this is due to AI rather than retirement of Boomers and US's bad economic policies since 2020 - Biden and Trump administrations both fail on this. My take is that we have little sign of the job destroying capabilities of AI - especially given that automation in the past has created higher productivity jobs.
Air is more important than food. Do we need to prioritize our air industry over our food industry?
"Defensiveness"? I merely note the dishonesty of that argument. And confirmation bias is what "reinforces" your position.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @03:05PM (6 children)
So you're arguing that because datacenters use fewer resources, they're a better use of land.
That's basically the envirowhack argument: because farming uses resources, all land should lie fallow.
Good luck eating AI tokens.
The real argument, which you studiously ignore, is this: Why should datacenters be allowed to suck away resources that are 1) already scarce, or 2) already in use by some other function?
Put them where those resources are abundant and the facility is not a fresh noise nuisance, and no one would care. But they're doing the exact opposite, and that is what you're arguing for.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09, @06:29PM (5 children)
Yes. Keep in mind their massive economic output too.
Perhaps you ought to think about who introduced the envirowhack argument in the first place? I merely noted that the numerous arguments about data center resource usage - the actual envirowhack arguments - are self-defeating. How can you rationalize nixing data centers based on any sort of non-electricity resource consumption, when you have accepted vastly higher resource consumption from other sources?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Sunday August 09, @08:45PM (4 children)
You're arguing from a spurious equivalence.
Just for the record, all your specious arguments have done is convince me that there is no way ANY datacenter is on the up-and-up. I have now gone from "Okay, just not in stupid places" to "Should be restricted to existing industrial zones".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 10, @12:51AM (3 children)
I would term it an obvious apples to apples comparison. If we're going to judge data centers on the basis of what they consume and who they impact, then it is entirely rational to compare that to already accepted uses of land with known consumption and impact.
A data center is not a straight-forward industrial site. It doesn't pollute like them and has much lower traffic. If they don't bother with noise abatement, concealing the installation (eyesore) or have intrusive infrastructure (like massive power lines running to the property), then sure, stick it in an industrial zone. But if they play nice, they can fit that into a lot more places.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Monday August 10, @01:47AM (2 children)
They don't play nice. That's the whole point.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12, @02:42AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 12, @03:31AM
Then how about not deliberately doing the obviously obnoxious? Frex, locally we have a substantial industrial district with everything they'd need, in an area where sucking ground water wouldn't be disastrous for the neighbors, and the refinery is hardly going to complain about the noise. There is even an empty Big Steel Building available. (Considering the total investment, $500k one way or the other for the land price is a rounding error.) Yet instead of datacenters going where they'd be as good a neighbor as anyone else, they do the opposite.
Your "encouragement" appears to be a perverse incentive.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.