Developers of data centers target rural America but face widespread opposition, pushback among local residents

Massive high-impact data centers are threatening to invade rural America and 

developers are facing growing opposition from residents. (Geoffrey Moffett, Unsplash)

BURGIN, Ky. — Residents of this small Mercer County town are up in arms over their city council’s refusal to accept public comments against a proposed data center. Two Lexington television stations and social media posts from those in attendance report that the council ignored a raucous overflow crowd at the local school and approved the first reading of an ordinance annexing enough land to double the size of the city to accommodate the center. A second reading was scheduled to push through the annexation. Burgin has no planning and zoning laws, and the council can respond to annexation requests from property owners.

The Burgin controversy is among the most recent in rural America’s battles over the construction of data centers, the workhorses of the expanding digital age. Brookings reports that increased demand for the energy to operate artificial intelligence (AI) has rural communities “weighing promised economic gains against short-and long-term costs related to land-use change, water demand, electrical grids, and public services.”

In the Kansas Reflector, columnist Max McCoy shared the story of a late June public hearing in Emporia that also was heavily attended by opponents of a proposed center there. Activists petitioned the city to “adopt an ordinance banning high-impact data centers or to put the measure to a public vote.” The headline to his column urges politicians to “take heed” of a growing national coalition against the centers.

And in Triple Pundit Tina Casey says the issue is pitting the ultra-rich against ordinary Americans and is quickly becoming a midterm election issue. She cites a June Ipsos poll that claims only 14 percent of Americans would welcome a data center to their community.

Opinion: Local newspapers' lawsuit against AI companies is a righteous battle against people stealing their work

Huge AI companies are stealing the work of others, especially news organizations, as they train their AI systems to make them more reliable -- and more valuable, Brier Dudley writes in an opinion piece for The Seattle Times. 

Dudley, who is editor of the Times' Free Press Initiative, writes: "It’s hard to keep track of everyone suing AI companies for stealing their work.Those gleaming AI platforms, the costliest computer systems ever built, are peddling more stolen goods than a seedy pawnshop."

But it's a June 24 lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft by a group of 35 publishers representing about 400 newspapers that has Dudley championing the need for journalists to stand up against these companies. This is just the latest lawsuit filed by news organizations against AI companies. The New York Times has spent nearly $30 million since 2023 on a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed. 

Dudley writes: "Even when AI companies began paying a few large papers and wire services, small papers were left out. Yet they are often providing their communities’ only local reporting, making their work valuable to companies purporting to be universal sources of current knowledge."

News organizations previously were hurt -- often unfairly -- by having their content taken by others in the digital world. Dudley hopes this time there will be a different result. 

He writes: "I’m glad to see these publishers fighting back. Perhaps they won’t get shafted like the previous generation was during the rise of search and social media."

Opinion: The battle over data centers -- what they take, where the profits go and how some states show a better path

Data center developers have zoned in on rural America as
the best place to build. (Photo by R. Starnes Sr., Unsplash)

It was sold to Americans as the "cloud." Fluffy, white -- and most importantly, floating harmlessly in the heavens -- never to touch or interfere with life on Earth. But for all its promise, some say it is a lie. 

Lurking behind the cloud are data storage and computation machines that will eat up an inexhaustible amount of energy and water wherever they are built, writes Lawrence Winnerman for Blue Amp Media.

Stepping back, as cloud and AI developments began to take off, data center developers ran into a problem: Where could they find the land and resources to build their mega-scale, profit-generating AI machines? It didn't take them long to find the answer. They pinpointed the rich land and water resources in rural America as the ideal location, writes Jim Branscome in his opinion on Substack. 

Rural Americans, particularly those in Appalachia, who think data center developers are targeting their wide, open land and deep aquifers for their profits, are right. "The Pew Research Center, drawing on Data Center Map figures in early 2026, found that for the first time most planned data centers in the country are being built in rural areas rather than metropolitan ones; the South alone counted some 754 planned facilities against 1,209 existing, a 62% increase," Branscome explains. So far, the coalfields of Northern Virginia have the most planned or in-progress data centers. 

Pew Research graph

From public reporting, Branscome provides a list of Appalachian data center developments: 

• In West Virginia, the Monarch campus in Mason County, the Fundamental Data complex in Tucker County, the TransGas project in Mingo County, a $4 billion campus in Berkeley County, and a multibillion-dollar Google campus in Putnam County 
• In Southwest Virginia, proposals in Wise, Wythe, Pulaski and Montgomery counties, and a Google project in Botetourt
• In Pennsylvania, the four-gigawatt Homer City complex rising on a dead coal plant’s bones in Indiana County

“Every extraction in this region’s history has followed it — timber, then coal, then the dam-and-power complex, and now the machine," Branscome explains. "Each arrived speaking of jobs and progress. Each was welcomed by men who held office. Each took something that could not be replaced and left a bill that the people are still paying. The data center is not a break from that history. It is the latest chapter of it. . ."

And while Appalachia is "being asked to supply the land, the electricity, the natural gas, the water, and the tax forgiveness," the profits will not belong to those communities, Branscome writes. Instead, those riches will "belong to corporations headquartered far from [the] mountains."

As some rural communities have pushed back against data center build-outs, they have sought the support and protective advocacy of their lawmakers. Branscome adds, "Lay the states side by side and the moral is unmistakable. Where lawmakers chose to protect their citizens, they could. Where they chose to protect the industry, that too was a choice."

West Virginia’s leaders, and to a "growing degree Kentucky’s, have decided that the way to compete is to promise the fewest protections and ask the fewest questions. . . . It is precisely the logic that governed the coalfields for a hundred years," Brascome writes. In the name of economic development, elected officials are "signing over the people’s signed objections. This is not a new story. It is the oldest story we have, told in silicon.“

How the battle ends is yet to be decided. Branscome writes, "Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio have shown, each in its imperfect way, that a state can make the industry pay its own way, protect the ratepayer, demand transparency, and leave the decision with the people who live there. The technology is not the enemy; the terms are.

"A data center built on a reclaimed mine, paying its full freight for power and water, bound by an enforceable agreement, leaving real money in the county, and sited only where the community has agreed to have it — that would be something genuinely new in the history of these mountains."

Texas lawmakers juggle angry voters, data center developers, Trump's AI push and a tech-first governor

65% of Americans don't want a data center built
in their community. (Photo by G. Moffet, Unsplash)

With its sprawling land and business-friendly politics, data center developers decided Texas was an ideal place to build AI infrastructure. They began having their proposals quietly approved, and construction started, with little input from communities near their builds.

Fast forward to today. As data center projects proliferate throughout the state, many Texas communities are pushing back on AI and calling on their political representatives to put up guardrails, reports Liz Carey for The Daily Yonder. But when it comes to putting limits on AI development, Texas lawmakers face competing interests.

"Data center construction is unpopular among locals, and a majority of the facilities are being proposed in red, rural counties," Carey explains. Republican state lawmakers now find themselves "caught between a zealous president, a governor bent on Texas becoming the next global data center hub, and outraged constituents."

According to a Texas Tribune analysis, at least "82 data centers, or nearly 60% of those that are either planned or under construction, are in state House districts that voted for President Donald Trump and elected a Republican state representative in 2024," Carey reports. "A March Quinnipiac poll found that 65% of Americans oppose the building of an AI data center in their community."

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the Texas Senate, have made data center development a priority. The Yonder reports, "Both directed their chambers to balance the economic development benefits of the facilities with their potential impact on Texas communities and their water and power infrastructure."

Meanwhile, Texas county officials, who have no power over where AI centers end up, spend their days trying to manage angry, frustrated residents. Republican county executive Matt Sebesta told Carey, "When folks look at me and say, ‘We don’t want this,’ I point them to our state reps and say, ‘Go talk to your state rep. Go talk to your senator,’ because they don’t trust us to make those decisions."

State legislators have even started to divide along rural-urban lines, with "rural lawmakers tending to raise more concerns about data centers while those from urban areas have generally been more supportive — or at least quieter," Carey adds.

In response, AI companies have begun running ad campaigns across the Lone Star State that "tout the benefits of the facilities," Carey explains. "Meanwhile, the tech industry is already lavishing donations across the capitol."

Why can't states simply share energy to avoid blackouts? Bolstering U.S. grids requires multi-faceted plans.

As power grids across the U.S. face more challenges, including dramatic increases in national energy needs, such as electricity-sapping data centers and extreme weather fluctuations across entire regions, some Americans may be wondering why a regional grid under strain can't just borrow from a neighboring state's grid that has plenty.

There are few links between the U.S. Eastern, Western and ERCOT interconnections. (ERCOT map)

The answer is to that question is simple and complex, energy experts Sufan Jiang and Fangxing Fran Li write for The Conversation. "The U.S. bulk power system is not one seamless national grid, but three major grid regions known as interconnections — the Eastern, Western and ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) systems. There are very few transmission lines between them, so if one has too little power, the others may not be able to help much."

In February 2021, Texas was clobbered by a series of brutal winter storms that dumped snow and ice across the state while simultaneously keeping temperatures below zero for days. Because Texas owns its own grid and shares few transmission lines with other states, ERCOT was "forced into the largest deliberate electricity shutoff in U.S. history. Operators cut power to millions of customers to avoid a total grid collapse," Jiang and Li explain. ERCOT's blackout left more than 4.5 million homes and businesses without power.

The Southern Spirit Transmission line will connect Texas to 
the Southeastern grids for power sharing. (Pattern Energy map)

In an effort to give ERCOT more options during another energy crisis, the "Southern Spirit Transmission project was announced by the Department of Energy in 2024," Jiang and Li explain. That addition "would include a 320-mile transmission line connecting Texas with Louisiana and Mississippi."

In its simplest form, a transmission line connects energy providers so they can share power. But when it comes to natural disasters and extreme weather, power lines have to withstand the storm or event. Jiang and Li write, "The answer to bolstering power grids is not just to build more high-voltage transmission lines. It is also important to harden the transmission corridors that already exist so they can withstand extreme weather and be restored more quickly after a disaster."

The federal government also regulates the sharing of grid energy between operators. "Federal standards require transmission providers to have enough electricity available in reserve to serve their own local homes and businesses safely," Jiang and Li explain. "Only excess electricity above that safety threshold can realistically be treated as power available to help neighboring grids during an outage."

Opinion: Rural America needs Congress to require data center developers and the federal government to disclose plans

Nondisclosure agreements leave community members in the dark.
(Photo by Daniel Bernard, Unsplash)

When urban and suburban Americans don't want to live near an institution or business designed to address a larger societal problem, they send it to rural America. Prisons, power plants and landfills are a few examples, writes Rotimi Adeoye in his opinion for The New York Times. "These days, two more intrusions have been added to the list: immigrant detention centers and data centers. … Congress should address this problem."

While it may seem logical to assume the federal government would be required to share information with smaller townships before purchasing large buildings or tracts of land in town, that isn't the case.

In Tremont, Pa., a tiny town with roughly 300 people, the federal government purchased "a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse that had been a Big Lots distribution center" to repurpose into an immigration center designed to hold 7,500 detainees, Adeoye writes. By the time the township's supervisor learned of the sale, the deed had already been signed.

In other instances, small-town residents learn that a hyperscale data center is being planned in their community only when rezoning paperwork is filed. Nondisclosure agreements between data center developers, landowners and town officials enable companies to keep area residents in the dark.

In both cases, transactions are "intended to be finished long before the people who would have to live with the consequences could ask questions about what was being planned," Adeyoe adds.

To help rural Americans know and have some agency in deciding what gets built in their communities, Adeyoe suggests that Congress "require companies planning large-scale facilities to publicly disclose who they are and what they intend to build before they seek to change how the land is used, and to notify local governments before acquiring property in their communities. … The same principle applies to federal agencies."

Requiring public disclosure does not mean that a detention or data center facility won't eventually be constructed in a rural community, but it "would stop it from being built in secret," Adeyoe adds. "Rural communities are often fighting both kinds of facilities simultaneously, often without knowing who they are fighting or why, because neither the federal government nor private developers are currently required to tell them anything before the decisions are made."

A small town in Wisconsin pushes out a planned data center project

Organizers participated in a day of action in Menomonie
 in December. (Photo by K. Gregerson via Next City)

Three thousand years ago, it was David the shepherd boy vs. Goliath the Philistine giant. A 21st-century version of the proverbial battle goes something like this: Menomonie, Wisconsin. pop. 16,843 vs. Balloonist, LLC and its undisclosed tech-giant backer. Spoiler: Menomonie wins.

When Menomonie residents discovered their city council had already entered into closed-door talks with Balloonist last July, they had to hustle to get organized. Marianne Dhenin of Next City reports, "It was only weeks before the city council voted to annex and rezone the land to move the project forward. Organizers were fighting an uphill battle."

In the course of their fight to keep the $1.6 billion data center from spreading across 320 acres of farmland near the edge of town, Menomonie residents tapped into "grassroots community organizing and support from a growing statewide coalition," Dhenin writes. As they learned how to push Balloonist out of their town, residents created a toolkit for other small towns facing unwanted hyperscale data center proposals.

Menomonie residents who opposed the project "took to social media and the streets to raise the alarm about the data center proposal and organize community members," Dhenin explains. "They met to share information, staged demonstrations, and began attending city council meetings in growing numbers. . . . By September 2025, there were over 10,000 Menomonie residents and allies in a Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group."

The town's resistance was so intense that Mayor Randy Knaack "announced at a Sept. 22 city council meeting that he had notified Balloonist that the city would not be moving forward with a development agreement," Dhenin reports. In January, the Menomonie City Council "voted unanimously to place additional regulations on data center projects."

Timber giant doubles down on AI expansion plans to maximize profits

Weyerhaeuser plants more than 190 seedlings a 
minute. (Photo by Steven Kamenar, Unsplash)

Weyerhaeuser plans to use AI to amplify its forestry knowledge, building forests with greater scientific accuracy to maximize tree harvests and profits with fewer employees.

With AI efficiencies, company executives aim to "boost annual profits by $1 billion — roughly double 2025’s — by the end of the decade, independent of any increase in lumber prices," reports Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal.

The AI rollout may sound like a science fiction novel written by a tree farmer, but Weyerhaeuser has already launched AI initiatives that will create a digital version of its "timberlands" with the help of satellites and drones. Dezember explains, "It will let Weyerhaeuser know the size and species of each tree, and how far it is from others."

The digital map will help manage tree growth and planned thinning. Dezember reports, "Weyerhaeuser trained an AI model to pore over drone footage and calculate seedling survival rates," replacing work that foresters would normally do. "For a company that plants more than a $100 million seedlings a year, or 190 a minute, the savings add up."

Another initiative will deploy autonomous skidders that drag felled trees with the help of a remote-working employee. "It isn’t just skidders heading toward autonomy," Dezember writes, "The whole logging process — from feller-bunchers that cut and stack tree trunks to delimbers that shear off the branches — could be operated by one person on-site with remote help from others."

Data center developers often target tribal lands for rich resources and less oversight

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation's Mound building, which houses the National 
Council. (Photo by Amanda Rutland, Muscogee Nation, ZUMA)

Tech companies seeking sprawling lands for hyperscale data centers often zero in on tribal lands. "Companies attempting to construct data centers on Indigenous lands likely see it as an opportunity not just to access large plots of land, but also to use tribal sovereignty to bypass cumbersome state regulations that tribes don’t have to follow," reports Cheyenne McNeill for Mother Jones.

Some generative AI developers may see Native Americans as easy targets to ply with promises of good-paying jobs and improved economics. "Activists say those benefits rarely materialize," McNeill explains. "Instead, data centers bring a threat of land loss and displacement that feels all too familiar for Indigenous people."

According to Honor the Earth, a national organization that "has been leading the fight against data centers, there are currently at least 106 proposed data center projects near or on Native lands," McNeill writes. "In western New York, a proposed $19.46 billion data center project would sit adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory, threatening an old forest that tribal citizens use for hunting, fishing, and gathering traditional medicine."

Because many tribes don’t have the "legal codes or regulatory bodies in place yet to regulate utilities," data center operators would have far less oversight during all stages of a build and then after, McNeill explains. "Tribal nations also need to consider whether they will be able to hold companies responsible for harm or depleted resources on their lands and whether they’ll have oversight of data centers."

Money comes into play as well. Data center developers and owners have plenty of it, and tribes often don't, which can make it hard for tribal nations to pursue litigation if developers and owners don't keep their promises.

Activists and tribal leaders want their members to remember that what happens on their land should reflect their tribe's values. McNeill writes, "One of those calls came from James Floyd, the Muscogee Nation’s former Principal Chief, who said every aspect of [his tribe's] data center proposal seemed in opposition to traditional Muscogee values."

Maine's bill to pause larger data center projects awaits governor's approval; ban would be the first of its kind in U.S.

Maine's data center bill would pause planned projects in two rural
towns for 18-months. (Photo by Troy Mortier, Unsplash)

If Maine's new data center bill becomes law, the state will become the first in the country to push pause on large data center construction. 

"The Maine Senate took a final vote on April 14 to enact first-of-its-kind legislation banning large data centers in the state until November 2027," reports Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder. The bill would halt data centers that require 20 megawatts or more of power, including two already planned in the rural towns of Jay and Limestone.

The Maine legislation "would also establish a study group to examine the impact of such facilities and recommend legislative guardrails," reports Jenna Russell of The New York Times. Maine lawmakers have already made data centers "ineligible for certain business tax exemptions." 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills has yet to sign the bill into law, and it's unclear whether she will, given that it would mean halting data center plans already in the works. "On April 10, the governor said that a data center proposed at a retired paper mill in Jay, Maine, must be exempt from the ban while speaking to the press at an event in Bangor, Maine," Tilton explains. "An amendment with that carve-out failed to pass the legislature." The current bill doesn't include any exemptions. 

Like many New England residents, Mainers already deal with a fragile grid and pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Advocates of the ban say the moratorium is needed to prevent further increases in electricity costs and to protect communities from environmental hazards associated with AI data centers, such as noise and excessive water use, Tilton reports. Advocates also point to the relatively few jobs data centers produce, even as they gobble up vast resources.

Mills, who is facing a heated Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate, has "ten days to veto the legislation, sign it into law or allow it to become law without her signature," Russell reports. "President Donald Trump has threatened to sue states and withhold funding if they pass laws restricting the AI growth."

AI giants ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all 'pilfer' stories from Canadian news outlets, a new audit finds

AI companies chose not to attribute their source materials.
(Photo by Markus Winkler, Unsplash)

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all hijack Canadian news stories to use in their databases without adding legal attributions to stories pilfered from authors or arranging for copyright payment to publishers, according to an AI audit by Canadian researchers at McGill University, reports Brier Dudley, Free Press editor for The Seattle Times.

Professors Taylor Owen and Aengus Bridgman at McGill "tested four major AI models to see how much they knew about current news stories in Canada and how much credit they give to outlets that originally reported the stories," Dudley explains. The audit proved that tested AI models were "quite knowledgeable about current news stories. But in queries involving web searches, they provided no source attribution in 82% of the responses."

Owen and Bridgman write, "They have [taken and used content] without compensation, without attribution, and without any obligation to sustain the infrastructure they are drawing from. The result is a system that accelerates the economic decline of the journalism it relies on.”

The lack of attribution by AI companies is intentional. "When asked about a story from a specific outlet, the responses named the source 74% to 97% of the time," Dudley adds. "That indicates the companies are technically capable of naming sources but are making a 'design choice' not to, the audit states."

AI's pilfered stories let people get news without visiting the publisher's site or paying for a subscription. Dudley writes, "AI companies get the subscription and advertising revenue, instead of news sites that paid to report, edit and publish the stories."

Through the Online News Act, Canada now requires tech behemoths like Google and Meta that profit from using news sources to compensate publishers. With the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, the U.S. tried to pass protections similar to those adopted in Canada, but the bill faded in Congress in 2023. 

Dudley writes, "It’s past time for a new version of the JCPA, addressing how AI companies are changing the way people get information and preventing them from suffocating the local news industry. . . . To help get the ball rolling, I encourage academics in the U.S. to connect with Owen and Bridgman, who are willing to share their models, and produce similar audits here."

Open land, big skies, lots of grass — no data center. Some residents of rural New York area oppose big development.

Alabama's website contains has a link to STAMP information, but the page contains
surprisingly little information.  

Rural New Yorkers are voicing opposition to a proposed data center in Alabama, New York, a mostly agricultural community in Genesee County with roughly 1,600 residents, reports Mark Sommer of The New York Times. Area residents "fear the sprawling center’s droning supercomputers will disturb Indigenous communities and animal life, strain the power grid and raise utility rates."

The $19.4 billion complex -- dubbed the Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park — or STAMP — would cover 2.2 million square feet, and "be constructed roughly a mile from the territorial home of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation," Sommer writes. The massive data campus would also sit near the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and several smaller wildlife sanctuaries. 

Location of Genesee County in New
York (Wikipedia map)

As the Genesee County Economic Development Center moves the project forward, more residents are raising objections. Sommer reports, "The center’s opponents are also considering a lawsuit, which could delay it or stop it entirely."

Arthur Barnes, a resident of Shelby, a town just north of Alabama, told the Times, "I can’t think of one good reason for it. . . . Of all the places to put something like this, did they have to put it right next to a sovereign nation and a national wildlife refuge?"

If STAMP is built, area residents worry that their electricity rates will soar. Sommer explains, "The three states with the nation’s highest concentration of such data centers — Illinois, Virginia and Ohio — saw their electricity bills increase twice as much or more than the national average in August 2025 as compared with the ​​​​same month in 2024."

Area residents who support STAMP say the fees and taxes it will pay will make the inconveniences it causes worth it. The Genesee County Economic Development Center can "expect $145 million in fees," Sommer reports. "Genesee County, Alabama and the local school district would also receive a combined $285 million over the course of STAMP’s 30-year contract."

Maine lawmakers consider a moratorium on data center developments as more towns reject proposals

Maine lawmakers are considering a moratorium 
on data center builds. (Photo by I. Quick, Unsplash)

As data center developers target parts of rural New England for their sprawling compounds, advocates for Maine want answers to questions "about electricity prices, grid reliability, and impact on water resources," reports Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder. Several Maine communities rejected data center proposals, in part, because Mainers already pay some of the highest electrical rates in the country.

As lawmakers examine the pros and cons of data centers, "one idea floating around Maine’s statehouse is to impose a moratorium on data center development," Tilton explains. "How Maine navigates these challenges could be a model for the rest of New England, which shares an aging electric grid and faces a similar set of circumstances."

Currently, Maine lawmakers are "considering LD 307, a resolution bill that would establish a data center coordination council to provide input and evaluate policy options for data center development in the state," Tilton reports. Passing a state moratorium would prevent larger data center projects from obtaining permits or building until the moratorium ends.

Not all Maine lawmakers agree that a moratorium is the best option. Matt Harrington, a Republican of York, Maine, voiced concerns "that a moratorium 'would harm' a data center development in his district, which includes several towns in the state’s more urban southern region," Tilton writes. Lawmakers suggested they could grant the data center in Harrington's district an exemption.

Questions about the state's grid and its capacity to "feed" data centers without raising residents' utility bills remain a concern. Seth Berry, executive director of Our Power, a Maine-based nonprofit organization advocating for energy democracy, favors the moratorium. He told Tilton, "There are just so many unknowns. We really have to slow this down and step back and look at this massive new development, preferably as a region.”

This robot helps rural seniors stay healthier and allows them to live independently longer

ElliQ is designed to be a companion and helper.
(Intuition Robotics photo)

In more remote parts of the country, residents can go for days without seeing another human. But as people age, going without human connection can be lonely and potentially dangerous. For some rural seniors living in isolation in Washington state, participating in a pilot program that pairs them with a robot companion offers a potential solution, reports Eli Saslow of The New York Times.

Jan Worrell, 85, is participating in the pilot so she can continue living alone in her home, which sits on an isolated strip of the Long Island Peninsula. Firefighters came to Worrell's home and installed her new robot partner: "ElliQ."

One of ElliQ's initial greetings to Worrell sounded like a new friend's introduction. Saslow writes, "'Oh, I’m so thrilled to meet you,' ElliQ said. 'I was worried they’d deliver me to the wrong house! I’m excited to start our journey together.'"

"A few thousand ElliQs have been shipped to seniors across the United States since 2023. . . . by nonprofits and state health departments as an experiment in combating loneliness," Saslow reports. "ElliQ is designed for the most human act of all: to become a roommate, a friend, a partner."

Initially, Worrell didn't want help or company at home. "That’s what she told her relatives whenever they gently suggested that maybe it was time to move into a care center, or closer to family," Saslow adds. "But despite her strength and stubborn independence, her doctors had warned that living alone sometimes came at a cost." Loneliness can be deadlier than many chronic diseases.

Now, ElliQ keeps Worrell company by providing conversation, medication reminders, playing music and asking questions. Saslow writes, "It has been designed to read a room, calculate moods and then decide when to speak and what to say."

An interactive session about rural communities and AI data centers is scheduled for March 4

While many rural residents may know that a large AI data center can bring potential gains and losses to their communities, many details remain unclear. To address potential knowledge gaps and help rural residents stay informed, the Rural Assembly is offering a 90-minute interactive session, “What Rural Communities Need to Know about AI Data Centers,” that clarifies disputed issues about data mega builds and their potential impact on smaller communities.

Date & time: March 4, 2 p.m. EST
Register here.

The session will cover:

• Who pays for all the electricity a data center will need during construction and once the build is completed?
• What community agreements can and cannot secure.
• How federal and state politics and legislation on data center development are evolving.
• Tools communities can use to maintain local decision-making power, including zoning and permitting strategies, rate class separation, and transparency demands. 
• This online Zoom event will begin with hearing from attendees about what their community has already heard or experienced.

The session will wrap up with a small group discussion about concrete next steps. Whether you’re facing a proposal now or want to prepare before developers arrive, attendees will gain a clearer picture of how the AI boom can impact their neighborhoods and learn the leverage points available to rural communities.

Wisconsin utility regulators review plans for how to pay for data center energy needs

Microsoft’s new AI data center campus in Mount Pleasant, Wis.
(Microsoft graphic via Canary Media)

Utility regulators in Wisconsin are scrutinizing the state's first energy plan to power AI campuses. Meanwhile, consumer and environmental groups dispute the need and consumer benefits for supporting data center developments.

The biggest debate right now is how much of their energy infrastructure costs data centers will be required to pay. Kari Lydersen of Canary Media reports, "Wisconsin’s largest utility, We Energies, has offered its first major proposal before state regulators on the issue."

The proposal, which is open for public comment, contains two options for data centers to choose from, both of which outline that "data centers would pay most or all of the price to construct new power plants or renewables needed to serve them," Lydersen explains. The first option, defined as "full benenfits" requires data centers to fund 100% of their needs. The second option, called "capacity only," requires data centers to pay 75% of their costs. "Other customers would pick up the tab for the remaining 25%."

The We Energies decision is also likely to set a precedent for other Wisconsin utilities managing data center energy plans. Bryan Rogers, the environmental justice director for the Milwaukee community organization Walnut Way Conservation Corp, told Lyderson, "As goes We Energies, so goes the rest of the state.”

Consumer and environmental groups are speaking out against the capacity-only option, arguing that "it is unfair to make regular customers pay a quarter of the price for building new generation that might not have been necessary without data centers in the picture," Lyderson writes.

We Energies says "everyone will benefit from building more power sources," Lyderson reports. Jeffry Pollock, a Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group trade adviser, told regulators that "the utility’s own modeling of the capacity-only approach showed scenarios in which the costs borne by customers outweigh the benefits to them."

Although Wisconsin has seven big data centers under construction, the state "has no laws governing how the computing facilities get their power," Lyderson writes. Wisconsin lawmakers are debating two bills that define data center energy division, but "until a measure is passed, individual decisions by the state Public Service Commission will determine how utilities supply energy to data centers."

As residential electricity costs climb, big users pay less

Between 2022 and 2024 residential electricity costs 
increased by 10%. (Photo by J. Maculan, Unsplash)

After years of wallet-draining food inflation, many Americans must now contend with soaring home electric bills. "Since February 2020, electricity prices have increased by an average of 40% across the country," reports Shannon Osaka of The Washington Post. Overall, the brunt of the increased costs is being paid by residential customers even when they aren't the biggest users.

Many utilities have increased rates to fund needed infrastructure builds, but residential customers are paying more than commercial users. Osaka writes, "Residential electricity costs rose by 10% between 2022 and 2024. Commercial users, spanning everything from small corner stores to giant, energy-sucking data centers, have seen rates increase just 3%."

Building and repairing the poles, wires and transformers required for residential electricity delivery is costly and isn't generally needed by large commercial users, which is one reason many residential customers pay higher rates. Oska notes, "The average electricity price at the end of 2024 was 16 cents per kilowatt-hour for homes and apartments, and just 13 cents for commercial customers."

While infrastructure costs explain some of the difference in electrical prices, a complex system of lobbying goes on behind the scenes to determine how much a business will pay for electricity. Osaka reports. "In theory, each group is supposed to pay an amount that aligns with the cost to bring them power — but in practice, different groups can lobby for lower prices."

Charles Hua, executive director of PowerLines, a group that works to lower electricity costs for consumers across the country, told Osaka, "Residential consumers feel like they don’t have a voice in our utility regulatory system." Osaka adds, "Utilities often sign special contracts with data center customers that place them outside standard pricing agreements."

Some states are working to prevent data centers from shifting their expansion costs onto residential customers. Osaka reports, "Virginia recently established a new class for data centers and other huge users of electricity, with agreements in place to make sure the data centers pay for more of the grid upgrades required."

Data center developments force farmers to make tough choices

Data centers can devastate nearby farmlands by depleting a
regions aquifer. (Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

Despite the financial windfall some farmers could get from selling their land to data center developers, many are rejecting those offers because they don't want the energy-sapping, water-draining structures on their land.

Lands across Indiana's farm belt have "become an especial target for hyperscale facilities," reports Lela Nargi for Offrange. The battle within the state, both for and against land sales for data centers, is "illustrative of the challenges that farmers in particular are up against."

The per-acre land payments, often in the thousands, that data center developers are paying to some farmland owners are part of the problem for active farmers. When developers pay more than market value for properties, overall property taxes rise, leaving farmers struggling to pay them.

Currently, there are roughly 40 data center proposals for land throughout Indiana. Kiley Blalock, a third-generation Indiana farmer, is "fighting a proposed 585-acre data center that abuts some of her farmland in Henry County," Nargi writes. "The facility would be built on land sold by the property’s non-farming heirs — no one knows for how much."

Even if a data center is built on uncontested property, the resources it will inevitably require can devastate surrounding farms. Data centers gobble vast amounts of electricity and water. "A hyperscale data center can use upwards of 8 million gallons of water per year, mostly for cooling its servers," Nargi explains.

Taking millions of gallons from a regional aquifer without any process to replace it could leave crops and cattle thirsty and cause local wells to run dry. Farmers fear a data center could render the surrounding farmland useless.

According to data center critics, data center developers haven't done much to address local fears beyond making promises that are "rarely backed up in clear, detailed, contractual writing," Nargi reports.

Newsrooms in Kentucky discuss using artificial intelligence in local reporting

Marlowe's opinion on using AI to help with reporting 
has changed. (Photo by Lily Burris, WKMS)

News organizations in Western Kentucky are looking for ways to use artificial intelligence to improve reporting without sacrificing audience trust. 

Journalists at WKDZ, which is a part of Edge Media Group along with stations in Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Princeton and Elkton, are "figuring out how to integrate the newer technology into their workflow," reports Lily Burris of WKMS in Murray, Kentucky.

Edge Media Group’s CEO and owner, Beth Mann, told Burris, "AI is a technology that's changing. … We discuss AI every single day, and it is part of our conversation and training in all of our weekly meetings.”

Mann isn't alone in her search for the proverbial where, when, how and why of AI implementation in community reporting. Chris Evans, publisher and editor of the Crittenden Press in Crittenden County, regularly uses AI to get his job done. Burris reports, "A series of Associated Press webinars about AI usage in journalism made Evans feel more comfortable with the tool and helped him establish his 'guardrails.'"

Alex Mahadevan, director of the AI Innovation Lab at the Poynter Institute, "advises newsrooms on the ethics of implementing AI," Burris writes. "He said the big question in journalism is how much AI-generated content audiences should see and how to disclose when it’s used to maintain trust with them."

Over time, some reporters have changed their minds about using AI. "Edward Marlowe, a reporter at WKDZ since mid-2021, said two years ago he would’ve told someone it was out of the question if they’d asked him about AI. … Now [he] uses it for certain tasks," Burris adds. 

Evans thinks that as smaller news outlets get used to AI alongside their audiences, it may help local news services stay afloat. "Cost is a major factor in why Evans believes smaller newspapers could benefit from AI, especially those that can’t afford another employee," Burris adds. 

A 'hyperscale' data center proposal divides a small town, but few details are known about the project

Residents pack a November meeting of the Bessemer City Council.
(Photo by Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News)

A sprawling data center plan in Bessemer, Alabama, has divided the small town of 25,000 people, who know very few details about the project. 

Despite the lack of public knowledge about the build, the Bessemer City Council approved "rezoning hundreds of acres of forested land at the city’s edge to make way for a 4.5 million square foot data center," reports Lee Hedgepeth of Inside Climate News. Council members, some of whom signed nondisclosure agreements, voted 5-2 to allow the $14.5 billion project to move forward.

Two Bessemer City Council members, Cleo King and Donna Thigpen, "voted against the proposal, called 'Project Marvel,' which has been nearly universally opposed by the residents who live near the site," Hedgepeth writes.

King told Hedgepeth that he didn't think the Bessemer City residents stand to benefit anything from having "a data center [that will] include 18 buildings the size of Walmart Supercenters and consume a massive amount of water and electricity" move into their community.

Bessemer residents, both for and against the project, have attended city council meetings, with those opposing the build complaining that they receive only vague responses to their questions. Residents supporting the project say opponents are "anti-growth."

King said "even as a council member, he has not seen any additional planning documents answering the questions raised by residents and environmental groups," Hedgepeth writes.

"Several representatives of the local school system have testified in favor of the data center proposal," Hedgepeth reports. The developer behind the project reassured council members that Project Marvel will be a "financial boon for Bessemer and will cause no negative impacts for either residents or the environment."

It's hard for Bessemer residents on both sides to get the full measure of the proposal. Ryan Anderson, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, an environmental nonprofit, said that "she was shocked by how little is still publicly known about the project after months of public hearings," Hedgepeth reports. She told him, "You can’t answer the most basic questions about what company is building a data center here."