- We know that data centers do use a lot of electricity.

They can use a lot of water, depending on what type of system they specifically use.

We know those things, but do we know a lot of other things?

I mean, there's a ton of rumors on the internet about, you know, what these data centers can do to the environment and do to people, and things like that.

Do we need more data on our data centers, or do we know enough to say, "Hey, we need to be careful about where we put these things"?

- I would say we know enough to say we should be careful and thoughtful.

But I also agree that we don't know a lot, but we know they're big and highly impactful, right?

So the fact that they haven't been transparent isn't reason not to take action.

It's reason to take action, right?

Like prove that you're not causing harm before you go and march us into some new, you know, era where we've got these massive data centers dotting our landscape.

Now, you know, they're not entirely new.

We've seen impacts in places where they've been in pretty broad development.

Aurora in Illinois is a great example, where a data center currently in operation was operating its backup generators nonstop because there had been a substation that went down.

And the community members, for days on end, were hearing what they described as like a helicopter landing on the roof of their house.

Like the sound was immense.

That's also a lot of diesel generators generating pollution.

You know, so those sorts of concerns really drove Aurora to develop a new ordinance.

And they've now approved their new data center ordinance, which is, you know, pretty, I would say, state of the art as far as a data center ordinance goes.

And actually, I just heard from the mayor presented to Champaign City, the data center task force that I'm on.

And the mayor of Aurora said, "You know, look, we've still got data centers working with us, even though we have this ordinance that sets the bar on energy efficiency, water efficiency, noise controls."

You know, they're really pushing data centers to show that they can be a good community partner, and we can still have data center development.