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And so with that, I'm going to call the advisory committee for data centers to order and I thought I did my agenda up and I don't, it's not confirmed.

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Yeah, so next under agenda would be consideration of the minutes from our April 14 meeting.

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you do the call the order quickly. What's it all the order? Oh, I'm sorry. Call the roll. Thank you. Sorry.

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Richardson, present. Yoke here. What for first? Here. Helm Nelson. Here. Single Terry.

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About to present. Yellow girl. Bradshaw.

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Skindora. Here. Shanna Han. Here. Possible. Also here. Maran.

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here. And miles, miles here.

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All right, so a corner being present. Now we will move on to

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consideration of minutes from our April 14th meeting. Very motion. Motion to approve.

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Move by. We'll put first. Is there a second?

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10 second. Second. My written to approve the minutes. Any questions? Corrections anything to

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the minutes. Hey, hearing none. I'll unfavorable. Say aye.

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I. Oh, sorry. I. I'm so sorry to be in a room. I must be a member.

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Stop. I would.

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Post, I know. That motion carries minutes are approved.

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Moving on down to status on prior follow-up items and requests.

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Way I see this portion of our agenda working is at three of our meetings.

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We'll be accumulating things that we want some follow-up.

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It will be sort of our to-do list or staff to-do list to close the loop on some of these

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topic areas, but in the meantime, there might be accumulation of items here.

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So from our last meeting, we talked about community benefit agreements, and there's some

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comments and questions around that, and I think, and we need to give some consideration

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to, I think, you know, Laura, particularly I mentioned, you know, need for some criteria and measures for those.

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Now, I think we're going to be seeing as we move through the other subject areas that

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that this CBA may be a tool that can be employed

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and to address concerns in a number of these areas.

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But as time was in the context of land use compatibility

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and environmental impacts,

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ecological corridors and so forth.

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So the context there was CBAs

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is to maybe leverage some community benefit around agricultural or ecological preservation of

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ecological corridors or analysis of those and so forth.

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More to come on that, I think, but it's certainly something I'll stay on the list for

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But let's see.

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Oh, this last item on here, I'm not sure what.

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I'm coming meeting topics and timeline, do we have a slide on that?

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Just obviously subject to change, but one of the requests from the committee last time was to

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get a kind of a sense of what we were going to talk about in the future, potentially, meeting

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meeting, so this meeting obviously is about noise lighting, aesthetics, and community character.

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tentatively we're looking at our June meeting to talk about economic benefits and the

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lifestyle, life span of a facility and the decommissioning that would come with that.

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Potentially July 14th, we're talking about water usage and storm water,

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and we would still have four more topic areas, energy consumption and emissions,

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like all transmissions emergency services and intergovernmental relations.

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So those are the one, two, three, four, eight more topics that we would cover.

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It's going to be depending on speakers and who we can get,

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but that, again, is just a potential tentative timeline.

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I would also add that those, those number bullet points there from the resolution,

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so if you're kind of wondering where those numbers are coming from,

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from the authorized resolution for this body, so that's a, that's what does referentive.

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So, Cynthia had mentioned that the next meeting might be nice to see in the very least,

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a ton of layout of what we'll be tackling next. Of course, as I said, subject to change,

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something on opportunity and so forth for people to present and be panelists here.

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Also in working with staff and laying this out, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that this

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is really optimistic for a timeline, and I really do suspect that we may need to be extending

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the life of this committee by a few months, perhaps.

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So,

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that leads me in a way to the next item on all of the items, and that's this

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Manituak moratorium near the end of April, Manituak County adopted a moratorium and consideration

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and approval of development for what I should say of permits and so forth for the purpose of the data center.

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So, at the outset of looking at developing the resolution to create this committee,

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it also looked at into whether or not the county could do a moratorium and was my assessment that

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there's state statute that's as county is explicitly prohibited from doing a development moratorium

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Manitwak has my view used in semantics to get around that definition of development moratorium

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And since they did it, I'm going to do it too.

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So it's all going to be putting in a,

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well, Man of Talk did it by Resolution, one fell swoop.

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Oh, and we got it up here on the screen here.

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A first paragraph actually is a, I think it's not alone.

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Yeah, it's actually an ordinance moment to their,

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And what I'm assuming is chapter A is their zoning code for us will have to be two pieces

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basically of legislation one will be an ordinance amendment to create a definition of

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data center or most likely be talking with corporate counsel and zoning division staff

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about an appropriate definition and then the resolution would be to play a more

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and I'm going to sync it up with basically the work of this committee, so I think if we extend the life of the committee for a few months, I would just pretty much be a year from now for that.

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So, um, so I just want to give that update and, um, let's see how that goes.

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Okay, any, any thoughts, comments on that, I mean, the more time things sort of a, sort of a big deal.

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So, go ahead something.

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I just say thank you very, very much.

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That is really excellent news.

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Really appreciate it.

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Yeah, I think it's the right thing to do.

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And the other thing I just want to compliment staff and the committee on the reading background materials that were sent out like a week ago, I found a number of them, I mean, I've been doing a lot of research, but I still keep learning things and so the one on noise pollution and the one out of Virginia were particularly informative, especially the data center industry cash campaign contributions and all these machinations that we can kind of feel and see hints of behind scenes, but, you know, it's kind of documented in some of these.

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So I really felt that was useful.

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So thank you.

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Thank you.

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All right.

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Anything else?

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And we will, if not, we'll move on.

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We don't have any reports that can make, right?

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So, one, let's see.

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And I jumped ahead, sorry.

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Presentations and discussion.

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And today we have, in the, to talk to us about community impacts, but I also want to, and I think

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Mjid or somebody had sent an email out, indicating that our guests today in the work they've

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done have, have looked into a number of areas that we're looking at.

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So we've invited Mark Griffin from the State of Virginia, the Virginia Joint Legislative

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audit review commission to discuss the work that they've done on the subject and we've

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invited him to feel free to go beyond just talking about the community impacts, but some

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these other related issues that we're wrestling with ourselves, so welcome Mark. I'm assuming

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he's online and ready to go. It's okay. Good. I will stop sharing Mark and give you the keys to

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share your slides. Mark, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing the experience and

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perspective of your work. So I'll have me appreciate it. Can you guys hear me all right? Yes. All right,

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Let me pull up my slides here.

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Well, I'm doing that.

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I'll let you know that I'm making my first trip

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to Wisconsin next month.

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I'm going on a paddling expedition around the Apostle Island.

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So I'm looking forward to that.

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Oh, that's wonderful.

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I can't go on the Colorado this year

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because it's too dry.

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All right, let's see.

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Is that, can you see it?

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Is that, all right?

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Okay, is that full screen for you guys?

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It is now, yep.

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All right, terrific.

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So, yes, good morning, Mark Reuben from Virginia.

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I work for a small state agency called J-Lark, and we are a legislative branch agency, and we do non-partisan objective research on subjects as directed by our general assembly.

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Today, I'm talking about our 2024 study of the state state center industry, and even though it's kind of specific to Virginia in many ways, there's lots of lessons that are applicable to y'all in Wisconsin.

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And so skip to the beginning.

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What are data centers that's just over here in guys talk

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sounds like you're pretty up to speed on this?

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So data centers are key hubs of the world's digital infrastructure

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and they support our model or digital economy and society.

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The industry has been growing very rapidly in the past couple of years,

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not just in Virginia, but everywhere else as I'm sure you've noticed.

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That's happening to one sport, the ever growing use of cloud

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digital services and two of course with the growth of AI and a lot of the big bets that are being placed on the AI by AI by IT companies.

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In Virginia and really in the rest of the U.S. there's really four companies that are driving most of that growth.

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So you might have a dance or billet being built by QTS or cloud HQ or any of these other companies.

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A lot of times they're doing that under contract with one of the big four, so they're building a facility, they have a lease in hand and they're building that to rent out the whole facility to one of the big four.

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A lot of data centers are large industrial scale buildings.

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You've never seen one.

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They look like massive distribution centers.

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They can have footprints that are bigger than the basketball arena or even football stadium.

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They're filled with computer servers.

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generate a lot of heat to employ these massive cooling systems, powering all that computing and

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cooling, of course, acquires an enormous amount of energy, so they often have their own electrical

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substation on properties served by a nearby transmission line.

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A modern data center uses substantially

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more energy than most other commercial or industrial operations. Back in the olden days of 10 years ago,

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a 20-megawatt facility was the biggest you'd see, and that's about equivalent to a mid-sized automobile

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plant. However, the hyperscale centers that are built now are much larger drawing from 100 to

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over 200 megawatts of power, some approaching 300 megawatts. And I think that some of those

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discussing the trend is the ability to use multifacility campuses and depending on the size

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that campus, the total draw, could be well north of 1,000 megawatts. By comparison, we have two nuclear

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plants and four nuclear reactors in Virginia. Each one of those reactors is a little shy of 1,000

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So, you know, one day center campus is a half the output of a nuclear power plant in Virginia.

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Our Gives in America is concentrated in northern Virginia in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.,

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but now we're actually seeing that expand southward towards the middle of the state.

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Gives in America is the largest in the world, kind of about 13% of global operational capacity

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and 25% of capacity in America.

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because that's us on the left.

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We became the sort of market leader for a number of reasons,

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including being located near the birthplace of the internet,

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being close to the federal government, it's contractors,

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strong fiber network, reliable and cheap energy,

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and at the state sales tax exemption,

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all those served to sort of help that grow this industry.

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The point here, and bringing that up with you guys,

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is that we've got the forefront of this...

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So we've probably encountered a lot of you friction points earlier than others have. But now we're starting to see those friction points emerging pretty much all across the country. So hopefully I have some good lessons to share with you.

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So first I'll talk about those local community impacts. And if you have any questions any point, feel free to shout-in-all. I can't see you right now because of what slides pulled up. But I am listening.

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All right, thanks.

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So first we found that a growing number of data centers are being built close to residential areas, impacting nearby residents, and some localities have taken steps to try and minimize those impacts.

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Again, because modern data centers are large industrial facilities, they are largely incompatible with residential use.

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In addition to the building size of parents, there are often surrounded by security fences and lighting.

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They regularly test these diesel generators and they have massive cooling systems that have potential to create noise.

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They often, as I mentioned earlier, have an electrical substation that's located onside or close to the property.

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In some cases, a new transmission might get built to serve them.

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That could either be a quite extension line from the main transmission line,

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or what you see in Northern Virginia where you have these high concentrations, they've had to run several additional transmission line loops to provide additional power and redundancy to serve the high concentration of data centers.

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It's always to say that this is a matter of data centers, not like they were in the old days or were not like an office building where you can kind of innocently put that in next to the neighborhood. These are industrial facilities.

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So, even so, we found that about one third operational data center properties in Virginia were within 200 feet of residential zone properties.

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Part of this is our fact of where these were built.

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They were built in these growing exorbit neighborhoods that are now our exorbit counties.

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They're now pretty much fully suburban counties.

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And so we have this data center growth happening alongside some of the fastest growing residential areas in the state.

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So even though these are both in 200 feet, that doesn't mean they're exactly 200 feet apart,

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but they're still pretty close.

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Those property lines are right about in each other.

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And you can see a couple of examples of this of neighborhoods.

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Either actually that exist or that were planned and how the data center properties of butt to those neighborhoods.

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There's also many others in addition to the ones we found that were under construction or planned that had not yet been built.

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So we have a couple examples of those plans as well.

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And again, we could have pulled a number of other examples.

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There's a lot of this going on in the counties where both of the industry is located.

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So facilities, the question is why is this happening?

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Localities allow data centers to be built next to residential for two reasons.

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The first appear to be an adequate planning zoning.

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So some localities were still thinking of data centers like office buildings,

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which is kind of how they were before, and so they have them as a non-industrial use, which

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allowed the now industrial facilities to go into areas that were zone for commercial or mixed

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use, so essentially a mismatch between what they were thinking of a data center was and where

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what it really was and where it could go. In other cases there were some zoning changes over time

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and the counties had an updated their zoning maps, so for example somebody wanted to build a neighborhood

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in an agricultural zone, so they rezone that agricultural to residential, they built a neighborhood

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there, well that agricultural zone was next to it, industrial zone, that never got changed,

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then the data center comes in by right and then industrial zone and now you have data center

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right next to the neighborhood. So that was one way it worked the other the other way that worked

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and we see this a lot, I have seen this a lot, it's that the elected boards were proving

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special permits or rezoning for specific data center projects even though they were

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clearly close to residential areas, it's pretty notable that sometimes this was happening

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against staff recommendations or against a planning commission recommendations, get down

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on how you guys are structured but in Virginia at the county level of a planning commission

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and you'll have a board of supervisors and a board of supervisors has that final authority.

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So while the board is prerogative to approve those projects as elected officials,

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it's not necessarily good policy.

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ever since I really during the report and even more so since then we've seen localities taking

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steps to better manage future development for example allowed in Fairfax counties which are two

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of our big northern genial counties, a lot of the data centers. They've reduced the number of

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zones that allow by-right data center development and they've also made zoning changes to address

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a number of developmental concerns, so pretty strict restrictions on heights,

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setbacks, all those

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kinds of design considerations.

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And so what looks like O'Calley is our responding to resident concerns, the success of

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those efforts ultimately depends on the elected boards, because again, they have the authority

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to grant exceptions to whatever new rules are put in place.

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I think somebody mentioned a noise being one of the special concerns that's definitely a

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special concern when it comes to data centers.

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So, I would say that every data center is different.

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So, some data centers, you can stand right outside of it, and you won't hear a thing.

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All you'll hear is the traffic on the street.

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Others, you can hear that data center when you're driving up the road to go see it.

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The noise that they make is like a sort of constant low frequency drone or home,

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so similar to a commercial air handling unit, or maybe a window AC,

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but not a much, much more magnified scale.

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While that noise isn't loud enough to damage hearing, in a few cases, it has been

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significant enough to affect the well-being of nearby residential areas.

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So, for example, there's one terrible story we talked about in the report where a family's

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house was positioned just wrong on a small hill of a data center and the way that the noise

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came off that data center in the way the house was positioned, essentially the house was kind of

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vibrating with the hum and the family had to sleep in the basement because they couldn't sleep in their veterans.

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That's really the worst case scenario we found, but there are plenty of other cases where that noise has been cost and in a neighborhood and it's been bothersome for residents.

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Resolving noise problems is really hard to do.

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That's in part because, again speaking to Virginia, local or local or noise ordinances are designed to deal with that type of situation.

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our ordinances are typically set up to deal with the party issue or the parking dog issue, not a

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constant low frequency home from an industrial facility. So the way it's set up is, you know,

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if you violate the noise ordinance that's so many decibels, your parties too loud,

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I'm going to give you 150 out of fine. That really doesn't work in this situation because one

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that the noise might not be long enough, or sorry, loud enough to trigger the violation,

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because the hum is a different sort of decibel system. I can get into a little bit if you are

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interested, but a low frequency decibels can be measured differently from, you know, when a

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party or a broken dog is, and also $150, civil fun, that's not really going to diswake anybody

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for doing business.

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So one of the things to think about is the best way to resolve and noise problems to never

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have it, and that can be handled by not allowing data centers close to residential areas

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or to other sensitive areas like parks or schools.

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Again, the one thing that we're concerned about in Virginia, because our state motto is based

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on our history, we have a lot of historic resources such as battlefields and archeological

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sites.

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a lot of these are up in the areas where a lot of the data center development is happening.

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And so just like any other development during construction and the onsite or nearby historical

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resource can be destroyed or started by development. After construction, if you have a data center

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for example, as was proposed and no mayor may not happen, there's a giant data center facility campus

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proposed to go next to the Manassus Battlefield National Park. The part of where the data center

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going to be built was part of the actual historical battlefield, so the concerns about not only

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disturbing historical artifacts from the construction, but then it would also, the campus would

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be visible from the national park. So to help understand what those potential impacts are,

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you can do these things called a great development studies. In Virginia, we get help call them phase

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one studies, which is basically looking to see if there's anything of historical significance

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that could be affected by development. If you find something, you can do additional studies,

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phase 2 and 3 studies to determine the significance of what's there and determine ways to mitigate

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those negative impacts such as, you know, this is how we could preserve this historic structure

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or this out could, you know, unearth and relocate these artifacts or at the very least, we can

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document what's there to allow for future research. By the other type, I think a test-on was

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the viewshed study, which examines, if we build a data center over here, what's the viewshed?

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What's it going to look like and how visited will be from, for example, in the NASA's

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National Battlefield, which was a viewshed study that did as part of that project.

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This slide summarizes several of the practices we found localized should implement to minimize

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community impacts from data center development.

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For example, it's important to classify data centers as an industrial user, whatever your equivalent

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is make sure your zoning maps have been revised to prevent bi-right projects next to residential

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or other sensitive areas. Make sure you have the minimum requirements in place like setbacks

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and building heights that are appropriate to keep development from intruding on residential or

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commercial neighbors. That would also include, I think, one of the things in your old mandate about

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the lighting. Again, these are secure facilities, so that lighting is on all the time. Another

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reason why you don't want that right next to the neighborhood. You can also consider a static building

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standards and landscaping requirements for facilities that are highly visible to the public.

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Again, the idea there is that if you build this data center in an industrial area,

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you don't really care that much what it looks like, but if you've got something next commercial

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or that people are going to be driving by every day or close to residential area,

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then the appearance of that facility comes a lot more important.

286
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It's also important to deal with

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that noise issue up front, which I think I already mentioned. So if a data center is going to be close

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residential or other sensitive areas, you should probably require sound modeling studies to see

289
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what the noise impacts might be. There's a lot of variables that go into, if and how a data

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center can be heard and from where, so one is going to be that data centers designed, especially

291
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the cooling system that it's using, that's what generates the noise and then there are topography

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considerations. If that's in a valley and you have a residential area in a hill, that sounds

293
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going to go straight up the hill to the residential area. So sound studies can help get a handle on

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If a house sound might get me generated from that facility and how traveled in the surrounding area, you can also revise your noise, your ordinances to make noise violations and force both through zoning requirements.

295
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So instead of having that as a sort of a civil or criminal violation, where there's a penalty, a civil fine, if you have an zoning, you can give it a lot more enforcement teeth because now you're in violation of how you should be doing business.

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And the product is an area that's close to a historical site, it's probably a good idea

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to at least do a phase one study to figure out if there's anything there that should be preserved

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as well as if there's a historical site nearby.

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What would it, you know, how's that, how's that development going to impinge on the viewshet

300
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from that historical site?

301
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Mark, if we're moving on and quick question in regards to accountability for violations

302
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You mentioned, of course, you know, you know, fines aren't, especially when you're working

303
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with an industry where there's these deep pockets, what, what, what have local governments

304
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or even a state done in the way of creating real teeth for accountability?

305
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And for noise in particular?

306
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Well, since that's what we're talking about.

307
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Here's sure, but for any type of zoning or conditional use of violation.

308
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As far as the noise in particular, I think one of the issues we found was that nobody had any really strong enforcement mechanisms so that that was one of the things they were looking for was a way to better bring facilities into compliance with

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uh, uh, uh, noise standards, or not necessarily compliance with noise standards, but

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eliminate the conflict that they were having with the neighbors. Um, and so the, I think, uh,

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the suggestion is by putting that into your zoning, you can then have actual teeth in terms of,

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well, your evaluation of of how you should be operating as a business. So now things like

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your business operating permit are on the table, which is obviously a pretty nuclear option, but it

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one with a lot of teeth as opposed to basically having no leverage at all. I'm just saying

315
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I wish you guys would stop making this noise. Here's $150 fine but I don't even know who I'm supposed

316
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to find. I'm supposed to find the guy who's working at the desk or do I send this to Amazon or

317
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or Google headquarters. Because I think that's from the noise perspective. That's why the more you

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to see license. All those things can be used as ways to bring that facility into compliance

319
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in theory. Again, we haven't seen it played out in fact. In terms of other things, we just rely

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on a regulatory regime. So, for example, during construction, there's a problem with stormwater

321
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management. And then that just goes to a regular regulatory regime for stormwater management.

322
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Thank you.

323
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,820
Can I quick ask a question, please?

324
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About two slides ago.

325
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It was a word I'd never seen before, so I'd appreciate.

326
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You tell me what it means, and I'll sign the second.

327
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So it was like examples. And if you could explain roof tiering and then the word was fenestration.

328
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Roof tiering is why I've kind of made up.

329
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So that's just sort of, instead of having a big monolith, you know, like a big giant box, you can have a tiered roof.

330
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You can require that in zoning. I'm not sure if that's exact term that is owning personalities.

331
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I tried to look that up to figure out what their exact term was. I knew we heard it somewhere.

332
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Anyway, so instead of having, you know, here's the curb, here's a parking lot, here's a 60 foot edifice that could be broken up by having a tiered roof, so it's 30 feet, then it goes back a little bit and then it goes up to the full 60 feet.

333
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Does that help with noise? Also when the hill example you gave the parking space?

334
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And it's really just aesthetic, I think, and I have to defer to a sound expert, but for the

335
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most part, all the equipment is on the roof, so I might push it back a little further, but

336
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I don't think it would really have a big effect on noise.

337
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Finestration isn't actual word, that's what they call, so these things, they're like distribution

338
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centers, so there's no windows, it's just all they need is a big concrete wall, but that

339
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looks ugly. So some places they've required finistration, fake windows, basically.

340
00:31:20,620 --> 00:31:23,800
Are you kidding me? It looks more like an office building.

341
00:31:24,380 --> 00:31:26,010
No, my goodness. Thank you.

342
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Cause, keep in mind, in northern Virginia, so a lot of these are industrial areas, but a lot of them are

343
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right by roads, and that was one of the things that that's come up in a couple of places.

344
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I've heard a roof tiering called stepbacks. That might, that's what I should have put on the slide.

345
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Next, so that was mostly the items that were

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pertent to your agenda today.

347
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So I'm happy to talk about those more.

348
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If you guys want to cover us on the other stuff

349
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from our study, which really is some of your other areas.

350
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Can I ask one more question?

351
00:32:00,380 --> 00:32:00,900
Yeah, it's a lot.

352
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So I'm a town elected.

353
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And this has been a whole different context,

354
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but we had a noise pre-development complaint

355
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or wanted to have a noise a sound study.

356
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It was very hard to find somebody.

357
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We finally did, but they operated in one to two states over.

358
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So, you know, it was kind of expensive.

359
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The good news is we had insurance, but did that very plentiful?

360
00:32:27,300 --> 00:32:34,960
I mean, who is qualified to really do proper modeling and proper both before and during and after

361
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if you have issues?

362
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I mean, it'd be great to have like a place that not recommending them, but just saying

363
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And here's a list of people who are qualified because it's very hard to find them.

364
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It was kind of connected through a university thing, word of mouth is how I found it.

365
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But it's just curious.

366
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Yeah, that's a good point.

367
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,400
I think that's come up in Virginia as well.

368
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In some cases where they've had a require these in the past, the company had found somebody.

369
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I mean, of course, the residents don't trust what the company's house study said.

370
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But in some other cases,

371
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there's not a big industry out there for that, so yeah, I couldn't really give you any good insights into how to find folks.

372
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,420
I know one of these neighborhoods where they had a lot of problems.

373
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They had a former NASA slash submarine engineer and he designed his own site.

374
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So if you have one of those, that could help.

375
00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:39,080
but yeah, I really can't help you out much there.

376
00:33:39,340 --> 00:33:42,320
Unfortunately, no, this is Laura Skender.

377
00:33:42,420 --> 00:33:44,340
My husband was an acoustical engineer.

378
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He worked in Washington, DC, and did a lot of ship silencing

379
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and submarine silencing as well.

380
00:33:49,580 --> 00:33:51,980
And that firm could help to people on the house

381
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and the hill too to figure out that residence.

382
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:56,140
So they are out there.

383
00:33:56,260 --> 00:33:57,180
Is he still working?

384
00:33:58,220 --> 00:33:59,900
Yeah, but something completely different.

385
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:01,680
But the firm is still around if you want,

386
00:34:01,740 --> 00:34:02,360
I can give it to you.

387
00:34:02,420 --> 00:34:03,680
Yeah, I'm curious.

388
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,820
Mark, I'd like to ask a question.

389
00:34:09,240 --> 00:34:15,300
So, the most egregious sort of noise offenders, I guess, were in the range.

390
00:34:15,540 --> 00:34:20,440
You said, like, 40 to 60 decibels like a low drone, was that right?

391
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:21,800
That sounds right.

392
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:22,080
Yeah.

393
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:23,200
I think, yeah.

394
00:34:24,140 --> 00:34:24,420
Yeah.

395
00:34:25,420 --> 00:34:28,080
I'm sure there's some sort of fundamental difference.

396
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:33,880
But I know Texas has become kind of the hotspot for crypto mining.

397
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And a lot of the same aspects go into those facilities when we're talking about cooling and, you know, trying to minimize noise.

398
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I know some of the most egregious examples of crypto mines are up to 80 and the even 100 decibels.

399
00:34:50,320 --> 00:35:03,540
And they're having trouble. I'm not sure how sustained those 100 decibels are, but there are consistent violations on some of those facilities up to like 85 decibels sustained for hours on end.

400
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and I'm just wondering what is the difference between the data center and the crypto mine and what's

401
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:15,580
what's kind of hold. And I don't expect you to know this mark. I'm just kind of thinking out loud.

402
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:22,900
Actually, if I could just, yeah, the ATC sub station in the town of Middleton on Highway 14,

403
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:29,520
I don't know from a technical point of view, but go there. I mean, you can't, there's no trespassing

404
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:34,920
size as you can drive in a little way. I mean, there's actually a study from the UK where you

405
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:40,020
can run a drill without having to be plugged in under one of those. That's what's, and you

406
00:35:40,020 --> 00:35:46,400
can kind of see it on really damp days and you can shear it. And it's this very, it's almost

407
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:52,100
like a buzz. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's intermittent, but it's in so many seconds that

408
00:35:52,100 --> 00:35:57,480
it's like it's constant. Yeah. And so I don't know, that's why it'd be good to find some

409
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:05,680
objective true experts to be able to. That would be a great session. Yeah. Find such people

410
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:13,240
because they're rare and hard to find. You responded surprising that Texas is dealing with such

411
00:36:13,240 --> 00:36:20,520
noise issues with crypto minds and there's such a drastic difference in the kind of complaints

412
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and levels that are that you're seeing and in Virginia versus what they're seeing in Texas.

413
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:30,920
And again, I know there's, there are different types of facilities, but you would think it's somewhat similar.

414
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:37,660
They're basically doing the same thing. My guess would be that.

415
00:36:37,720 --> 00:36:43,960
So what did it, the, the mountain noise, you, it most of that, if not all that's coming from the cooling system.

416
00:36:45,060 --> 00:36:52,540
And depending on, and so depending on the cooling system you're using, you may be generating almost no noise to a fair amount of noise.

417
00:36:53,180 --> 00:36:57,000
The second part is how cheaply constructed is your facility.

418
00:36:58,140 --> 00:37:03,080
And so these data center facilities are at least building them for, you know, to last 50 years.

419
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And so there's, there are expensive facilities, they're putting some good investment into them.

420
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:13,000
I would guess the quality of the mechanical equipment is going to be higher than you would

421
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:17,680
find in a crypto mining facility, because there are a lot more fly by night.

422
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,160
They don't necessarily care if there's going to be there in 50 years.

423
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,760
They might only be building them for, you know, five years or 10 years.

424
00:37:25,420 --> 00:37:29,900
So my guess would be the quality of construction of the quality of equipment.

425
00:37:30,580 --> 00:37:32,000
Would probably account for that difference.

426
00:37:33,020 --> 00:37:35,760
That's that even within the data center industry you can see.

427
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:42,840
There's some facilities built by some companies which tend to be the ones that have the noise problem.

428
00:37:43,540 --> 00:37:47,560
And facilities built by other companies which tend to not be a problem at all.

429
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:52,460
And I'll go a lot of that's designed, but also something that is is cost and equipment.

430
00:37:55,420 --> 00:37:56,940
So I'll leave that there.

431
00:37:57,540 --> 00:37:59,500
If you want to ask me, I could tell you too.

432
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:00,840
Yeah.

433
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,780
Can I just ask one of the quick question on this one article that was sent to us as background on noise?

434
00:38:07,060 --> 00:38:16,400
There's a quote near from an Amazon spokesperson and they're talking about redesigning their products to significantly reduce sound or noise levels.

435
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:31,060
received that properties of joining data center facilities. How could one get more information on what's a, you know, a good sound noise mitigating design versus, I mean, you mentioned the quality of construction and how long its life expectancy is expected.

436
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,100
But do you have any insights on that?

437
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,720
I think that would not get pretty technical pretty quick.

438
00:38:38,660 --> 00:38:47,320
One is you could look at, you know, it's just model off in other facility and then see if there's a facility that, that it, you know, that it scores up to.

439
00:38:48,340 --> 00:38:57,680
But yeah, I think, because like even if we're talking to Amazon, so Amazon was the one that was a problem in where the family was sleeping in the basement by the Great Oaks neighborhood.

440
00:39:00,740 --> 00:39:05,120
They were trying to figure out why it was so loud and how to reduce the sound and one

441
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,780
thing they did was they realized that they're, I guess the intake fans are probably getting

442
00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:15,060
that wrong were two narrows and they made the bigger and that reduced the amount of noise

443
00:39:15,060 --> 00:39:21,820
coming off that facility. There's also something to do with, you know, they didn't have some sort

444
00:39:21,820 --> 00:39:25,660
venting that was then creating some sort of weird noise

445
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:27,040
reverberations.

446
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,000
So it's a really technical area out.

447
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:32,300
I don't know if there's any,

448
00:39:32,300 --> 00:39:34,640
I don't know how you address that excited from getting

449
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:38,360
some of who is an expert in a sound study to try and look

450
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,560
at the design, compare to other designs.

451
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:42,940
But as a lay person, I don't know if there's

452
00:39:42,940 --> 00:39:45,920
much that I could do to try and figure that out.

453
00:39:46,180 --> 00:39:47,720
I'm looking at the University of Virginia,

454
00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:54,980
or some other esteemed and UW-Madison with their new computer center to try to get a program

455
00:39:54,980 --> 00:39:59,260
to train people. That would be a great idea. That would be a recommendation possibility.

456
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:09,040
Yeah, and somebody, it would, because of the variance and data center construction, it would

457
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:15,000
have to figure out like each data center is going to, unless they're at some of some companies

458
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:22,060
replicate them. A lot of them are, it's a unique design. So, you know, one day the center, what you would

459
00:40:22,060 --> 00:40:26,060
expect from it might be different from the next one just because the different equipment, different building

460
00:40:26,060 --> 00:40:31,320
height, where things topography is located. So, yeah, there will be a lot of variables to consider.

461
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:42,480
You know, we had one day the center here, we had emailed you about it. It was in an agricultural area.

462
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:46,760
I'm

463
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:54,520
probably more urban, any impacts on noise to livestock or wildlife, particularly because I think

464
00:40:54,520 --> 00:41:00,040
we would see that more here, where that's where you get more bang for your buck for larger data

465
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:06,720
centers to be placed in a agricultural area. A lot of the development that's happening in Virginia

466
00:41:06,720 --> 00:41:13,080
now is pushing into agricultural areas. So even down in Canada, which is days in a couple of the world,

467
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:16,000
that kind of is historically half developed

468
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,420
and then half being preserved for as rural.

469
00:41:19,700 --> 00:41:21,660
Prince William County, kind of similar,

470
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:24,700
and so you're seeing a lot of that pushing in.

471
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:29,460
In terms of actual effects on other than elimination

472
00:41:29,460 --> 00:41:32,100
of agricultural land, which is a pretty clear effect,

473
00:41:33,300 --> 00:41:36,260
it's not really clear, or we can find a lot of information

474
00:41:36,260 --> 00:41:38,400
on how that might affect, for example, livestock.

475
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,240
We heard some anecdotal concerns,

476
00:41:41,240 --> 00:41:47,360
but nothing, nothing concrete, but yeah, that's definitely pushing on the rural areas in Virginia as well.

477
00:41:47,500 --> 00:41:51,700
I don't think we have quite as much a livestock as you have in the Wisconsin, but we do, you know, we do have

478
00:41:51,700 --> 00:42:00,620
cow farms and I guess we don't have a sheep farm, I think. Yeah, I don't think I have a good answer for it, I don't know.

479
00:42:01,980 --> 00:42:07,820
So Mark, I'm curious from an environmental standpoint, you've mentioned the lighting around the data centers.

480
00:42:08,500 --> 00:42:13,820
Is there an issue then for migratory birds with all of that light at night?

481
00:42:15,100 --> 00:42:16,460
Did you look at that?

482
00:42:16,460 --> 00:42:18,060
That's not something we looked at.

483
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:22,920
Again, there's another there's a number of potential impacts on the surrounding environment.

484
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,560
Those lights tend to be pointed down.

485
00:42:27,140 --> 00:42:30,540
So I don't know if and how that would affect migratory animals.

486
00:42:32,020 --> 00:42:34,400
Sort of bigger picture on that environmental piece.

487
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:42,800
Because most of these are, you know, pushing out into more agricultural areas, this is in northern Virginia, which is a pretty heavily populated area.

488
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:50,400
It's not like we're building these in, again, talking with wildlife experts and environmental experts.

489
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:58,440
We're building these in southwest Virginia or in the Appalachian Mountains where we have our biggest, most diverse ecosystems.

490
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:03,940
that would have a much bigger ecological impact on the environment than it would

491
00:43:03,940 --> 00:43:07,860
building these in, you know, basically an expanding suburban area.

492
00:43:12,140 --> 00:43:12,820
I should say ecological

493
00:43:12,820 --> 00:43:17,860
impact. But that, even in that case, there are having cases where, you know, projects that

494
00:43:17,860 --> 00:43:23,620
where they found some ecological niche, you know, that we're relying on existing environmental

495
00:43:23,620 --> 00:43:29,540
protections to keep that stuff from being destroyed. So I think in this case it was a

496
00:43:29,540 --> 00:43:36,980
So, I can't remember what a Westman was a rare, very rarely occurring top ecological feature involving

497
00:43:36,980 --> 00:43:41,680
mosses and salamanders that needed to be protected.

498
00:43:42,380 --> 00:43:47,220
So even in a suburban area, there's still environmental concerns.

499
00:43:49,540 --> 00:43:56,240
Mark, you talked about the development on the stark battlefields and that data centers

500
00:43:56,240 --> 00:44:01,360
may not be appropriate, wouldn't it be true that maybe not any type of development would be

501
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,520
not appropriate on those battlefield sites?

502
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,700
I think that that's certainly an argument. Again, I have my own personal views as an

503
00:44:09,700 --> 00:44:14,640
organizational or agnostic on that, but this particular site or particular area, at one point

504
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:20,800
they tried to develop a, I think it was going to be an location for Disneyland and that got shot down

505
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:25,270
then there was going to be a Walmart Supercenter and that got shot down and then there was

506
00:44:25,270 --> 00:44:31,790
centers where the latest attempt to develop next that battlefield. And that court case was decided

507
00:44:31,790 --> 00:44:38,290
pretty recently, so it looks like it got shut down again. Okay. Then my other question is in regards

508
00:44:38,290 --> 00:44:43,190
to noise when you look at, if you're living near an airport, obviously there's a lot of noise,

509
00:44:43,970 --> 00:44:48,950
the issue from what I'm hearing is the constant hum of the noise, not necessarily the

510
00:44:48,950 --> 00:44:54,390
decibel level. Is that true? Yes, that's that's what it is because again it's not allowed

511
00:44:54,390 --> 00:44:59,870
to damage hearing, but it's a constant thing and it's because it's a little

512
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:20,300
If you're a student from a speaker with playing bass, it's a kind of sound that if it's hitting just right, you can you can feel it. And that's where the example of this house where, you know, this this homeowner, again, this is the, this is the worst case scenario that we heard in a tire study.

513
00:45:20,300 --> 00:45:33,660
But essentially he couldn't stand the homes, so he changed his windows thinking that the new windows would do a better job of keeping out the sound, but then the windows the new windows started vibrating from the sound that actually got worse.

514
00:45:39,700 --> 00:45:45,620
But again, not all, I just want to, I just want to be clear that not all data centers create sound.

515
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:51,660
There are definitely some problem children that we came across, but that doesn't mean that all of them were were in noise problems.

516
00:45:54,730 --> 00:46:01,630
But all data centers do emit a number of different wireless frequencies. Is that right?

517
00:46:02,530 --> 00:46:06,950
That I'm not aware of. We did not get into that at all?

518
00:46:06,950 --> 00:46:07,430
No.

519
00:46:08,030 --> 00:46:08,310
Really?

520
00:46:14,050 --> 00:46:15,730
I just want to check with Supervisor Marin.

521
00:46:16,290 --> 00:46:18,170
I, you know, since I can't see you on the screen,

522
00:46:18,450 --> 00:46:22,070
I do have a chat window up, but I just want to check if you had any questions.

523
00:46:23,550 --> 00:46:25,390
I'm all good. Thanks for checking, though.

524
00:46:25,670 --> 00:46:25,950
Sure.

525
00:46:28,450 --> 00:46:33,270
So I have another maybe a couple of questions first.

526
00:46:34,290 --> 00:46:37,010
Should I just turn off the presentation?

527
00:46:37,830 --> 00:46:38,190
Sure.

528
00:46:38,370 --> 00:46:40,710
If that's your last slide, that'd be.

529
00:46:41,050 --> 00:46:43,650
Well, I have additional ones on some of your normal stuff.

530
00:46:44,190 --> 00:46:45,230
No, no, no.

531
00:46:45,230 --> 00:46:46,110
No, leave it up then.

532
00:46:46,330 --> 00:46:46,890
Leave it up.

533
00:46:48,790 --> 00:46:53,630
So, you know, you had some consideration

534
00:46:53,630 --> 00:47:02,970
and in one of the other slides of some design standards and so forth to address aesthetics and whatnot,

535
00:47:03,190 --> 00:47:14,750
but also it sounds like there could be some construction standards employed to mitigate sound and so forth.

536
00:47:14,750 --> 00:47:28,890
just curious if localities in Virginia or the state has done any work in creating standards

537
00:47:28,890 --> 00:47:37,410
that are codified in building code. We do have a uniformed state building code,

538
00:47:39,570 --> 00:47:39,570
so

539
00:47:40,550 --> 00:47:47,390
that but the in terms of putting special requirements on data centers that's really up more of a

540
00:47:47,390 --> 00:47:52,030
local issue because the building code is just you know what's safe and structurally sound.

541
00:47:53,570 --> 00:48:00,810
In terms of you know we want something to be less uptrusive or for aesthetic reasons

542
00:48:01,570 --> 00:48:07,230
that then is something that comes down to what the locality wants and and how they're making

543
00:48:07,230 --> 00:48:13,650
there, there are plan project plan approvals, facility approvals, development approvals.

544
00:48:14,730 --> 00:48:20,290
And so you have seen, I said a couple of these to, to Majeed. There's a couple of counties

545
00:48:20,290 --> 00:48:37,210
in northern Virginia, especially that have put in sort of the data center ordinances that have a lot of

546
00:48:37,210 --> 00:48:43,050
kind of things. So that's a lighting. I think it was one of the things that came up. So those

547
00:48:43,050 --> 00:48:48,290
specific things would be at the county level. And again, Marjita, as in a couple of weeks that

548
00:48:48,290 --> 00:48:59,210
would be helpful for that. Okay. And another thing that could contribute to noise among other things

549
00:49:01,370 --> 00:49:07,750
would be, some of that's intermittent, but it'd be the exercise of the generators for these

550
00:49:07,750 --> 00:49:14,690
facilities. Is there any, what, what consideration was that in your report?

551
00:49:15,750 --> 00:49:19,750
Yeah, so there's really three things when it comes to noise. One is what we already talked about,

552
00:49:19,970 --> 00:49:26,830
which is the operational thing. Operational noise that one is by far the worst, or it has caused

553
00:49:26,830 --> 00:49:32,110
the most conflict, I should say, because that is something, as you said, it's constant.

554
00:49:34,110 --> 00:49:40,350
The generator testing, again, if you're living near a facility, there's a lot of complaints

555
00:49:40,350 --> 00:49:45,030
from folks nearby about the generator testing that I wanted to do, and don't want to

556
00:49:45,030 --> 00:49:46,690
do in the morning, don't want to do in the evening.

557
00:49:48,090 --> 00:49:53,890
So that has definitely been a source spot for some residents, but again, we didn't see that

558
00:49:53,890 --> 00:50:00,890
had seemed to have the same level of concern as the operation went back because that is intermittent

559
00:50:00,890 --> 00:50:06,410
it does go off. I live in a neighborhood where on any given day somebody's moving along or running

560
00:50:06,410 --> 00:50:10,930
leapblowers kind of the same as somebody testing a generator and at least in terms of the sound

561
00:50:10,930 --> 00:50:19,010
it it makes. The last one is construction noise. So a day of center is a big project takes a year

562
00:50:19,010 --> 00:50:22,810
have to build one and that's pretty darn fast, but you know, it's still a long time.

563
00:50:23,990 --> 00:50:27,850
It really dates our campus. What happens when they finish building that first day of

564
00:50:27,850 --> 00:50:32,850
center? They move next door to the next day of the center. So some of these construction sites,

565
00:50:33,030 --> 00:50:36,770
you could have, or some of these campuses, you could have construction, and I'm going for years.

566
00:50:37,710 --> 00:50:42,670
And obviously that does create a lot of noise, and that's another source of noise concern to neighbors.

567
00:50:43,350 --> 00:50:47,110
And another reason why not why you should not have these right next to a neighborhood.

568
00:50:50,500 --> 00:50:54,140
Anybody else with any questions around community impacts?

569
00:50:57,310 --> 00:50:58,230
Actually, I have one.

570
00:50:58,370 --> 00:50:59,210
Yeah, go ahead.

571
00:50:59,390 --> 00:51:02,150
So Mark, with the diesel backup generators,

572
00:51:02,870 --> 00:51:06,450
is there, are there, have you looked at any pollution standards?

573
00:51:06,570 --> 00:51:08,730
I know I've read a lot about people saying

574
00:51:08,730 --> 00:51:10,870
they gave in smell of fumes in their homes.

575
00:51:12,450 --> 00:51:14,570
Well, that is my very next topic here.

576
00:51:14,710 --> 00:51:16,910
We're going to need to jump onto that.

577
00:51:18,530 --> 00:51:23,230
Well, actually before you delve into that too much detail,

578
00:51:23,230 --> 00:51:29,570
I guess it's sort of a transition to that, but my next question in that is, one of the things

579
00:51:29,570 --> 00:51:40,790
will be subjectaries we'll be looking at is, I guess, the impact or demands for emergency management.

580
00:51:42,150 --> 00:51:53,110
And so I'm curious about what your insights are in particular, again, looking at community

581
00:51:53,110 --> 00:52:04,050
impacts what types of, you know, unique materials might be used both in construction and operation

582
00:52:04,050 --> 00:52:18,990
of a facility that might pose risks, say, if there's a fire that maybe normal fires oppression

583
00:52:18,990 --> 00:52:26,730
materials would not work so. I don't think we got into that in specific. I know that there

584
00:52:26,730 --> 00:52:33,310
is a concern that for example the main thing in here that would be different from another building

585
00:52:33,310 --> 00:52:43,490
would be the volume of computers. So you have all the rare earth minerals, all the stuff that goes

586
00:52:43,490 --> 00:52:47,050
in the computing chips, all that is in there.

587
00:52:47,290 --> 00:52:50,710
So if there was a big fire, what's that emitting?

588
00:52:51,650 --> 00:52:54,650
I guess it'll be the, to speak the angle you're talking about.

589
00:52:54,750 --> 00:52:56,250
I think the concern that we had heard more

590
00:52:56,250 --> 00:52:57,870
was about what happens to those materials

591
00:52:58,410 --> 00:53:00,010
because the computer server life spans

592
00:53:00,010 --> 00:53:01,410
about three to five years.

593
00:53:01,830 --> 00:53:03,970
So what happens to those materials after?

594
00:53:04,430 --> 00:53:05,770
So we looked into that a little bit

595
00:53:05,770 --> 00:53:07,250
basically they get recycled.

596
00:53:09,850 --> 00:53:12,250
So but yeah, I don't know about in terms

597
00:53:12,250 --> 00:53:17,310
there's a fire, there's extra risks. Again, these are, you know, these facilities have to meet

598
00:53:17,310 --> 00:53:20,710
whatever they were fire standards are, and so they should have pre-effective fire suppression

599
00:53:20,710 --> 00:53:24,630
systems and understand those don't always work right. But, you know, if you're spending

600
00:53:24,630 --> 00:53:28,970
billion dollars in a facility, hopefully you're putting it at these in fire suppression system.

601
00:53:30,450 --> 00:53:36,900
Something I hadn't considered was the useful life of equipment. That's a good thing to think about.

602
00:53:37,380 --> 00:53:49,040
So thanks. We do have an error report and appendix on that. It's been a while since I looked at that one, but we have a one or one half page or on what happens to that equipment, what else is most of.

603
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,300
Okay, well, we all have a link to that so thank you.

604
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:55,420
And then.

605
00:53:56,040 --> 00:54:09,380
Like I just said, we have a link to that report, but I think it'd be helpful if you could forward to us to staff a PDF of your slides too.

606
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:11,280
Sure. Thanks.

607
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,180
I know, probably over my time. I'm happy to give you this.

608
00:54:14,180 --> 00:54:15,220
Let's keep going.

609
00:54:15,740 --> 00:54:15,900
Okay.

610
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,000
I think there's interest, yes.

611
00:54:18,380 --> 00:54:21,560
So, yeah, we appreciate your time.

612
00:54:21,940 --> 00:54:22,900
So, absolutely.

613
00:54:23,700 --> 00:54:24,080
Go ahead.

614
00:54:25,720 --> 00:54:31,480
So, today, the backup generator point, so data center backup generators do emit pollutants,

615
00:54:32,180 --> 00:54:37,100
but their use is minimal and existing regulations can help curb those adverse impacts.

616
00:54:39,380 --> 00:54:44,220
So, to that first point, data centers rely on a large number of diesel generators for backup power.

617
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:51,660
They have enormous energy use, they need to stay online 24-7, and so they have these diesel backup generators, which is the industry standard.

618
00:54:51,660 --> 00:55:02,160
These are, you know, these are the, the backup generator I have in my shed, these are tractor trailer size, industrial generators, there's easily north of 50 of these for one data center.

619
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:10,440
Those generators, because they're burning diesel, they emit several harmful pollutants that contribute to the development of small and can have other health effects.

620
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:15,680
for that reason in Virginia, they're regulated by using state and national air quality standards,

621
00:55:16,340 --> 00:55:20,120
so in Virginia, all these generators must be permitted by the Department of Environmental

622
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:25,860
Quality. The permits set limits on their use and the amount of emissions they can emit over the

623
00:55:25,860 --> 00:55:32,540
course of a year and then the emissions are monitored for compliance. In practice, the backup generators

624
00:55:32,540 --> 00:55:37,020
are rarely run for prolonged periods. I think it's where you talk about the mostly run for maintenance

625
00:55:37,020 --> 00:55:42,980
testing that happens about once a month for 10 to 30 minutes per generator. So if you have

626
00:55:42,980 --> 00:55:48,120
50, you can imagine that you're probably running one or two of those every day for maintenance testing.

627
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,220
So if you're a neighbor, that might not be something that you want to hear. They do run for longer

628
00:55:53,220 --> 00:55:57,820
periods during outages. So if the power goes out, those things are all going to click on, they're

629
00:55:57,820 --> 00:56:03,020
going to run until the power comes back on or they hit their emissions limit. However, data center

630
00:56:03,020 --> 00:56:09,160
companies report the experience few outages. Again, this is because, you know, whereas my house,

631
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:14,380
your house, the building you're in is served by the overhead distribution lines. That's not

632
00:56:14,380 --> 00:56:18,680
the case for a data center. They are served by a transmission line, which goes to a substation

633
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:23,620
that substations powering that data center. So any outages are usually due to a localized

634
00:56:23,620 --> 00:56:30,700
problem, so the a squirrel in a transformer at the substations, one of the examples we heard or somebody

635
00:56:30,700 --> 00:56:36,620
It does a fact-fingers move and cuts the cable that's running from the transmission or from

636
00:56:36,620 --> 00:56:40,860
the substation to the days center, and the power goes out, and then the generators come

637
00:56:40,860 --> 00:56:41,420
up.

638
00:56:43,940 --> 00:56:48,840
So, don't mean to, so for those reasons, because they're not really being used that much,

639
00:56:49,020 --> 00:56:52,160
we found they're unlikely to harm the regional air quality in northern Virginia, which

640
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:56,600
is a non-attainment zone, which means there are some air quality concerns in that area.

641
00:56:56,600 --> 00:57:02,600
They're basically a small part of the emissions over all emissions and overall emissions in the region are going down.

642
00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:07,560
All that said, there are two real risks to consider here.

643
00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:13,900
One is the worst case for long large-scale regional power outage, so we get a hurricane and a transmission line

644
00:57:13,900 --> 00:57:17,980
is getting knocked out. And that event, all those backup generators are going to kick on.

645
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:22,320
And if that outage lasts long enough, those emissions are going to contribute to air quality concerns.

646
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:29,320
So there's going to be a lot of diesel fuel going out all at once for a couple of days maybe.

647
00:57:30,020 --> 00:57:35,920
Fortunately those algae are rare and once the event is over the air quality would return to normal.

648
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:42,520
The other risk which I think one of you all pointed out a minute ago, excuse me,

649
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:51,780
is that there could be localized concerns, so if you're in a neighborhood in data center

650
00:57:51,780 --> 00:57:58,680
alley and loud county, you are in the vicinity of a hundred facilities, each one

651
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:04,240
has 50 backup generators and they're testing two or three of those every day, that's

652
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:08,800
a many diesel fuels, fumes that on a regional scale are not that significant, but that might

653
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:15,800
have localized effects. Because again, there are, it's particular matter, and there that can be harmful nitrate nitricks.

654
00:58:16,860 --> 00:58:19,900
I'm going to get all the chemicals wrong, so they're that, I guess.

655
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:27,460
But there's some, some form of nitrogen, particularly matter, and then a third one that I can't remember off top of my head.

656
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:33,180
Anyways, that's, that's not things that you want to be breathing. So that's the concern that if, if you're living close that area,

657
00:58:33,180 --> 00:58:38,380
you're how much of that is going up and going away that you never breathe versus how much of that is

658
00:58:38,380 --> 00:58:44,360
lingering at the service level. And so we would have had some recommendations to look at this

659
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:49,560
for our department of environmental quality has already launched the study to monitor those

660
00:58:49,560 --> 00:58:55,620
emissions and see what the potential health risk might be. Mark, let's go quick question.

661
00:58:55,620 --> 00:59:03,980
Yeah. Two different things. I've been reading about how there's a Elon Musk and Memphis

662
00:59:03,980 --> 00:59:10,360
Tennessee big problems with the diesel generators. The people can't breathe and nobody's

663
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:14,980
going to help them do anything from these data center turbines. I'm reading about in Texas,

664
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:20,360
how to sidestep all these types of good intention regulations. They're just doing everything

665
00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:25,520
private on a piece of property just wondering if you have any knowledge of anything like that

666
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:30,160
in Virginia and give us some flavor around it. And then just thinking out loud, what happens

667
00:59:30,160 --> 00:59:35,260
to the property values of any homes that happen to be in your data center? I can't imagine it

668
00:59:35,260 --> 00:59:44,360
helps the value. On the first question you're talking about on site generation like gas turbines,

669
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:45,260
is that kind of thing?

670
00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:46,760
Yeah, the diesel gas turbines.

671
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:49,540
So there's like, it's private and they're not using

672
00:59:49,540 --> 00:59:51,240
all the things you're talking about.

673
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:55,560
So it would be gas not.

674
00:59:56,220 --> 00:59:57,620
So these are diesel generators

675
00:59:57,620 --> 00:59:59,480
since like the diesel that you put in a truck.

676
00:59:59,480 --> 00:59:59,700
.

677
01:00:00,270 --> 01:00:06,110
Which is different from a gas turbine or behind the meter generation, which would typically be a gas turbine?

678
01:00:06,370 --> 01:00:08,650
Are you talking natural gas? Natural gas generators.

679
01:00:08,990 --> 01:00:13,290
Yeah, no. They were saying it was a diesel fumes, but I don't know. It was just news reports.

680
01:00:14,910 --> 01:00:20,130
Well, we know just in terms of the backup generators, diesel is sort of the standard.

681
01:00:20,810 --> 01:00:23,630
There is this big move to behind the meter generation.

682
01:00:23,630 --> 01:00:29,630
We had not seen much of that in Virginia at the time of our study, there's only one data center.

683
01:00:29,790 --> 01:00:34,090
We found that had on-site behind the meter generations that had a gas turbine on-site.

684
01:00:34,330 --> 01:00:39,630
And that was because there used to be a factory or something there and was left over from that.

685
01:00:41,450 --> 01:00:47,670
So, and some have been proposed in Virginia, but if you think it's hard to get a data center,

686
01:00:47,830 --> 01:00:51,970
try building a data center with a gas turbine attached to it.

687
01:00:52,830 --> 01:01:01,150
At least of Virginia, that's a local use decision, so we haven't seen a lot about happening.

688
01:01:02,390 --> 01:01:03,530
What was your other question, I'm sorry.

689
01:01:03,790 --> 01:01:05,190
About property value impacts.

690
01:01:05,330 --> 01:01:08,670
It's been an easy study for residents near a data center.

691
01:01:09,610 --> 01:01:10,610
We did look at that.

692
01:01:11,950 --> 01:01:16,050
It's really, and I've done a lot of studies trying to look at the effects of things on property values.

693
01:01:16,730 --> 01:01:19,030
Figure out the effects on property values is very hard to do.

694
01:01:19,030 --> 01:01:23,770
So for example, all the neighborhoods around all these data centers in Northern Virginia, the

695
01:01:23,770 --> 01:01:25,550
property values have been going out.

696
01:01:26,290 --> 01:01:31,870
And that doesn't mean that having a data center nearby isn't somehow affecting a value of

697
01:01:31,870 --> 01:01:33,070
a particular property.

698
01:01:34,030 --> 01:01:39,150
But if you're, if you're on the, if you're backing up to the data center, I'm pretty sure

699
01:01:39,150 --> 01:01:42,630
that property value is effective from being backing up directly to the data center.

700
01:01:42,810 --> 01:01:46,410
But if you're in that same neighborhood, but you're two streets over, there might be zero

701
01:01:46,410 --> 01:01:50,430
effect from that, especially if it's not a data center, it doesn't make any noise.

702
01:01:51,730 --> 01:01:58,430
So we were not really able to tweak out how property values are being affected because

703
01:01:58,430 --> 01:02:00,330
generally they're going up.

704
01:02:00,970 --> 01:02:06,450
There is also this strange effect where property values as a whole are going up because of data

705
01:02:06,450 --> 01:02:13,170
centers because a data center company is willing to spend a lot of money to go where they

706
01:02:13,170 --> 01:02:24,110
want to go. And so you're seeing pretty insane with a pricing per acre around places where

707
01:02:24,110 --> 01:02:30,430
data centers want to go. We're talking millions of dollars in acre to buy plots to build these

708
01:02:30,430 --> 01:02:38,350
facilities on. And the effect there then is that one is it has priced out other development.

709
01:02:38,350 --> 01:02:44,850
So, if I want to develop single-family homes hard enough to do that already in Virginia,

710
01:02:46,010 --> 01:02:50,790
but now that you want to high density residential development, I might be able to,

711
01:02:50,790 --> 01:02:56,630
I might be priced out of that because the data center company is on that land or that big tract.

712
01:02:57,130 --> 01:03:01,010
That's one thing we've heard concerned from residential developers.

713
01:03:02,090 --> 01:03:07,350
The other interesting thing is you're seeing that property owners will be like,

714
01:03:07,350 --> 01:03:09,770
Well, I don't want to live next this data center.

715
01:03:10,350 --> 01:03:14,990
Hey, everybody in the neighborhood, why don't we all get together and we can sell all of our land

716
01:03:14,990 --> 01:03:20,470
to a data center developer and they'll pay us out the news for it and then we can move somewhere else.

717
01:03:20,890 --> 01:03:24,950
And we've seen several instances where that has happened where groups of

718
01:03:24,950 --> 01:03:30,330
neighborhoods, resident groups of residents have sort of banded together and agreed to sell

719
01:03:30,330 --> 01:03:32,110
their property to a data center developer.

720
01:03:33,970 --> 01:03:41,230
Wow. Thank you. You just mentioned real quick a data center that makes no noise. Is there really one of those?

721
01:03:41,350 --> 01:03:47,050
And would that be, could you give us an example? Maybe not now or in the future that maybe would be a good case study,

722
01:03:47,270 --> 01:03:49,850
that we could see how it is they're making no noise.

723
01:03:50,830 --> 01:03:54,310
Well, the exception of generator units and there are things you can do.

724
01:03:54,850 --> 01:03:59,990
So, but yeah, a lot of it, I would say I can't remember how many, but

725
01:03:59,990 --> 01:04:06,170
And all the ones we visited, and we purposely visited ones that were problems, I would say most

726
01:04:06,170 --> 01:04:09,130
of the ones we visited, you can stand outside and you don't hear anything.

727
01:04:09,190 --> 01:04:10,890
You don't hear the cooling systems.

728
01:04:13,310 --> 01:04:17,810
And a lot of times, some of the ones that we were told were problems, we showed up, and

729
01:04:17,810 --> 01:04:21,810
I've got a well, it's not making noise today, because the cooling system wasn't running.

730
01:04:23,510 --> 01:04:28,970
So it really depends on the cooling system, so some can make noise all the time, some only

731
01:04:28,970 --> 01:04:36,090
noise when the cooling systems running and at full capacity, it doesn't matter what day you

732
01:04:36,090 --> 01:04:40,130
show up, it's just not, you're not going to hear anything from the cooling system. Now you may

733
01:04:40,130 --> 01:04:44,030
spill here when you're testing the generators, but there's other things that you can actually

734
01:04:44,030 --> 01:04:50,670
do to help reduce that noise, like requiring generators to be housed in sort of generator

735
01:04:51,210 --> 01:04:56,790
sheds, so there's other things that you could do from a zoning standpoint to try and address

736
01:04:56,790 --> 01:04:59,930
that generator noise. Thank you.

737
01:05:05,230 --> 01:05:08,170
What are you? So we found that this underwater uses currently

738
01:05:08,170 --> 01:05:14,050
sustainable and the state helps ensure sustainability through its regulations. So again,

739
01:05:14,170 --> 01:05:20,450
we talked a lot about cooling systems and noise, cooling system also has a major impact on

740
01:05:20,450 --> 01:05:26,470
how much water a facility uses. So you either have two flavors, you have your water dependent

741
01:05:26,470 --> 01:05:28,990
cooling processes, basically, evaporative cooling.

742
01:05:29,710 --> 01:05:33,570
We're using water to facilitate cooling.

743
01:05:34,370 --> 01:05:35,550
The great thing about these things

744
01:05:35,550 --> 01:05:37,110
is they're more energy efficient.

745
01:05:37,570 --> 01:05:39,750
The bad thing about them is that they obviously

746
01:05:39,750 --> 01:05:41,050
use more water.

747
01:05:41,850 --> 01:05:43,870
The alternative is a dry cooling system.

748
01:05:44,350 --> 01:05:46,710
It uses more electricity, but doesn't use any water.

749
01:05:47,250 --> 01:05:49,550
So, for example, your residential air conditioning system,

750
01:05:49,590 --> 01:05:51,070
that's going to be a dry cooling system.

751
01:05:51,210 --> 01:05:53,390
There's no water being consumed by that system.

752
01:05:56,510 --> 01:06:05,430
Those data centers, at least in Virginia, get their water through our water utility, we've collected data from those utilities and found that well some days that are used a lot of water.

753
01:06:05,650 --> 01:06:09,550
Most use about the same amount or less than an average large office building.

754
01:06:10,430 --> 01:06:15,730
So in terms of how that scales up as an industry as you can see that on this graphic here.

755
01:06:15,730 --> 01:06:20,450
So, for example, those ones at the bottom, those are ones that are, you know, it's a data center,

756
01:06:20,630 --> 01:06:25,130
but because it's using a dry cooling system, the only water being consumed is in the bathroom

757
01:06:25,830 --> 01:06:30,870
or if there's a kitchen in there for the staff, that's the only water that the facility is using.

758
01:06:31,450 --> 01:06:34,290
So that is, in some cases, about the same as an average home.

759
01:06:35,890 --> 01:06:40,210
Other cases, up to the top, they're using the evaporative cooling system, it's probably a large facility,

760
01:06:40,790 --> 01:06:45,650
and that's consuming a fair amount of water, but only a few cases was more than what you'd expect

761
01:06:45,650 --> 01:06:47,430
from a large office building.

762
01:06:50,430 --> 01:06:54,770
Again, in terms of how that scales up, so there's the facility, it's self-question, but

763
01:06:54,770 --> 01:06:57,370
then you have to scale that up to the industry use as a whole.

764
01:06:57,810 --> 01:07:05,730
We found that data center customers accounted for between 0.2% up to 21% of a water utilities

765
01:07:06,790 --> 01:07:13,210
total consumer use, and so those, that's a pretty big range, and 21% obviously a lot

766
01:07:13,210 --> 01:07:20,510
the utility, use 0.2% very little bit. Those were largely a function of how many data centers

767
01:07:20,510 --> 01:07:27,130
that utility served and how big the utility was. I'm not 100% sure but I think that 21% was

768
01:07:27,750 --> 01:07:34,170
there's a really large campus in a very small county and I think that's why that was so big

769
01:07:34,550 --> 01:07:41,250
but it could also be loud in county. I can't remember. But again, to put this further into perspective,

770
01:07:41,250 --> 01:07:46,770
of the industry as a whole uses less than half a percent of the state's total what it

771
01:07:46,770 --> 01:07:52,450
withdrawals. So yes, the facility does use water, but it's not on the scale of say something

772
01:07:52,450 --> 01:07:56,650
like paper mills in state, which are enormous water user.

773
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:01,840
All that said, the data in the

774
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:06,640
industry is growing so we can expect that water used to increase over time. And that raises concerns

775
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:13,520
about sustainability, especially in Virginia. We're still in a drought right now. We had a winner

776
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:16,600
out and to a spring drought hopefully will be a summer drought.

777
01:08:17,620 --> 01:08:22,420
So those changing weather patterns kind of compound those sustainability concern.

778
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:27,360
We found that at least in Virginia our state regulation appears to sufficiently address

779
01:08:27,360 --> 01:08:28,040
that.

780
01:08:28,220 --> 01:08:32,120
It doesn't mean it's not concerned, it just means that we do have good regulatory processes

781
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:33,040
in place.

782
01:08:33,380 --> 01:08:37,600
Our state regulator regulates water withdrawals and requires permits for large-scale

783
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:43,320
draws, it models the impact of any changing withdrawals on water availability and wildlife

784
01:08:44,040 --> 01:08:47,280
that happens when the permits issued and also happens when the permits renewed.

785
01:08:48,200 --> 01:08:53,360
So if utility gets some big gas in our customer, they have to go get a permit to add more water.

786
01:08:53,460 --> 01:08:59,640
That's all going to be reviewed. And before that permits approved, they can't approve something that's

787
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:04,300
not sustainable. You might know, utility might have to go build something like a reservoir or something

788
01:09:04,300 --> 01:09:09,040
to help make sure that they have the resources that are needed to have negative effects

789
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:11,600
and that the water source can be sustained.

790
01:09:12,620 --> 01:09:13,700
All that said.

791
01:09:13,740 --> 01:09:14,460
Go ahead.

792
01:09:15,320 --> 01:09:16,540
And why don't you interrupt you?

793
01:09:17,100 --> 01:09:18,300
All of that said.

794
01:09:18,820 --> 01:09:23,720
Virginia is a pretty water rich state, even with those drought concerns.

795
01:09:24,420 --> 01:09:28,460
But that doesn't mean that all localities have equal access to water.

796
01:09:29,500 --> 01:09:33,000
So, a locality that doesn't have a lot of localities are located by rivers.

797
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:37,080
I'm here in Richmond, we've got a river that runs right through town, but a lot of localities

798
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:39,480
don't have a big water source like that.

799
01:09:40,740 --> 01:09:44,880
And so on a locality scale, a locality can be water restricted.

800
01:09:45,940 --> 01:09:51,040
And so anything that locality proves for a data center development might then be taking away from

801
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:55,040
their ability to do some other type of development, especially in certain parts of the state

802
01:09:55,040 --> 01:10:00,440
where, you know, my county doesn't have a river and we're relying on groundwater or we're

803
01:10:00,440 --> 01:10:06,720
on piping water in from the neighboring locality. Those are all restrictions and localities

804
01:10:06,720 --> 01:10:11,960
really need to understand how much water is this project going to use. How does that affect

805
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:16,200
our ability to meet future-resinced demand or to pursue other development opportunities,

806
01:10:16,900 --> 01:10:19,940
like I know, for a manufacturing center or something that might create more of a job.

807
01:10:22,310 --> 01:10:23,340
Okay, that's my question now.

808
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:33,920
Just quick, here the Wisconsin farmers union in its current policy statement, you know, context

809
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:38,720
much larger and not specific to data centers, but just they're recommending a groundwater

810
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:43,820
mapping project that supports the development of a mapping tool that will lead to better

811
01:10:43,820 --> 01:10:48,460
understanding protection and utilization of groundwater and drinking water supplies in

812
01:10:48,460 --> 01:10:54,580
Wisconsin has Virginia done anything like that or do you how do you know what your water

813
01:10:54,580 --> 01:11:00,360
supply is other than there's a river running through the area kind of thing.

814
01:11:01,060 --> 01:11:06,520
We do we have can pushing the energy to my knowledge but we basically have I think three

815
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:14,380
of we have we have one major aquifer which is on the coast and that has been a ground that's been the main water source for a lot

816
01:11:14,380 --> 01:11:20,620
of our coastal cities. And also is I mean water source for a couple of large industrial legacy

817
01:11:20,620 --> 01:11:27,700
industrial users. Basically that aquifer takes a long time to replenish and we've been

818
01:11:27,700 --> 01:11:32,660
sucking that aquifer dry. So it's been something that's well known policy issue and concern

819
01:11:32,660 --> 01:11:37,880
for several years. We have parts of our state that are sinking just as sea level is rising

820
01:11:37,880 --> 01:11:43,680
because of of taking water out of that aquifer. So that aquifer is very well understood and has

821
01:11:43,680 --> 01:11:51,160
researched a lot, just because it's so well used by urban areas and because the effects that we're

822
01:11:51,160 --> 01:11:57,120
seeing are draining that aquifer. The other aquifers are much smaller and regional, so we have

823
01:11:57,120 --> 01:12:04,320
this topography, carcesterography, where you might have a pocket here, a pocket aquifer here,

824
01:12:04,380 --> 01:12:11,180
another pocket one over there, but it's really only the eastern part of this data has that big aquifer

825
01:12:11,180 --> 01:12:19,120
that is sort of a giant thing that's sort of affects many areas. I don't know if that means for

826
01:12:19,120 --> 01:12:21,920
your question. No, I appreciate that. Thank you.

827
01:12:28,150 --> 01:12:29,250
It's the last finding here,

828
01:12:29,310 --> 01:12:34,390
data center impacts, work quality, native habitat and agricultural lands. Those impacts are

829
01:12:34,390 --> 01:12:40,090
pretty similar to other large-scale developments. So development of produce and undeveloped areas,

830
01:12:40,210 --> 01:12:44,290
as you all know, that creates environmental risks, new development can destroy natural habitat.

831
01:12:44,290 --> 01:12:48,810
can reduce the amount of land that's available for agriculture. So depending on how

832
01:12:48,810 --> 01:12:52,710
development it's done, it can also have other environmental repercussions such as

833
01:12:52,710 --> 01:12:57,250
increased flooding, erosion, or water pollution. These are all environmental risks that apply

834
01:12:57,250 --> 01:13:03,890
to any greenfield development. So that one could data centers just as would include any large

835
01:13:03,890 --> 01:13:10,290
commercial industrial development or even a high-density residential development. And a lot of the

836
01:13:10,290 --> 01:13:12,190
where we have data centers being built.

837
01:13:12,470 --> 01:13:14,190
We also see a lot of high residential,

838
01:13:14,790 --> 01:13:16,570
high-density residential development,

839
01:13:16,930 --> 01:13:20,290
like townhouses, picture of massive townhouses with

840
01:13:20,290 --> 01:13:21,370
big parking lots.

841
01:13:22,010 --> 01:13:23,950
In all these cases you have clearing,

842
01:13:24,830 --> 01:13:24,850
grading,

843
01:13:25,770 --> 01:13:28,190
an installation of a pervious surfaces like rooftops

844
01:13:28,190 --> 01:13:30,190
and parking lots that basically forever

845
01:13:30,190 --> 01:13:32,350
changes that like end.

846
01:13:33,330 --> 01:13:35,770
So our research found that at least on the

847
01:13:35,770 --> 01:13:38,590
the water side that the state and federal

848
01:13:38,590 --> 01:13:47,110
regulations for new construction largely mitigate the risks to things like stormwater run off at wetland impacts on the landside again

849
01:13:47,110 --> 01:13:53,170
You're you're for ever changing that land through development whether that's data center or some other are high-dense to be used

850
01:13:53,870 --> 01:13:58,530
And the loss of those lands is sort of trade off when you do development of all types

851
01:13:58,530 --> 01:14:04,810
So again, does apply for data centers, especially seeing as in some parts of the state that is the main development pressure

852
01:14:04,810 --> 01:14:09,990
But also, it's not unique today, so there's this kind of a thing that happens when you develop wind.

853
01:14:11,330 --> 01:14:20,350
And in Virginia, again, I'm not sure I will scan some words, but our localities have traditionally had, and it's still do have all the authority over land use decisions.

854
01:14:25,900 --> 01:14:31,080
I have a couple more slides on the economic tax and energy stuff, but I realize I will over my time here.

855
01:14:36,130 --> 01:14:38,950
Well, we got about 10 minutes.

856
01:14:39,870 --> 01:14:50,750
So, I can go on on your insights while we have you here, so go ahead.

857
01:14:51,110 --> 01:14:52,770
All right.

858
01:14:53,490 --> 01:14:59,970
So, on the economics side, in the tax side, in Virginia, the industry has had positive effect.

859
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:29,980
On both economics and local tax revenues. So economically, mostly benefits occurred during construction. So again, these are massive construction projects. And they can have up to 1500 workers on site during peak construction. And those jobs are in well-playing blue-collar jobs, construction trades, so electricians, pipe fitters, steel workers. After a facility is built, a few jobs remain. So again, most of the impact is happening during construction, because that's when the most people are employed to work on that.

860
01:15:30,000 --> 01:15:35,060
on that site. We asked me that for a hyper scale facility, after it gets built, there's around

861
01:15:35,060 --> 01:15:41,340
50 people per facility. Those jobs are pretty easily split along sort of your IT professionals

862
01:15:41,340 --> 01:15:45,560
and building management professionals, which is what you might expect. But there are also a lot

863
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:51,840
still a lot of contract trade workers. So there's miles of pipes and electrical wiring in these buildings.

864
01:15:52,440 --> 01:15:57,300
So there's basically a full-time team of electricians and the pipe fitters who are working

865
01:15:57,300 --> 01:16:02,420
facilities after they've built. And of course I also have contract security which is probably the

866
01:16:02,420 --> 01:16:09,360
lowest wage of those different jobs that are created. Data centers can be a cash cow for

867
01:16:09,360 --> 01:16:15,940
a locality and that's because they can generate revenues but they're not sending a lot of kids

868
01:16:15,940 --> 01:16:21,040
to schools, they're not aside from the construction period, they're not putting a lot of cars on the

869
01:16:21,940 --> 01:16:27,880
So it's more or more on say a net positive when it comes to the revenue that really depends on the where

870
01:16:27,880 --> 01:16:35,460
locality decides to tax it. So in Virginia we've seen some of our localities get a really kind of a

871
01:16:35,460 --> 01:16:40,020
enormous amount of money from these facilities we're talking 10 to 30 percent of their budgets come from

872
01:16:40,020 --> 01:16:44,840
data center revenues. In other cases we've seen localities are trying to attract data centers and they're

873
01:16:44,840 --> 01:16:50,800
cutting their local tax rates. Well if you do that then you don't really get the tax revenue benefits

874
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:54,400
You're just getting whatever the amount of jobs that it's going to create create

875
01:16:56,860 --> 01:16:58,200
an energy-side.

876
01:16:58,320 --> 01:17:01,460
The internet growth is driving an enormous increase in energy demand.

877
01:17:01,860 --> 01:17:06,540
This is more pronounced than Virginia than anywhere else, but you can really see this ticking up pretty much across the board.

878
01:17:07,860 --> 01:17:14,080
To look at this graphic, those top lines are showing the very top lines showing our unconstrained demand projection.

879
01:17:15,180 --> 01:17:21,860
The other, the solid line, kind of about halfway down that showing, you know, what if only half of that unconstrained demand shows up?

880
01:17:21,860 --> 01:17:25,620
and then the bottom line is showing what if there was no new data center demand.

881
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:30,900
The takeaway here is that if unconstrained demand happens and we can meet it,

882
01:17:30,980 --> 01:17:34,360
we're talking about tripling the amount of energy that's consumed in the state.

883
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:38,580
Only half that shows up, we're still doubling the amount of energy that's consumed in the state.

884
01:17:39,140 --> 01:17:45,040
By 2040, if we had no new data center demand, demand would not be going up or be fairly

885
01:17:45,040 --> 01:17:50,320
going up at all. So most of this this demand growth is coming from that industry.

886
01:17:50,980 --> 01:17:56,540
I want to reiterate this is what could happen because, you know, one that demand might not show up.

887
01:17:56,560 --> 01:18:01,740
It may be AI is a bit of a bubble and a lot of what is projected doesn't happen.

888
01:18:02,540 --> 01:18:08,080
To even if that demand is there, you till these still have to be able to meet it, right?

889
01:18:09,020 --> 01:18:18,140
To that effect, meeting this unconstrained demand would be also moonshot scenario in terms of building enough generation enough transmission

890
01:18:18,140 --> 01:18:22,160
and importing enough energy to keep up with demand.

891
01:18:23,020 --> 01:18:26,160
So that scenario one, the unconstrained demand scenario

892
01:18:26,160 --> 01:18:32,140
through that really highest line, that's going to be really, really hard

893
01:18:32,140 --> 01:18:34,460
if not possible to do.

894
01:18:35,500 --> 01:18:38,240
Maybe more realistically, that half of unconstrained demand,

895
01:18:38,500 --> 01:18:40,120
maybe we're able to meet half of that.

896
01:18:40,220 --> 01:18:43,120
We're still talking enormous investments in generation,

897
01:18:43,500 --> 01:18:44,740
transmission, and ported energy.

898
01:18:44,740 --> 01:18:50,160
So even that, keeping up with the man to go under that half-demand scenario is going to be really

899
01:18:50,160 --> 01:18:58,380
hard to do for our state. This obviously has some cost implications that the cost come from a

900
01:18:58,380 --> 01:19:04,900
couple of areas. One is the big one is obvious is that you're building a lot of new stuff.

901
01:19:04,960 --> 01:19:09,660
You're building a lot of new generation. You're building a lot of new transmission. So historically

902
01:19:09,660 --> 01:19:15,060
adding a new customer would actually reduce every way's rates but in how we're talking about building

903
01:19:15,060 --> 01:19:20,520
a bunch of stuff for a small group of customers, which would not otherwise be built.

904
01:19:21,700 --> 01:19:25,120
That then creates more costs in the system that would not otherwise have occurred.

905
01:19:25,700 --> 01:19:31,100
And so everybody's piece of a cost-by could get a little bigger unless we change how those costs

906
01:19:31,100 --> 01:19:37,760
get allocated out. The other challenges and this will be built I think pretty much everywhere is that

907
01:19:37,760 --> 01:19:43,680
If you have a supply demand problem, if demand is higher than supply, what happens, prices

908
01:19:43,680 --> 01:19:48,180
go up, and that's about effect all energy users, and that's something that's really hard

909
01:19:49,600 --> 01:19:54,800
to deal with those costs, and only assign those to people who are increasing costs on

910
01:19:54,800 --> 01:20:00,300
the system, because they're, you know, how can you say, you'd have to price things differently,

911
01:20:00,300 --> 01:20:01,540
It just gets really complicated.

912
01:20:05,070 --> 01:20:11,090
And yeah, so I covered the energy piece a lot quicker than normally do, but how we take

913
01:20:11,090 --> 01:20:16,750
questions on that or anything else that you guys have, here's my contact information as well,

914
01:20:16,890 --> 01:20:19,350
and I'll send you guys a copy of the slides after we're off.

915
01:20:21,050 --> 01:20:25,070
Mark, I have one question. If I may, this is kind of a two part question.

916
01:20:25,930 --> 01:20:30,850
From our experience around here, we've seen data centers come in with proposals that are

917
01:20:30,850 --> 01:20:36,450
hundreds of thousands of acres, more than what they really need to have.

918
01:20:36,650 --> 01:20:41,510
Have you seen in Virginia where they're using any potential excess land for other types

919
01:20:41,510 --> 01:20:42,170
of development?

920
01:20:43,530 --> 01:20:47,930
And the second part of that question is, Oregon had you seen just the opposite where maybe

921
01:20:47,930 --> 01:20:53,210
it's stifling economic development where companies don't want to be next to a data center.

922
01:20:55,130 --> 01:21:00,830
So on to that second one first, I think that we've seen the effect on other development

923
01:21:00,830 --> 01:21:03,530
And it's really a competition for land.

924
01:21:05,550 --> 01:21:11,070
It's hard to outbid the deep pockets that a lot of these data center developers have.

925
01:21:11,650 --> 01:21:14,190
And so what we've seen is the competition for land.

926
01:21:14,950 --> 01:21:18,290
And again, this isn't something we've been able to prove empirically, but anecdotally what

927
01:21:18,290 --> 01:21:22,650
we've heard is that competition for land because I'm a developer, maybe I'm not going

928
01:21:22,650 --> 01:21:27,670
to build a commercial mixed use development or a residential development because I can't

929
01:21:27,670 --> 01:21:33,830
to pay however much that is per acre that is being offered by the data center industry.

930
01:21:35,830 --> 01:21:41,390
And on the first question, and I think that was, you know, an access land,

931
01:21:42,450 --> 01:21:48,550
we haven't really heard that we have heard about data centers putting in for more energy

932
01:21:48,550 --> 01:21:54,850
than they actually need or more water than they actually end up planning, end up using.

933
01:21:56,130 --> 01:22:00,230
So it maybe makes sense then I think that would be putting it from more land.

934
01:22:01,350 --> 01:22:06,210
One thing that I would question about that is that they might just be trying to buy all

935
01:22:06,210 --> 01:22:10,510
the land for a campus and they're only going to plan to develop one part of it at a time.

936
01:22:11,290 --> 01:22:18,590
So maybe I want to eventually say I'm a developer and I want to have a 2,000 acre

937
01:22:18,590 --> 01:22:24,450
data center campus. I might buy all that land, but then my first development, I'm only developing,

938
01:22:24,450 --> 01:22:29,630
you know, a quarter of it, so I've got three buildings going. And I might not have my development

939
01:22:29,630 --> 01:22:36,690
plans for the rest of it yet. So that would be my guess is they're more likely planning to build

940
01:22:36,690 --> 01:22:41,470
stuff in the future, but they just haven't put it forward. But again, I'm just speculating at this point.

941
01:22:41,470 --> 01:22:43,350
Okay, thank you.

942
01:22:45,090 --> 01:22:46,450
Yeah, they're questions.

943
01:22:47,210 --> 01:22:47,650
Something.

944
01:22:48,950 --> 01:22:51,670
Have you had any of these go bankrupt or be abandoned?

945
01:22:51,750 --> 01:22:55,070
Or not least as fast as they think they will.

946
01:22:55,410 --> 01:22:57,070
And so they have financial issues.

947
01:22:57,190 --> 01:23:00,390
And if so, how have you dealt with that?

948
01:23:01,350 --> 01:23:02,750
We have not seen that yet.

949
01:23:03,270 --> 01:23:06,210
I think I heard anecdotally that happened with a crypto

950
01:23:06,850 --> 01:23:14,130
day center somewhere in crypto. We don't have crypto in Virginia. I think those are a little more

951
01:23:14,130 --> 01:23:21,370
fly by night. I think that's a very valid concern. A lot of the industry is being bankrolled by

952
01:23:21,370 --> 01:23:28,290
the big four, so even though it's data center company, data center developer X, they may already

953
01:23:28,290 --> 01:23:36,030
have a contract and hand to build that facility for one of the big four. The financial

954
01:23:36,030 --> 01:23:39,510
back and should be there, but, you know, you never know, things are going to play out, maybe

955
01:23:39,510 --> 01:23:43,890
some of these AI bets don't play out, and some of the data centers that need it, right

956
01:23:43,890 --> 01:23:51,630
now, the demand though, far outstrips the supply, so if a data center failed, somebody would

957
01:23:51,630 --> 01:23:56,930
pick it up immediately, because if they have a contract to get, if they have a function facility

958
01:23:56,930 --> 01:24:02,530
that has power, some of it will snap it up right away, that's really been the main constraint

959
01:24:02,530 --> 01:24:08,030
on the industry is access to power, I think in Virginia especially but maybe other places as well.

960
01:24:09,190 --> 01:24:13,930
In Northern Virginia where you have this high concentration, we've had projects

961
01:24:13,930 --> 01:24:18,630
I've been waiting years to get full power because there's not enough transmission capacity to

962
01:24:18,630 --> 01:24:25,890
serve them. So that has been the main thing. It's more demand has exceeded supply. So that has

963
01:24:25,890 --> 01:24:29,390
you know, an empty facility has a minute of concern yet.

964
01:24:29,590 --> 01:24:37,970
Are you asking the data centers to help pay for the power that there, that was your question, go ahead.

965
01:24:38,230 --> 01:24:38,890
You take it.

966
01:24:40,030 --> 01:24:44,650
Is the data center covering the full cost of the increased cost for production for the energy,

967
01:24:44,810 --> 01:24:48,170
or are they passing on to the other consumers as well?

968
01:24:49,650 --> 01:24:55,510
The answer is right now those costs are being passed on to other consumers in a way.

969
01:24:55,510 --> 01:25:03,370
So, on the, there's three parts of the system, distribution, which is the local level, there's transmission and a new generation.

970
01:25:04,310 --> 01:25:20,290
On the distribution costs, at least in Virginia, they are fully covering those costs because they're, you know, there's a substation and then the either the, the electric co-op or big investor own utility or big monopoly is basically making pay for the cost of that because they're building it.

971
01:25:20,990 --> 01:25:26,870
It's still the utilities property, but they're willing to serve that facility, so they're paying the full cost of the substation.

972
01:25:27,470 --> 01:25:33,570
However, on the transmission side, that is something that's originally set past their costs.

973
01:25:34,110 --> 01:25:43,930
Generation, depending on your utility, is either being bought from a market or it's being paid for by the monopoly utility.

974
01:25:43,930 --> 01:25:52,830
And those costs have historically the way they are allocated gets spread across everyone.

975
01:25:53,850 --> 01:25:53,870
Right?

976
01:25:53,870 --> 01:25:58,230
So if you're building new generation or transmission, that costs that get spread across everyone.

977
01:25:58,870 --> 01:26:04,790
The issue here is in our building new generation and transmission that will not otherwise be built for these small number of customers.

978
01:26:05,790 --> 01:26:11,850
And so if those costs continue to be spread across everyone, all of our residential and commercial bills are all going to go up.

979
01:26:11,850 --> 01:26:38,110
So, one of the things we'd recommend in our report that our utilities and our utility regulator do is look at one create a new customer class that you can park these high load facilities in to look at how costs for transmission and generation are being allocated and make sure that that customer class is paying for the cost that is occurring.

980
01:26:39,110 --> 01:26:42,050
So both of those things are currently underway.

981
01:26:42,930 --> 01:26:47,250
Our utilities are mainly utility created a customer class last year, and in their next

982
01:26:47,250 --> 01:26:53,210
rate case, they are supposed to be looking at how to allocate costs to that customer class,

983
01:26:53,970 --> 01:26:56,790
to avoid having those go to residential customers.

984
01:26:58,450 --> 01:27:01,190
And on our electric co-ops, they're basically just passing through.

985
01:27:01,370 --> 01:27:03,270
So they're pretty well insulated their customers.

986
01:27:03,270 --> 01:27:05,910
because we have, for the big, for pay utility,

987
01:27:06,070 --> 01:27:07,730
and then we have these little electrical co-ops,

988
01:27:07,870 --> 01:27:09,390
which used to be real co-ops,

989
01:27:09,490 --> 01:27:11,710
but are now serving data centers

990
01:27:11,710 --> 01:27:13,950
and are actually pretty big themselves.

991
01:27:15,270 --> 01:27:17,010
The one thing that was that prices,

992
01:27:17,210 --> 01:27:18,730
as long as supply exceeds demand,

993
01:27:18,810 --> 01:27:19,990
you're going to have those price increases,

994
01:27:20,110 --> 01:27:22,630
there's really no way to insulate against that effectively.

995
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:28,500
Hey, anyone else, questions?

996
01:27:30,520 --> 01:27:35,200
All right, Mark, we really appreciate you.

997
01:27:35,200 --> 01:27:43,180
taking time to walk us through through a sort of a summary of

998
01:27:43,180 --> 01:27:51,500
a real report and insights on this really big topic, so thank you very

999
01:27:51,500 --> 01:27:56,640
much. Thank you if anybody has a vacation property in Bayfield that you're

1000
01:27:56,640 --> 01:27:58,960
You're not cheap for a night, let me know.

1001
01:28:01,280 --> 01:28:01,760
Enjoy.

1002
01:28:02,280 --> 01:28:03,900
It's beautiful up there.

1003
01:28:04,540 --> 01:28:08,220
I myself haven't paddled around the dining and kayaking

1004
01:28:08,220 --> 01:28:11,440
around the island, but I've camped out there.

1005
01:28:11,580 --> 01:28:12,240
It's great.

1006
01:28:12,760 --> 01:28:14,340
So I'll bring your foul weather gear.

1007
01:28:16,640 --> 01:28:18,360
I'm going to tell the radio club net.

1008
01:28:18,480 --> 01:28:19,660
Yeah, that's the next.

1009
01:28:20,820 --> 01:28:20,840
Yeah.

1010
01:28:21,740 --> 01:28:23,140
OK, I'll appreciate it.

1011
01:28:23,200 --> 01:28:23,860
OK, thank you.

1012
01:28:23,860 --> 01:28:24,240
Take care, Mario.

1013
01:28:24,440 --> 01:28:24,820
Thank you.

1014
01:28:25,740 --> 01:28:25,860
Thank you.

1015
01:28:26,920 --> 01:28:35,000
All right, well, we're running right up against our time, and I'm actually due to another meeting.

1016
01:28:36,440 --> 01:28:48,860
So I'd like to ask everybody if there's items from this presentation, questions that are raised recommendations,

1017
01:28:48,860 --> 01:29:04,660
or suggested those would be things that, if you would maybe email staff, your thoughts or just itemize list of things that we can add to the list of follow-up items, appreciate that.

1018
01:29:04,660 --> 01:29:13,240
So any conversation, discussion is a result of presentation.

1019
01:29:13,800 --> 01:29:20,600
We want to run through very quickly, otherwise we can adjourn and save it for another week.

1020
01:29:20,720 --> 01:29:21,760
But I just have one.

1021
01:29:21,760 --> 01:29:27,680
I want to go back to your opening statement about proposing a moratorium in Dane County.

1022
01:29:28,520 --> 01:29:33,980
Obviously, the city's and villages association will want to see what that resolution looks like.

1023
01:29:33,980 --> 01:29:41,820
see if it impacts our members or not, I understand that you're reasoning for what I always worry

1024
01:29:41,820 --> 01:29:48,760
about the unintended consequences that it may stifle economic development within Dain County itself,

1025
01:29:49,220 --> 01:29:56,320
if companies looking to locate here are hearing about a moratorium, a fully different issue.

1026
01:29:56,320 --> 01:29:59,720
So just keep that in mind if you would.

1027
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:05,460
As you're drafting the resolution that be very specific about what it's for.

1028
01:30:05,560 --> 01:30:06,380
For sure.

1029
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:12,980
We'll have that as well as the length of time.

1030
01:30:13,600 --> 01:30:16,440
Maybe hold on some of the opportunity.

1031
01:30:17,540 --> 01:30:28,240
As far as the impact to cities and villages, this will only impact, we'll be limited to towns.

1032
01:30:28,240 --> 01:30:31,880
I'm in corporate areas that are subject to county zoning.

1033
01:30:33,880 --> 01:30:36,360
This morning, if I don't green counties,

1034
01:30:36,740 --> 01:30:38,040
considering it's similar or torturing.

1035
01:30:39,280 --> 01:30:39,820
So, spreading.

1036
01:30:42,240 --> 01:30:43,680
All right.

1037
01:30:44,340 --> 01:30:44,760
All right.

1038
01:30:45,600 --> 01:30:49,260
Then if there's another discussion,

1039
01:30:50,860 --> 01:30:53,860
again, email those thoughts for anybody.

1040
01:30:54,440 --> 01:30:55,400
So moved.

1041
01:30:55,400 --> 01:30:56,460
with my password.

1042
01:30:56,740 --> 01:30:57,480
Second registered.

1043
01:30:57,760 --> 01:31:00,220
So I can buy Richardson on favor of adjournment say aye.

1044
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:00,520
Aye.

1045
01:31:01,040 --> 01:31:02,960
Those, for adjourn, thank you all.