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Hello everyone.
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Welcome back to semi analysis weekly.
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I am joined this week by Maya and Rake from our data center energy and industrials team.
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We're going to talk everything about data center moratoriums, what they are, our methodology for tracking them, some examples of local and state ones, what are all the things that have to go wrong for them to actually be delayed, and then a few specific examples of how people are potentially circumventing them.
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Guys, welcome to the show.
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I'm excited for this one. Yeah.
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Thanks for uh thanks for having us.
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>> Happy to be here on my first podcast. >> Love it. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome, Maya.
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Okay, so very first uh upfront, Maya, could you take us through just a definition, what's a moratorium?
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It's kind of a politically charged topic that a lot of people are talking about right now. >> Yeah.
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So a data center moratorum is essentially a temporary legal pause that's usually enacted by a local government.
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Uh it can also be a state government and it generally halts approval, permitting and construction of new data centers.
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So almost everyone of these is a freeze on accepting new applications.
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So it doesn't affect existing data centers and these can last anywhere from months to a year and can be often revoked or replaced by new regulation and can also be extended.
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Um we've seen that moratoriums in the US are overwhelmingly local.
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So at the county, city, township level and but we've also seen that state level action um has started over the this past summer mostly through executive orders rather than legislation.
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Um and governments use them for I would say two main reasons.
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Um they use them because many zoning codes uh were written before anyone was considering those huge uh 100 plus megawatts to the multiple gigawatt uh facilities that are being built.
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Um and so a pause buys time to write data center specific rules and assess infrastructure needs.
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And it's also a quite lowcost way for elected officials to answer um local opposition. Um >> makes sense. Yeah. >> Yeah.
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So what how this piece came about is we we've all seen like in the headlines um over the past year especially in the summer um that US data center build out like it looked like it was coming under uh increasing pressure uh with one moratorium after another being announced uh and then several states taking action.
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action. first New York uh then Texas uh pausing the next step in the aircot uh interconnection queue um then Pennsylvania and Oregon which we touched upon on the in the article also taking measures but stopping uh short from an actual moratorum um and yeah also over the past year and
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a half so it's a quite recent phenomenon uh more than 300 uh towns cities, uh, local governments have voted to pause data centers and there's been a sharp acceleration over the summer with, um, as you can see in the chart in our article, the a visible peak in May, June of this year. >> So, it kind of looks like it's
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>> So, it kind of looks like it's declining.
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Do you think that there's a change in like the political tides or there's just you know you're running out of you know local to actually enact these moratoriums like what do you see?
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>> Uh yeah may I think it's a bit early to say um it could there could be a new peak uh so those track enacted moratoriums especially yeah in June there was a huge peak but you can see July is still quite high.
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Um so I wouldn't read into it.
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Um I think a lot of the moratoriums also that were adopted um late last year, early this year that were 6 months or slowly expiring.
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>> So what's the methodology generally that you are using to track these?
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like if you're having a 300 plus and there's I mean many more uh townships I guess or or cities to track around the country.
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How do you actually keep track of all of these? >> Yeah.
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So following all of these announcements where when moratoriums seemed like they they were popping up all across the US, um I I decided I wanted to understand actually how much capacity was actually at risk of delay.
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Uh because most people um it seemed to me were counting these moratoriums but were not mapping them onto uh the data center sites.
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Um so what I did is I started by building a data center mortorium database recorded I think 400 plus local instruments uh actions proposals oh we have a guest >> unannounced guest >> third continent has entered the podcast here we've got Jeremy calling in from where are you >> in Bangkok but sorry I don't want to interrupt You were you were saying Maya it seemed interesting.
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You were saying >> I was in the flow there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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So I I was talking about how I uh built the data center mortorium database tracking um over 400 uh local instruments across 17 states in the US and each one uh through the whole life cycle.
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So from proposed to either enacted or rejected uh also like expired, lifted etc.
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Uh I also included permanent bans and restrictions that were written into zoning codes because those constrain development the same way as a moratorium does just without an expiry date.
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And so once I had an overview of all of these moratoriums, I mapped it against uh our data center project pipeline uh which for the US is I think 3,500 um projects, not projects because it's by buildings but like entries.
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Um and I tested each active restriction against the relevant projects.
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Uh so for every instrument I verified whether the campus sat inside the jurisdiction.
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Um but that's actually not enough.
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You also need to check whether the developer still needs an approval if it hasn't secured it uh before the moratorum uh came into place.
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There's a bunch of other things which I can get into later.
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Um, but you really need many things to be true at the same time for for a project to actually be delayed um and for all of those factors to align at the same time.
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And that uh doesn't happen that often actually.
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Um um in practice actually at the local level that meant um passing two screens.
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So first looking at every campus in the model sitting inside a restricted jurisdiction um and that gave me about 77 campuses uh above 20 megawatt.
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So that was about 20 gigawatts in total.
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Um and then the second screen was looking at each of these 77 campuses individually.
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what type of moratorum the jurisdiction um they are planned in is uh does it legally reach the parcel or is there a carveout?
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Does the project already hold the zoning permits um and power or other thing that the moratorum gates and a bunch of other factors and in the end um 74 of the 77 fell out and only three remained. So that's um 7.
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6% of what is inside a restricted boundary.
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Um those projects were the AWS project in Ohio, a near commercial point, uh the North Point campus in Pennsylvania, and a core site uh expansion in Colorado.
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>> Okay, so let's take a step back.
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um high level is like there's hundreds of projects, thousands of individual buildings that you guys are tracking in the US.
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The result of all of this talk about moratoriums which there's what I think you're tracking said there's 300 plus total moratoriums across the US.
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I mean the >> that are enacted as we speak. >> Yeah.
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>> Um they're affecting three projects that you can find.
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>> All of this stuff on the chart is is actively affecting three projects. I mean Yeah.
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So that's >> yeah I can explain why why um well first of all most of those moratoriums um I think around I think I had it in the in the article around 80% of live restrictions have no uh capacity at all into it.
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So that means that those ordinances are overwhelmingly preemptive.
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So those are towns, cities that are legislating before a project exists um or after a campus is already approved. Makes sense.
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Okay, so we've got Jeremy calling in from Bangkok and I think he seems a little busy based on where he's sitting right now.
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But let's get his take high level on moratoriums and then uh the DC guy can can drop Jeremy like when you hear something like this like everywhere in the news mortoriiums is going on right now and then it's actually only affecting three projects by our tracking right now.
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Obviously that can change but do you are developers taking this seriously?
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Are people like how are people thinking through the political side of trying to build data centers right now?
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>> I think like many folks don't realize uh we're starting to get into a moment of over supply of early stage projects.
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And so um it really depends how you forecast how you think about forecasting some of these uh some of these future sites.
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Um we we don't call them delays because we think hey those those sites that maybe have been actually cancelled or or delayed or postponed or whatever.
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Uh those were never like uh projects that would have a material impact the way we forecast the market because they were already very speculative because we look at the permits because we look at the filings we got the physical evidence and there just wasn't enough.
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Um and so when those get delayed there's essentially not much impact in like the agree market forecast will say 2029 and there's plenty of other options in the reality and especially these days the one of the big takes of these moratoriums especially the the Greg Abbot letter in Texas is that hey there's a lot of push back if you connect to the grid and like risk increasing power prices for residents and so on and so forth.
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However, if you do offgrid and you bring your own power and you don't sort of interact at all with the system, then there's no risk whatsoever that power prices go up because of you.
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And so as such, it becomes an easier or more derised project um to go with behind the meter.
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And so this is in fact making behind me more attractive.
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And from a market perspective, what that means is that uh there's much more sites that are suitable to get these massive investments because there are many more options that have gas available that have plenty of land available that are in West Texas or whatever where you can do permits when you can burn that sort of amount of fuel without any issues.
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Um and so the number of options for developers materally rising.
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It's concentrating a lot in Texas to be clear.
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Um but grid connected sides are scarce and now increasingly risky whereas behind the meter sides are not scarce.
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You just have to get the equipment but getting everything in place is not that scarce.
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Uh and so those are actually becoming kind of premium despite their high number.
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Um and so that's why our forecast sort of isn't moving and we don't we're not worried currently about the trajectory of sort of the data center build out in the US.
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We would be worried if we start seeing uh really material like state level moratorium that is imposer check restrictions such as the one in New York.
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If that were to happen in Texas, for example, at that scale, blocking even off-grid projects, uh we would probably be you know, uh but for now, we're fine essentially.
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>> Or also any legislatively, if that's imposed moratorum at the >> Oh, >> Jeremy, my let my talk here, buddy, on the Oh, he dropped off. >> He left.
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Yeah, I was about to say if if a an actual um moratorum is passed through the legislature, that would be I think quite different from having a governor um enact an executive order that is revocable and that also can expire uh once the governor is voted out or something like that that it's it it's easier to yeah to revoke.
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Um but yeah, Jeremy touched upon the moratorum uh the aircot moratorium in Texas.
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Um I just wanted to um to finish with like the local mortoriiums.
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Um explain all of these factors that I mentioned that have to happen at the same time uh for a project to actually be be delayed.
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So first it has to obviously reach the parcel um and county moratoriums generally apply only to uninccorporated territory.
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So that means that a moratorum a county moratorum doesn't reach a uh project that forms part of a city.
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Um because a campus inside an incorporated city within that county is outside the the moratorum.
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Uh it also um has to be enacted and still in force.
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It has to overlap with the project's timeline and that's very important.
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The pro project the campus the data center project can't be uh too far ahead.
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So in like yeah early stage because many that were affected um many had the the affected approval approval in hand before the freeze even without shovels in the ground and they can't be too far out like a 3 to 6 months uh pause that expires years before a a project that's planned for 2028 or beyond.
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It also has to cover the use.
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So many instruments apply only above a certain megawatt uh or certain project size um or only crypto mining for example.
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Uh the project also still needs the affected approval.
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Um so for federal land federal approvals or other pre-existing rights uh those can provide a separate permitting pathway.
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Another is that the developer can't be able to redesign around it.
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So like change the size of the campus um uh the any configuration or like a power arrangement to to go around the the moratorum.
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The project um has to be still active.
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Also it can't be cancelled, withdrawn or delayed for another reason.
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Um and then no carve out um can apply.
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Um and then there's there's one prominent example that we touched upon in the note uh which is the carveout um for spa SpaceX in in te Texas which maybe Rake wants to touch upon. >> Yeah.
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Rake, what's your what's your man?
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Yeah, I mean I think um the SpaceX stuff is really interesting.
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is really interesting. like a good not counter example to how easy it is to get out of these moratoriums, but just one way of watching somebody kind of weasel out of it in a way, which was like SpaceX bought this plot in like
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South Texas that was part of the city of Brownsville's, you know, jurisdiction and they bought the plot and they were fighting for they were not fighting but like, you know, they were in the courous for a long time trying to be listen, let us get this plot. Let us do
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Let us do whatever we want with it.
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And they were in the midst of also talking about a moratorum beforehand and everything.
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And SpaceX's only kind of way out here was to basically force what was called, not force, but like really push for what's called a deanexation where it's like essentially removing this parcel from the jurisdiction's boundary.
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And this was like a whole ruckus in Brownsville, right?
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There was there was protests.
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People were in the courouses like talking like we don't want this to happen.
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Like why do we even need to do this?
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And everything was happening on a weekend, right?
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It was like I think it was like a Saturday or something and it was like a 6-hour town hall and everyone's like why are we even here?
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Why do they need to rush this so much?
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And SpaceX was like we don't you know we don't care.
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Like we need to get we need to deanex this property right now.
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And so they ended up going through after the 6-hour session.
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They deanexed the property and then Brownsville went ahead with the moratorum like a few days later.
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And so now technically that 444 acre parcel that SpaceX has is completely out of the jurisdiction.
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It's like back now into Cameron County's jurisdiction which does not have a moratorum.
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And so they're like safe.
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It's this really weird kind of I haven't at least I haven't seen this yet.
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It's like a very clever way to play on the moratorum game where it's like, "Oh, I'm not in your jurisdiction anymore. Like, you can't get me. You can't get me."
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And so now, so now now they're safe to like build whatever they want there.
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And uh some of our subscribers know what they're building there.
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But uh it'll be interesting to see how it goes. >> Yeah.
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This is 44 acres right near Starbase, right? In >> Yeah. Right next to Starbase. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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Yeah, I just wanted to say this is what I mentioned earlier.
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It's really important I think to make the the difference between um the county jurisdiction and the city jurisdiction because that matters a lot um because the city takes over is not part of a county moratorum.
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Uh so that will at the level uh individual project level that will matter a lot.
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Can you give examples of uh of some more differences between local and state moratoriums?
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Like when I see the map that just has a big red shade over Texas and says there's a statewide moratorum or you see some announcement in the news, it'll obviously seem like oh Texas going to stop data center building.
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But clearly there's a ton of projects that are going forward for all these reasons that you just explained.
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So maybe even going between state, local and the difference between county and city in some more detail on some given projects. >> Yeah.
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So we have to look at I think each uh moratorum individually especially the state ones uh because a lot of it is also um in our opinion political signaling especially with the upcoming November elections which I which I can also delve deeper into uh a bit later um looking at each uh state moratorum.
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Um, oh great, we have the, um, yeah, those are the, so the local moratoriums.
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Um, >> but just some examp, uh, some political posturing might be >> necessary for people who are trying to get elected in November.
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Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, these are the places that roughly have data centers today.
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You're not seeing a lot of places that don't have data centers go and take this seriously on a people perspective, right? >> Yeah.
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So here you can see the so the top four states um which account for for like roughly half of the local instruments uh in the US.
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So Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia.
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um the fact that um so first of all these cluster uh in the Midwest and and and the south of the of the US and this is mainly where the buildout has been the fastest um but the amount of local moratoriums being um adopted doesn't uh necessarily correlate or or lead to a state level moratorum.
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So in Michigan um there were 45 that were enact that are currently enacted.
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Um the majority of which was adopted in late last year um in 2026.
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Um, and the trigger of that was uh the data center tax exemption that the governor signed um in I think it was late 2024 and that set off a rush of proposals across the state yet we see no zero we see no pipeline exposure.
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Um so the largest projects keep moving forward.
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There's like and there's also like one thing I kind of want to highlight um which is like this is fairly cheap political signaling sometimes not to say that like this is you know the sole purpose of it maybe some of the you know politicians are trying to like you know repel data centers but very cheap
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political positioning because uh we actually included in the article like we administered a poll to the American electorate right whereas like okay we surveyed I some couple some sample of the American electorate and we asked all of our own questions about like AI and everybody's opinions on AI. We have like
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We have like a full data set outside of this.
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We're going to keep doing this through the election cycle most likely and probably afterward too.
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Like this is going to be more and more important as time goes on.
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But I think the most interesting thing was like um in some of the results of our data set you found that some people were actually net positive on AI while being net negative on data center or like in aggregate this was the case which was like very odd if you were kind
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of one of the people who thought you know data centers were this physical manifestation of like AI anxiety right where it's like I'm very afraid of AI like there's this big white box I can point to that kind of you know physicalizes my my problem with what's going on. No, right. Like it was just we No, right.
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Like it was just we don't really like that data center there.
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Like reasons cited were like I think number one was uh power and then the second one was water.
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And so like it didn't actually have to do much with AI.
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And so for the candidates running in these elections like this is a really good point to harp on, right?
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Like many many people are not happy with data centers and this is a nice touch point for everybody to kind of campaign on to be like oh look I'm I'm going to ban them you know like I just put out this moratorum it's not actually doing
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anything but like you know come on check it out like I'm I'm anti-data center just as much as you guys and so we do kind of like expect this to continue as well right like through election or through yeah through November and then maybe on I think on and after that. We're going to have to see how stuff
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We're going to have to see how stuff plays out, but um probably don't anticipate it slowing down too much or at least like not at least like on quote unquote second derivative.
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Um just not growing as fast.
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But yeah, it's it's going well for the politicians to do this, I guess, is my point.
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And they have incentives to keep doing this. >> Yeah.
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And with the ongoing AI doomsday scenarios um shaping broader public opinion, I I don't see this improving uh in the in the near term.
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Um and it's it's become, as you said, Rick, like a major um campaign issue. >> Yeah.
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>> And and it's cutting across party lines.
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both Republicans and Democrats um are coming out um as being anti-data center. >> Yeah.
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>> Even if they were previously pro data center >> as we've seen in like in Pennsylvania. >> Yeah.
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I mean this is clear political signaling I think in in this place.
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But maybe one of the most interesting specific examples of this is just how uninformed the electorate is in terms of what data centers actually are.
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like it's basically a gray building. It's not very loud.
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You know, it consumes a lot of power, but in your example, if you're bringing your own power, I don't know exactly what people have concerns with.
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Um, one example that I saw on X was when Steven Bibin, the CEO founder of Lambda, was talking about how he wants to just debunk misinformation about data centers.
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and somebody replied to him in the comments saying, "Oh, you'd never put a data center in my backyard. They're ugly.
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They detract from the landscape."
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He specifically says, "You wouldn't put it in this red area down here."
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And Stephen responds and says, "I believe this.
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I mean this in the nicest way, but that building in the bottom red is actually stream data centers Minneapolis 2 site."
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So, you actually live beside a data center already and you didn't realize it.
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That was a funny I saw the other I mean Yeah.
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I mean like driving past them too like if you go through like Virginia and like Ashurn where they have it like uh data center alley or whatever it just looks like a bunch of warehouses and like I don't know if if they're you know as we like discussed in a few articles already if they're genuinely using you know different cooling methods where it's like kind of zero water use or whatever the water consumption is not really a problem.
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Like even in the SpaceX agreement in by Starbase as well, they committed to like give back more water than they were going to consume, right?
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It's going to be like through some filtration processes, whatever it may be.
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Um power side is a different story obviously, but like I think a lot of hyperscalers are working to make this work or you just go behind the meter.
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Um but yeah, it's uh really topical right now and so I think it's just going to keep being topical.
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Maya, what's your take on the um >> I just want to add one thing to that.
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I think another sign that this is mainly political signaling is that um I think I mentioned that earlier that these executive actions bypass the legislature.
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Um so it installs a pause that those governors can can control and revoke and it denies the uh promoratorium camp a stronger regulatory or or permanent instrument regulatory um yeah a permanent instrument. >> Okay. Okay.
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So you you don't think that my view of moratoriums was they were like a framework to then be converted from temporary to full-time and maybe expanded in scope over time.
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But you think that there's potential these are temporary and controllable so that they can be removed or modified as is convenient for >> Yeah, they usually they usually last like 6 months a year.
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There were a few that were 18 18 months, but it's for the government to buy itself time to put in place uh zoning regulation, regulation that wasn't there uh before all of those data centers started to uh to pop up before the the project developers came to those local governments and asked them uh and and put forward a proposal to develop a data center. Makes sense.
29:55
So, can you maybe talk through what an affected developer might be thinking right now?
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Like you go through all the list and then there's three that are actually in the wrong county, the instrument is in place, the permitting that they have is is set up and they're like about to break ground or they're halfway through construction and they're being affected by this.
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Do you think that they're going to even in those small specific cases, do you think they're going to try to work through the political process or do you think they're going to cancel the project and take their ball and go home or go somewhere else?
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>> Well, for all of the developers that are about to break ground or that are under construction, they generally I mean they have their permits already, so they're not going to be affected by the moratorium.
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It's really important to stress that those moratoriums they only affect projects which don't have the their permits in hand.
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So like the New York uh moratorum it affects environmental permits.
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um the a lot of those local moratoriums, it's also environmental or permit uh building permits or zoning permits.
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So it's quite early stage.
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Um and I I if a developer is really um like time is an issue and they want to um have their their project on the ground as soon as possible.
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There are other ways to uh to go about this.
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they will perhaps uh develop somewhere else or um pull a SpaceX move or Yeah, there's there's ways to to go around this. Interesting.
31:45
How about the um the statewide stuff?
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So local mor moratoriums may be different to approach versus statewide ones which uh lead to delays as opposed to cancellations or you know legal posturing moving around maneuvering. >> Yeah.
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So they rarely they don't usually lead to cancellations because we we we don't view projects that are that are essentially canceled as cancellations because those are tend to be projects that are highly speculative uh and that that wouldn't have happened uh in the first place, right?
32:24
Um so for yeah perhaps we can go a bit more in depth in like the New York um moratorium and the Texas moratorium how they defer how they're also similar.
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Um so the New York one was the first ever uh statewide moratorum in the US.
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Um it was adopted in July.
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Um, and it pauses uh state environmental permits for new data centers of uh 50 megawatts or more um until um July 2027.
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Um and that gives uh this the state that gives the state of New York time to write a um what they call a generic environmental impact statement.
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uh and we find that it touches about 1.
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4 gigawatts of plant capacity uh all of which is 2028 or later and we think it actually delays uh roughly 800 meg megawatt of capacity um from 6 to 10 months.
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>> Yeah, that's so interesting.
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can see >> literally two years from now that we're talking about one and a half two years from now.
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I mean that's >> forever >> in the future >> in data center world. Right. >> Right. Right.
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And we see also that there's um I can go quickly over those um those projects that are delayed.
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Um, stream data centers is is um is is special because it's the only one that had an application that was pending when the moratorum um was enacted.
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Um while all the others hadn't uh submitted their environmental application yet, so they were in pre-application. >> Yeah, makes sense.
34:37
and specifically Terra Wolf in the green there.
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I mean, this is a public company, so they're claiming there's no changes right now.
34:44
Do you think that's um that's real or is this uh >> I mean, doable, right?
34:49
Um I think when looking at their I don't know there they kept moving the site back regardless.
34:58
Like I think it used to be late 2027 or early 2028 story.
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Now in like their investor docs, it's been 2029 for a bit.
35:06
And so I mean it's 2029, right?
35:06
Like that's that's a century away for me.
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Like uh I only I only know the next 12 to 18 months.
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Like anything anything beyond that is >> early stage or like fictional at this point. >> Yeah. Yeah.
35:21
They vibe coded or quadcoded data centers on a previous one.
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>> People just like a website and saying I have a data center.
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You should invest with me. Yeah. >> Yeah. And then I can Yeah.
35:34
By 2029, I can figure the whole thing out. Yeah.
35:39
Give me give me some give me a seed round and I'll do it for you. Yeah, >> exactly. Okay.
35:43
So, maybe um we talked about Texas a little bit earlier.
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Skipping that, you guys talked about Pennsylvania, Oregon, like other states that are posturing like they're going to have a statewide moratorium, but now they're they're not going to like what what does that look like? >> Yeah.
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So I think those cases are interesting and this is why we also uh talked about them in the note.
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Um essentially they both Pennsylvania and Oregon they were facing the same uh political uh public pressure and but they choose not to impose like a blanket pause.
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So in Pennsylvania, uh the governor the governor's um order is a conditional permitting regime.
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So it that essentially means that it slows unvetted projects, but it doesn't uh stop vetted ones.
36:43
Uh essentially what the order does is um I it it instructs the Department of Environmental Protection um not to take up uh a permit application until the developer has met um certain requirements um and secured local approval.
37:04
Um and it also pulls data center uh proposals out of the fasttrack permitting process and prohibits non-disclosure agreements for data center projects.
37:18
But it isn't a moratorum because this um um conditional permitting regime uh which is how they call it isn't a pause or a ban.
37:29
Um it's it's more what it does is that it lengthens and broadens the prepermit diligence.
37:40
Um and this has the greatest impact on speculative projects.
37:44
So serious um well- vetted projects still get through.
37:51
And then in Oregon, this one has even uh less consequences.
37:55
I would say it's the most recent one.
37:58
It was adopted like earlier this month.
38:00
Uh and there the governor paused data center projects on stateowned land for a year.
38:07
Um and this again has no impact on on our forecast.
38:16
Um >> control to uh to build a data center in the uh state state park up on uh I don't know.
38:25
I'm trying to think of they weren't proposing data centers by Canon Beach on the uh whatever Hat Rock or whatever it's called there. Making making a joke. Anyway, um yeah, sorry.
38:38
One one super interesting thing uh on the P Pennsylvania side.
38:40
You said use of of NDAs and data center projects.
38:45
Can you give an example like like it seems kind of crazy.
38:48
Can you give example of data center projects where they're putting what the the state under NDA or they're putting the local government under NDA or something? >> Yeah.
38:58
No, that actually happens a lot like many of the hyperscalers.
39:00
Um, I mean, we've seen uh that that that's how they all of a sudden that that that's how local um like uh people citizens find out about a data center very late in the process.
39:21
all of a sudden there's a huge data center in their backyard and that's uh when um anti- data data center um like community um organization organizations form uh because they weren't aware of um of this because the developer has signed an NDA with the with the local government.
39:48
>> So some of this stuff seems kind of sensible.
39:49
I think it's kind of silly to put city council members under NDA so they can't tell their citizens that they represent what's going on in the town. I don't know.
39:59
>> No, I that ends in a lot of lawsuits.
40:03
We've seen a lot of lawsuits on both sides. >> And I mean like Yeah.
40:08
Like I think we don't we don't want to say like you know all of it's political signaling or anything like Maya brought up earlier and it's a good point which is like a lot of these people or a lot of these governments are getting like blasted with data center applications and like may not know how to check these thoroughly.
40:24
They may not know how to verify if like the state or whatever has enough resources for the city the city the county whatever it may be.
40:30
The NDA thing is like quite common honestly.
40:36
Like I remember there's like also a project where AWS was in AWS has done it a few times.
40:41
I think like there's one in Ireland where they were found out to be behind a project and then everybody blew up and nobody was happy about that.
40:46
So it's like well you know maybe we can just be a little more transparent, right?
40:52
Like we don't have to we don't have to hide behind NDAs and we don't have to get all this kind of like political backlash.
40:57
We can kind of just be open about what's going on here.
40:59
like the data center is not burning through water like that.
41:03
It's probably not going to be annihilating your electricity prices.
41:07
Um should be okay, you know.
41:11
>> Yes, makes perfect sense, guys. >> Yeah.
41:14
>> Um can you talk a little bit about your experience like looking into the city council meeting minutes and you have any fun stories about uh local opposition to some of this stuff that you've seen? >> Tons. There's tons.
41:26
me and >> you guys are literally listening into some of these city council meetings, right?
41:32
Or at least I mean they have YouTube videos.
41:35
I mean they're on Instagram sometimes.
41:38
Sometimes I find very valuable information >> looking at like an Instagram reel or something. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's crazy.
41:46
>> It's crazy. And it's only there because the document is not published yet because often local governments uh governments in general just take like crazy amount of time to update uh their >> and sometimes too there sometimes
42:01
there's like also crazy alpha in these like little areas too like on like the right anti data center Facebook group you'll get the entire project layout and plan cuz it's like hosted in a closed town hall but they took a photo of every poster board and it's like like amazing. But no, I mean like going through the
42:18
But no, I mean like going through the counting minutes.
42:20
Yeah, you can go through some of these sessions and it's like >> I mean overwhelmingly what the what the vibe is is everybody hates these, right?
42:29
Like I I did not hear >> like really any citizens coming in there and obviously this is like the review bias thing where I'm only going to leave a review if I love it or if I hate it.
42:38
And so it's like everybody in that county minutes meeting or city minutes meeting is just viscerally against this project, right?
42:45
They're like, "No, it's like like we're not doing this to my city."
42:49
Like, you know, I had I've had a farm here for like a century and like yeah, that's kind of impressive that despite all of that, these things keep going through to be honest.
42:58
Like if I don't know like the push back is overwhelming sometimes. >> Yeah.
43:06
>> Yeah. Nim nimi is on the national political stage I think going on here actually Rick did have I told you the better acronym that my uncle told me uh with >> my uncle um rest in peace uh uncle Bruce he um he was like working on energy systems in Ontario and he was specifically working on some like
43:28
nuclear power plant that they were trying to move around and all this stuff and he ended up like you know going through all all these like sort of political processes and and dealing with people who opposed it and he started calling them bananas is instead of nimi not in my backyard. It
43:41
It was banana which is build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.
43:48
I think that's uh a lot of what what we've seen for people who are opposed to data centers right now like light industrial B buildings pretty quiet you know you are using them to post on your Facebook page your opposition to them >> um >> it's a good point right it's not like I
44:07
don't even like if I'm looking at these like county minutes meetings or like these people in these like uh meetings talking back or like pushing it back against these projects it's not like you should like you make it a little bit smaller or like you know you should give back to the community a little bit more. It's like not here like go somewhere
44:22
It's like not here like go somewhere else like I don't care where it is.
44:25
You can't do anything to change my mind here. You you need to go away.
44:29
And so yeah, I think banana banana is more applicable.
44:33
There's no like it it's not it's not because it's in my backyard.
44:38
It's because you can't do it here.
44:38
I don't want you to do it here. Like basically >> Yeah. Yeah.
44:41
And the developers are still trying to like woo the local population by coming out with those huge like community benefits packages, you know, building a school, building roads, um trying to like Yeah.
44:57
convince uh people um that a data center is a good thing. >> Yeah.
45:06
What you don't seem convinced that these care packages they give to everybody of all of this important infrastructure is actually going to work and changing anybody's mind. It's not working. >> Yeah.
45:16
I think they have to address the the concerns of the population like the environmental concerns, the um noise concerns at the root and not you know uh put put a bandage on it by by um by proposing all of those uh community benefits.
45:39
>> Yeah, >> that's my opinion.
45:41
>> I'm like I I think I'm I'm really curious to see how this will go.
45:43
I like there there have been projects in the past that have like done, you know, like good community work. Um it's not foreign.
45:51
It's actually like it's been somewhat common place for the hyperscalers to like oh you know we're like planting a million trees or like you know we're adding another water utility infrastructure piece to your guys' city or I think Amazon had like a beehive on a roof once. Um whatever that was.
46:08
But um >> really >> yeah, I'm pretty sure they like hosted a whole beehive on their roof and I was like I guess that works. Whatever.
46:14
Um but like this has been around for a while.
46:21
I just don't know if it's like I don't know if it's going to solve this problem with the opposition. I don't know what does.
46:26
So like I'm not trying to like play pol like armchair political analyst here or anything.
46:32
Guys, as we wrap here, for all the developers that are listening to this podcast, trying to figure out how to get their uh project through, give me your three-step plan that they should use to get the uh political opposition to chill out a bit.
46:44
I I I don't think I don't I don't my or Maya go ahead says give up my I would say first first if you have if you're a SpaceX and you have this kind of leverage and you can pull a maneuver like the the Brownsville uh deanexation that's uh I think that's becoming like part of the toolkit I mean that's been part of the toolkit for SpaceX from the start your own town right Yeah, >> sorry.
47:15
>> Create create your own town.
47:15
Yeah, >> create your own option number one. Okay.
47:19
What else can you do about it?
47:21
>> Uh well, I think as I said like um hear um the community's concerns.
47:27
Um and and >> yeah, >> to to all the developers out there, I think you just go somewhere else. either.
47:43
Okay, you either got to hard ball start your own town or you just got to come with some better vibes when you're putting these things up >> or maybe go in the middle of, you know, of Texas of nowhere in unincorporated uh county, you know, >> random random land. You got to be careful.
48:03
Two episodes ago, Nico came on and we were talking about the middle of nowhere and he said something about middle of nowhere Wisconsin and somebody got in our Spotify comments and said Wisconsin is not the middle of nowhere.
48:12
So >> I actually saying this I thought about that maybe some people in Texas will be mad if I >> let's be careful here.
48:21
Yeah, >> but um I mean mo most of the time a developer won't abandon a project completely um if it's not like relocation, redesign, uh trying to convince the local population uh or or even go they can also go the route of like litigation uh if they feel like they can win this way if the if for example a project is already underway um and then a new regulation comes into place uh we've seen that a lot as well.
49:04
Um but yeah overall like moratoriums they they tend to like relocate or reshape projects uh rather than lead to like a meaningful uh delay or or uh permanently stopping them.
49:21
Yeah, I think I think you just go somewhere else.
49:24
Yeah, I think >> middle of nowhere, Abalene, Texas.
49:27
Uh I'm going to I'm going to target some people now. Whoever's in Abalene.
49:34
>> Yeah, I'm saying that.
49:34
But >> uh >> I think another I I think another thing uh that might be important is trying to find uh byite land.
49:43
So land with like the existing approvals already in place, existing like entitlements um because they won't need the developers won't need to uh go through all those um those requirements.
50:02
Um so that's probably better than trying to develop uh on like a green field site that needs resoning. >> Yeah.
50:13
And I think maybe this is the strategy that you guys are saying the developers are already pursuing, but that Jeremy kind of referred to when he uh dropped in, which is like they're just starting a whole bunch of prospective projects.
50:25
They're trying to figure out what goes through.
50:26
Some are not going to get through and then the others that do, they're going to end up with enough uh to actually build what they need and you're going to get into a space where you have like an over supply of data center projects.
50:37
And for those out there who want to know when we get to that space, >> uh, subscribe to the model, >> should buy the research. Yeah. >> Yeah.
50:46
You should buy the model.
50:46
You would, you would know all of this and more.
50:49
You would have known it earlier. Yeah. >> Okay.
50:54
What uh do we miss anything?
50:54
Any anything closing comments you want to make?
51:00
>> I think maybe like Yeah.
51:00
Who just to reiterate what Jeremy said?
51:03
um like who benefits at the end of the day, especially in Texas or behind the meter developers and operators with uh power that is already secured.
51:15
Uh because the Texas audit only touches aircot uh Q projects.
51:22
So all of those like fully islanded campuses, those are outside of the scope.
51:27
Um also the yeah on-site generation and gas midstream.
51:32
Um, so yeah, turbines, gen sets, um, >> like any any folks >> any folks that are like kind of dealing with the OT uncertainty craziness and whatever.
51:46
Like you're probably going to see some people switching to just BTM cuz it's easier, right?
51:50
Like I I don't need to wait to be told that I'm not making batch zero, right?
51:53
I'm just going to go ahead and find a gas pipeline and call it a day.
51:58
Like it might be a little bit more expensive.
51:59
my timeline will probably be shorter and there'll be less of a hassle on the financing side.
52:02
So BTM probably gonna do pretty well because of these issues. Cool. Awesome guys.
52:14
Thanks for joining today. Learned a lot.
52:17
And uh for everybody out there once again you sub subscribe to the data center energy industrials model said these fine books that we have explaining all the things about mortorium today can work for you. >> Perfect. Perfect.
52:33
>> It's great to be here. >> Good to Yeah. Good to be here. Always a pleasure. Jordan, >> nice job. One under your belt.
52:38
Now you got to you got to you got to come back and join when Rake's not here so that you can uh beat him.
52:44
We can start stacking more this guy. Yeah. >> Okay. Next week. >> Next week. >> Leaving me.
52:53
>> You got another article next week. What are you doing? >> We Sorry.
52:57
Are you speaking to me or >> you got another article coming next week?
53:01
We're going to talk about next week. Mortorium's round two.
53:05
>> Yeah, I've got some more like policy regulatory things coming up.
53:10
>> We've got we've got we got nothing newsletter pipeline, but we've got uh we're cooking some crazy political stuff. I think is the goal. Okay, guys. I got to jump.
53:18
But, um, yeah, been a been a pleasure. >> This was awesome. Nice job, Maya. Nice job, Rick.