Charlotte looking to extend data center moratorium | Hour 3

All right, so let's revisit... The whole data center discussion. Killing us all. Okay. Because the city of Charlotte apparently is going to be. Probably extending its moratorium. I am shocked. Yeah. Shocking. Totally surprised. Okay, I'm going to reiterate what I have been saying from the very beginning of the moratorium discussion, which is that if the city of Charlotte wishes to implement a data center moratorium in order to construct a regulatory framework in order to then, you know, end or lift the moratorium and proceed with data center construction, but under that new regulatory framework, then I am okay with a moratorium. If, however, the moratorium is just the window dressing or the camel's nose under the tent, if you will, if that's what it is, in order to effect a ban, then I oppose it. And my concern is that we are seeing option B starting. To play out. Now, I don't know this. I don't even know no, you know, like a Candace Owens knows. I'm not saying I know this. I'm just concerned that this looks like it could be a step in the direction of a ban, which would be stupid, okay? So this from the Charlotte Observer by Nick Sullivan. Charlotte will hold a public hearing, um, This month, October 12th, the city council will decide whether to extend the citywide moratorium on new data center development and to extend it into 2027. So this would add on to what we had 150 days. So that would be, let me see. I'm going to do some math here. Carry the 12. That's like five months. And so now you're going to extend it into 2027. They don't say how long. They don't give a deadline on this. Oh, sorry. They do. Because it's set to expire November 5th. They want to extend it an additional 11 months. So now you're at a year and a half of no data center construction. You need another 11 months? Why? Why? Do you realize, like, how fast the technology is advancing? 11 months on top of five. A year and a half. Like, by the time you write these rules, they're probably going to be obsolete. Yeah, so the council passed the 150-day moratorium back in June, and it lasts through October 11th. Charlotte is among dozens of jurisdictions across the state that have passed such moratoria, moratoriums, moratoriae, moratoriae. Anyway, the moratorium allowed staff to study the issue and consider what policy changes Charlotte can make to regulate the facilities within the bounds of state law. Data centers are currently allowed by right, which means you don't need any kind of specific... Permits or zoning approval or anything like that means by right, you have the property, it's zoned a certain way, you're allowed to build it, okay? So there are currently eight zoning districts where you have the ability to build a data. Center by right. So they don't require city approval in those eight zoning districts. The moratorium, a zoning district would be like, and I know these are outdated names, but like used to be R4. That was the standard default residential four units per acre in Charlotte. So you could put four houses on one acre, each of a quarter acre, right? And if you wanted to deviate from that, you would have to get a variance. You'd have to get city zoning approval, right? But if you wanted to just build four units per acre, then you could buy right. That's a district, basically, a zoning classification, right? The moratorium temporarily prevents developers from starting any new projects, but data centers already in the works can still proceed. Council members occasionally raised concerns, going back to 2023, about their lack of oversight, but city staff has not conducted any sweeping policy review until now. The city has spent much of the moratorium getting up to speed on the issue through research. And meetings with experts. In August. Charlotte established a 19-person task force to take a closer look at the issue and help craft recommendations. Staff told the council they needed more time, though, to consult experts and meet with external companies. The city would also create different standards for the different types and scales of data centers, which is, I think, appropriate, right, because there are all sorts of different kinds of data centers. People, when they say data center, one of the first things I always do when I'm in a discussion about data centers is to ask them, like, what is your definition of this term? What are you thinking about when you say data center? And most people, if they are opposed to data centers, most people are thinking the, you know, 200 acre massive, what they call hyperscale facilities. They're thinking these massive facilities. However, there are all sorts of smaller data centers. Charlotte's got dozens of them all around the city. You wouldn't even know it's a data center. So now they're looking at a 11 month additional moratorium. And like I said, I don't know if this is their, their attempt to put in place a ban, but let's see whether we got a city council election next November. And so that seems like this issue would be coming to the council right before the election, but after the primary. So I'm sure that's got nothing to do with anything. And I'm sure they won't ask for another extension on the moratorium to get them through the election cycle. Sure, that won't happen. Then there is this from Amazon's CEO. of Amazon Web Services, Matt Garman. And he rolled out today in a post at aboutamazon.com, Amazon's approach to data centers, community-focused, sustainable, and efficient. He starts off by talking about the infrastructure improvements that were made in America post-World War II, the need for national transportation infrastructure. A system of interconnected highways, bridges, and roads was critical for national defense and would also provide much-needed economic prosperity following the war. So they began the interstate system, right? The build-out of the modern transportation system transformed the U.S. and our way of life, creating countless new businesses and jobs, connecting communities in ways that reshaped how Americans lived and worked. Now, it also put some businesses out of business, right, that were located along highways that now were obsolete because there was another interstate running that was much faster, so people wouldn't... those old highways, right? So there were victims, if you will, of that progress. He goes on to say, AI will power the next generation of businesses, hospitals, schools, and other critical public services, as well as critical defense systems, intelligence analysis, cyber defense, and satellite operations. This is one of the big things for me is on the AI front is cyber defense. because you've got other countries that are going to be using AI to attack us. So we need AI to defend ourselves. The holidays will be here before you know it, and so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives, memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations. Create-A-Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now. They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. You're gathered around the holiday table with your loved ones, watching all these memories and people of your lives. You're sharing laughs, maybe some tears, telling stories that make your family uniquely yours. Beat the holiday rush and get your memories in now. Go to createavideo.com or visit them in Mint Hill just off I-485. Your photos and videos are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit createavideo.com. John on the text line says, Love your show, Pete. Regarding the data centers, do the companies looking to develop them ever come before these governing bodies and present the plans? that show that it's a closed water system, that they provide their own power, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, debunk the scare tactics employed by those against the data centers. I think they're doing more of that, and that's what the Amazon Web Services CEO is doing in this piece as well. He outlines myths versus facts. Data centers are not taking all the water. They're not responsible for driving up the energy rates. They don't emit huge amounts of pollution, and communities don't get anything from data centers, right? And then he lists their commitment and he outlines what they will do when they build data centers and have been doing. And he goes through a whole list of these things like they no longer use non-disclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects. They host open houses in the communities. They do that sort of thing. I can tell you my own neighborhood is bringing in somebody via the HOA to– to talk about a data center. So like that's the, so they're doing more of this outreach now, but yes, in the past they did do non-disclosure agreements with local government officials that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And rightfully so I would submit. So like they finally, like a lot, I think a lot of these guys have now woken up to the fact that they have to engage in a way and fight back against the PR, uh, and the geopolitical enemies and, who are funding a lot of these anti-data center, quote-unquote grassroots groups, to try to get us to hamstring ourselves in the AI race. I think they realize now. It appears that they realize this now. All right, let me go over to Kirk. Hello, Kirk. Welcome to the show. Hey, Pete. This is Pam the Jam's favorite trucker, by the way. Ah, okay. I question, because my wife and her father's a retired college professor, so they're always poo-pooing all over the data centers. And like you, I don't know, so I don't really have an opinion yet. But you talk about how the data centers provide income for communities. How is this whole revenue thing generated? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Does that make any sense to that question? From the government side or the data center side? The data center, how are they generating revenue? So they draw... I will Google that for you. They generate revenue by... recurring fees. So they've got the ability to rent physical space, rent power, rent cooling to smaller clients. So like inside the data center, it's just basically racks of computers, right? Of compute power. Okay. So they have all these racks. And if you're a company that needs cloud storage or something. Um, Oh, I see. Okay. You can rent racks of space from them. And then, so on our side, on the consumer side, like for example, if you got Gmail, right. And you, uh, you got a. Google account and you take too many pictures and you send too many emails, then you fill up your, your cloud storage, right. Then Google will charge you additional fees, right? They're like, Hey, you can go to a bigger storage plan for, you know, five 99 a month or whatever it is. And then you get more cloud storage. So Google has its own data center cloud storage basically. And that's what they're, so you would be, you're paying them and you know, they own it themselves. They build their own. But if you have a, you know, a separate data center construction company, they build it and then they rent the rack space. So that's one way. Yeah. That's one way that they, They get their revenue, and apparently that gives them the highest margins. Then it says wholesale hyperscale leasing. They can lease large blocks of capacity to major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud under long-term contracts. And then they have specialized providers. They can monetize infrastructure by selling compute power directly. AI-optimized facilities can generate between $ 10 million to $ 60 million per megawatt annually, and that's a much higher rate. They can also maximize profits through electricity markups and participation in energy markets. If they're making their own energy, they can sell that, too. I see. So they're basically, uh, renting their compute capacity. Correct. To, uh, I gotcha. Yeah. Well, I drive a truck. So you think about all these questions and send an email while you're driving. Yeah. And then when you brought up the data center things, I'm trying right now not to run over puny little cars. Oh, that's, uh, that's probably for the best. Yeah. Kirk, I appreciate the call, buddy. Have a great weekend. Drive safe. You do the same. All right, buddy. Appreciate it. Um, With any change, says the Amazon guy, this is, what's his name, Matt Garman. With any change, there will be important questions raised, but there will be misinformation and outright lies as well. And in the age of social media, 24-7 news, myths take hold faster than ever before. In fact, this build-out is so important geopolitically. that there are widespread reports of various countries intentionally seeding misinformation in the U.S. about data centers to trick us into slowing down. Right now, there are over 100 data center moratoriums being considered across the country. Regarding the water, they're taking all the water. This is false. False. Data centers use very little water relative to other industries. For example, If you look at golf courses, almond farming, most other like manufacturing industries and such, U.S. golf courses use 200 times more water than all of Amazon's data centers. 200 times more. In other words, they use more water in two days than all of the Amazon data centers combined do in an entire year. In a recent study of major U.S. Industries that collectively account for about 50% of U.S. industrial GDP, data centers ranked the lowest in water withdrawals while delivering the highest economic value per gallon of water. Number two myth, data center providers drive up all of the, they're responsible for driving up the energy rates. This is, he says, misleading and convenient scapegoating. If you look across states that have large numbers of data centers, costs have gone up in some, like Illinois and New York, but they've gone down in some, like Indiana and Mississippi. And they've grown slower than the national average in places like Texas. Where energy rates are going up it's primarily because the grid is old and has not been invested in and expanded before all of this new demand arrived. He says, once we collectively build out the new capacity... of the data centers funded by the private sector, data centers are funded by the private sector. It should lead to flat or lower rates in the future for residents living in communities with these expanded grids, which we're already seeing in some States like Mississippi and Georgia and Indiana. He says, we work directly with utilities to understand the funds that are necessary to support our projects like new transmission lines, substations, other grid upgrades and, And then ensure that the revenue we provide to the utility is enough to pay for those requirements. So they're paying for the grid upgrades they need. And then there's the diesel generators. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, look how much they put out. It's terrible. Right. 99.9% of the time, those diesel generators are not running. They only come on like 10 hours a year for their required maintenance testing. They're only there if the data center loses power. And so nearly 100% of the year, they're not running. So they're not producing any kind of emissions. And even when they do, they use tier four emission controls. That is the cleanest EPA emission standard. Okay. So basically annual emissions, Emissions from an average data center equate to a single round-trip flight from Seattle to London. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. All right, so the Amazon Web Services guy with this big write-up about he did the myths versus facts about data centers, and then he also unveiled the Amazon Data Center Commitment. Okay, so this is sort of what they are promising on data centers. Number one, protecting and enhancing communities. And then he's got bullet points. To ensure our data centers don't raise electricity bills for people in the communities, we work with local utilities and regulators, policymakers, and grid operators to ensure that the energy prices we pay for our data centers are are sufficient to cover both the energy and infrastructure improvements that may be required. Number two, work with local officials to ensure our contributions to the local tax base are passed along to residents in the form of lower taxes and to improve schools, hospitals, fire and police departments, parks, roads, and other community services. And number three, We tailor our contributions to nonprofits and community organizations to address the needs that communities identify as most important to them, such as access to community college degrees, skills and job training, energy and water preservation, and affordability. In the second section, Jobs. And Economic Benefits, he talks about the creation of thousands of these skilled jobs. They pay nationally competitive wages. and they prioritize local hiring and procurement wherever possible. They don't use non-disclosure agreements anymore. They did in the past. They said they do not anymore. They share innovations in data-centered design, so this way others can use any efficiencies and improvements that they create. Number four, building and operating responsibly says we invest significantly in carbon-free energy. We have the most energy efficient data centers. We're committed to being water positive across all data centers by 2030, returning more water to communities than we use. And they are 75% of the way toward this goal. He said, we design our data center operations to at least meet local jurisdictional sound requirements at the perimeter of our site. So in other words, the sound that people, oh, I can hear it. I can hear the data center, you know. So they will meet every zoning requirement on sound buffering and all of that along the perimeters. We invest in energy grid and water system infrastructure upgrades that support the local communities. He says we use non-potable, in other words, non-drinkable, reclaimed water or brackish water in our facility design wherever possible. And we will publish our energy use, energy efficiency, water use, water efficiency and and the percentage of energy from carbon-free resources for the public to review on an annual basis. So, full transparency. He goes on to talk about their new community program, Built Together is the name of it. That includes education and workforce pathways. They're investing in free community college. and hands-on workforce training for residents of our data center communities. They're expanding their network of modular training centers, which offer free certification programs in skilled trades with direct pathways to employment at Amazon and our construction partners. They're also going to make available grants for energy efficiency upgrades to K-12 schools, community buildings like fire stations, police departments, as well as publicly owned buildings and single multifamily homeowners in the counties where we have data centers. This funding will help cover costs to install heat pumps, HVAC systems, insulation, water heaters, batteries, solar installations, and other improvements that aim to reduce monthly energy bills by 20 to 40% year after year. See, again, like, This is completely appropriate as a response. They should have been doing this, and some of them have. Some of these companies have been doing these things before, right? This, if you're hearing only the doom and gloom, the Armageddon type of talk in your Facebook feed or from your family and friends, right, there is far more to this issue. Than they're taking all the water, which isn't even true. All right, the pre-gaming segment every Friday here in the last segment of the program with Brett Winterbull, who is also going to be at the Talktoberfests. Yes. Do you know your day offhand? Do you know what date you're doing? I am. With TJ. It's going to be me and TJ, and I'm willing to do it at any time, any place, anywhere. That's it. Have you done any of the, I don't know what the equivalent of a photobomb would be? During a live stream? No. A raid or something? Like, you just, like, show up with a bunch of your people? No. You, like, roll into the... No, have you done that? No, I've not. No, I mean, sometimes... Like, in the past, I've joined. Mm-hmm. Really? Yeah. I've never. I've never done that. Really? I think. Because one year, we were doing it, I want to say, later in the evenings. I think so. Right? Yes. And so, I think one... And we were doing it during the weekdays. And so, I do a live stream on Wednesdays. So I finished my live stream and then I brought, I brought my people over. Did you say, let my people go? No. I said, bring my people here. Okay. Very good. Yeah. And then we just took over the, the, the chat box talking about what we had for dinner. No. Okay. Really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a popular topic on the live stream. For some reason, people like to talk about what they were making for dinner. Do you have a special meal that you eat when you're pre-gaming or getting ready for this or anything else? For the live stream? Yeah, yeah. I don't eat. I won't eat before a live stream. I try not to eat beforehand because you don't want to be doing the thing where you're suppressing the burps and stuff. Oh, yeah. Very true. That's good. It's one thing. I'll eat. Before I go on air here, cause it's, this is lunch hour. So like I'll, I'll eat at like 1115 for my lunch, but that's different on the radio. Cause I have a cough button and I can mute myself and you can't see me, but on a live stream, that's basically TV and you don't want. To be doing the, you know, like covering your mouth. That's always right. You can't hide it. You can't on TV. Absolutely. That's the worst part about TV. It's also like I had a, a journalism professor who told me the best part about TV is And he was a radio guy who then went to TV. So he did both. And he said, the best part about TV is you get to use pictures. You get to use video. Yeah. Right. To tell the story. You get to show people stuff. That's the best part about TV over radio. The worst part about TV is you have to use pictures. And it's, and it's true. That's a great, that's a great quote. So true. So, uh, I was talking a little, a little bit about the, um, The data center moratorium. Have you heard this? That Charlotte is now going to have a city of Charlotte going to have a public hearing in like a week or so. And they're looking to extend the moratorium, which is supposed to end on October 11th. And so now they want to extend the five month moratorium. By 11 more months. And that means that you would not be allowed to build the new, the new stuff. Okay. Right. If you're already under construction, you're all, you already got your permits and all that stuff. It's tech. I mean, it's illegal for the city to then block you from finishing your project. Right. So that's got some, you know, people mad at, at these data center projects that are already underway. Um, but my fear is that this is a step towards banning. Sure. You know, like definitely like, does it really take us now? What? Five months plus 11 months. Right. I mean, you add that together and you're at like 16 months. That's a lot of months. That's, It's like we're getting like a year and a half here. For sure. And so I said this at the beginning, like I don't like this idea of a moratorium if you're going to use it to try to ban the data centers. Right. Are you anti-data center? I guess I should ask you this. No. Okay. No, I am not anti-data center. Well, I wouldn't think you would be because you love America. I'm an American and I believe in that. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's... No doubt. There are... I understand that there are, you know, there are concerns. Luddites. Luddites. But my view on it is that those concerns are basically zoning, right? Like the concerns about, oh, I can hear the building. Right. It's making a hum or it's too close to my house. Is it really? I don't even know if that's true. It's not even true. I don't. It can't be true. I have not. Nobody's hearing it. Right. Like a transform of what you're hearing. Would you rather there be like a shipping company? Cause I like, I lived like, uh, when I was down in steel Creek and I lived probably a mile, no, probably two miles from some sort of a facility. Sure. And like in the, when the weather was nice for like four days out of the year, uh, it wasn't too hot and I would open, I would always want to open the windows. Right. When I go to sleep, we were on the second floor. Right. Although Christie was like, Oh, somebody can come up with a ladder. I'm like, If anybody is going to... That'd be kind of cool. I would just push the ladder over. Right. You would hear the ladder hit the window. It would wake us up, you know? So, but I would want to open the windows, get the fresh air in. Yep. But you'd open the windows and I could hear beep, beep, beep. Is that a truck machine or something? All the trucks, all the forklifts backing up as they're loading up. And this was a facility that's two miles away and I can hear that. That's wild. Right. So when I hear people talk about, oh, I don't want a data center nearby me, like, Well, like what exactly would you prefer instead? Because if this is like a zoning issue, if they're going to zone it for like some sort of like a multimodal transportation center, it's going to be the noise. There'd be way worse. Okay. So may I just say one quick thing very quickly? I guess so. Would you rather have the beep, beep, beep, or would you rather have the smell of the delicious chips that are That we used to have out here. That we used to get out here. We used to walk out of our studio and there was a potato chip plant next door. It would smell awesome. I loved it. Now we got, was it Legion? And they, they do barbecue. Yes. And you could smell the smoke and the fire. That's right. Oh, it's awesome. It's one of the best parts. All right. That's Brett Wintermore. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support. and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalinershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.