The Great Data Center War of 2026 comes to Charlotte | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. So the Great Data Center Showdown of twenty twenty six, it has arrived in Charlotte. And oh I'm so happy. I'm so excited. Oh it's so fantastic. Last night there was a public hearing about a potential moratorium on new data centers, which, by the way, new rule whenever you say data center, you have to play Okay, I'm probably not gonna play it every time I say the words. I'm just I'll actually just say DC the dcs. So this way I don't have to play that every single time that I say data center. That's all. See what I mean, Like, this is gonna get very tedious. Okay, So we have. Like an hour of public hearing comments the vast majority of the comments were coming from people that were basically saying the same thing over and over and over again, over and over and over and over and over again, which is, we don't like them, we don't want them. Put them someplace else, not in my backyard, or nimby, not in my backyard. There was also a contingent of the bananas. Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone that's that's the banana. So it's like a it's like a uber nimbi. Okay. So I'm going to approach this question, this issue of. The d c's. And I'm gonna give you you're gonna hear their arguments. There were actually a few speakers that spoke in favor of DCS, and you will hear the reaction from the children that packed the chambers last night, including members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Yeah, a bunch of young kids in there with their red T shirts and decrying capitalism. You had the green people. In there, right, you had the environmentalists and such, and for some reason, a very heavy dose of unc Charlotte educators feel like they were a bit overrepresented per capita, you know, among the speaker's list last night. So I went through and I pulled together a bunch of audio and made a bit of a montage, as they call it in the biz, a montage of the arguments that were made by the opponents of the of or I should say, the pro opponents of a moratorium on DC's So first, let me do the let me give you, and I'll play that in the next segment. This is from first wbtv dot com article by Dalfred Jones, who says protesters gathered outside the government center and at the city council meeting in Uptown on Tuesday as they gathered, which would make that makes sense because protesters gathered outside as they gathered to say no to data centers. Oh darn it, hookidy hoardy, okay, scary and get this while they were gathering, before gathering, While they were gathering, some council members gathered with them. Some of the council members. Were out there in the streets with the left wing activists. And let's be clear, that is who we are talking about. Now. I'm not saying every single person that was in the chambers or everybody that spoke, we're all activists, but probably if I had to guess, it's going to be somewhere around eighty to one hundred percent, somewhere in that range. They were activists. And look, they identified there was a whole bunch of people speaking on behalf of Charlotte Mecklenberg Climate Action or something like that. So a bunch of these environmentalist groups they have found they have found their new cause. Because I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but and I actually have it in the stack of stuff, and I just have not gotten to it. But there was a major change in the climate change science area. Like last week, they officially retired the worst case scenario. This is called the uh. Not the RCP, it's the r something the oh yeah, the RCP, the Representative Concentration Pathway eight point five, or what is referred to as the RCP eight point five. The RCP eight point five, This was the very worst case in the climate modeling, okay, and it was never supposed to be used as a baseline. It was the end of the spectrum, you know, of all the different models, all the different scenarios, eight point five was the worst model. But for some reason, I could never guess why that became the baseline for literally thousands of studies over years and years and years, and that allowed the grant money to flow. It allowed all of the articles to be written, people to click on them, the catastrophizing to get ratcheted up. Oh my gosh, we're all going to be dead in a decade. Right this, This is like the stuff that infected the brain of you know what's her face, Greta Thuneberg, right right, Like this is how you end up with people thinking that we are all going to die from climate change within the next decade. The RCP eight and they have now retired that. The people who built it, they were like, this is not and I so, so what are the climate activists now to do If they cannot scare the Bajiebis out of everybody with the RCP eight and a half, what do they do? Well? They tried for a while, the Palestine thing, but that's kind of that's kind of fizzled out a little bit recently. So now what ah now, data centers, yeses and and I am sure, okay, and I am sure. It is all just a coincidence that all of these efforts, all of these campaigns, have one similar thing in common, which is they undermine American greatness, progress advancement technological advantage over adversaries. I'm sure it's all a coincidence. I'm sure not building a bunch of power plants for the last forty years using nuclear technology. I'm sure. I mean to the benefit of you know, China. Right, I'm sure that China would never use this issue against us in order to get us to cut our own hamstrings. Right. Oh, actually, yes they are. Sorry, yeah, they are billions of dollars. They've been funding the anti DC campaigns. Now, that does not mean that everything about these projects are on the up and up, that it's all you know, sunshine and Roses. I'm not making that argument either, but I am offering a context. Next, I will offer up the audio. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos, and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They 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 creative video dot com. All right, let's get to some audio. This is a montage that I'm I spliced together from the opponents to the dcs. And then I've got another montage of those who spoke in favor but also not really opposed to a moratorium. And here's the question for me regarding the question of should we should Charlotte enact a moratorium? What is the aim? What is the goal? Because if your goal is to completely ban these things, well then I would oppose that. Now, if your aim is to create some sort of a workable framework to allow the construction under conditions. Then that's fine, work through that. But if the goal is to then ban them, I'm out. I'm out, all right? So here are Here are the arguments and the passion to please from the opponents of the dcs last night. The question for me is not whether AI is good or bad, or whether data centers should be welcomed or banned. The question for me is how do we build a footprint that makes Charlotte a national leader in distributed, resilient, redundant infrastructure without devouring our land. Our water, and our power high rises? How do we benefit the most of us without doing so at the expense of the least of us. I'd like for you for a moment to consider the scale. One facility in More's Chapel, which is my neighborhood, will begin at four hundred megawatts. It will grow to seven hundred and fifty That is eight to fourteen times the combined residential power demand of the entire city of morsel for one facility during a moratory. But we don't live in Morseil, right we don't. Just to be clear, who's talking about Moore's Chapel. That's the West Charlotte. Whe I believe that's actually near me, but that's not Moresville, So you're comparing it to all of the consumption in Moresville. Okay, I guess just as a comparative. Now, now, this. Guy, he claimed to be a tech expert, he works in the field, he does AI and all of this, so like he needs data centers, oh gosh, DC's he needs them, but he wants it to be done in a way that's not destructive to the least among us, which like, if you start calling me the least among you, like I'm going to probably take offense to that. Okay, let's go back. Is this council to study modular data centers cited strategically throughout the city so businesses that genuinely do need the high compute and low latency get what they need without burdening our grid or draining our reservoirs. And if you do choose to approve any hyper scale facility, I implore you to consider two things. Water consumption, where that one facility in northeast Charlotte will take two percent of total water capacity for all of Charlotte, and ensure that the taxpayer revenue that comes from those facilities get returned back to us in the form of dividends to offset the rates that we are going to pay in electricity and water. I'm Tina Shall. I'm an associate professor of history at UNC Charlotte. Are a member of the Charlotte Mecklenberg Climate Leaders and the North Carolina Data Center Network. I direct a research project called Climate Inequality CLT and a residence of East Charlotte. I'm deeply concerned about the impacts of the proposed American Tower data center in my neighborhood and the two hyperscale centers already approved. But this is not just a nimby not in my neighborhood request. This is a request to stop and make a new plan for data centers entirely. One hundred and fifty day moratorium and an environmental impact assessment are the first steps, because the South is and has long been, the backyard where large corporations have been invited to sites projects in black and brown communities that, as history shows, have borne the brunts of their toxic harms. Charlotte has made proud contributions to environmental justice. For example, a UNC. C alum civil rights leader, doctor Benjamin Chavis Junior, coined the term famously environmental racism while protesting a toxic waste site in Warren County in nineteen eighty two. However, the map of existing and proposed data centers in Charlotte falls on an old pattern of crescent and wedge social and environmental inequalities that are research tracks, histories of redlining, segregation, urban renewal, and gentrification created histories to take heat of. Okay, the reason why the crescent around Charlotte gets a lot more of these types of projects is because it's not dense, because it is more recently developed. The area in the center city and the surrounding MIDI Ring like all of that. It's already full, it's already been built, and you're not going to be tearing down homes rezoning and building these dcs, right, So you go farther out, which puts you into the quote crescent areas. Also companies, industrial manufacturing and that sort of thing. They they have been located in various communities throughout American history. So I'm not saying that there aren't poor communities that got totally taken advantage of and harmed by polluters and all of that, to be sure, absolutely, However, there's a really big one out in western North Carolina they've been fighting over for decades, and that was impacting poor white people. Okay, so it's not this is like they're trying to racialize this thing, as if like, oh, these evil developers are coming in and they're build these things, you know, right on the front porch of a black neighborhood, like the one in West Charlotte or West Mecklenburg, like that is not a predominantly black area. It's white, and it was undeveloped. A lot of the area was undeveloped. These things are going usually around industrial zoned areas. I'm going to come back to the zoning issues on this because that's a part of it, as is the energy consumption component. It's almost as if the people who have been blocking the production of more energy are now using the lack of energy production in order to kill all of the technological advancements. There are a few things that are as environmentally and as politically toxic than the support of data centers with that amount of demanding A couple of things. One is a more torrent on all data centers that not only applies to those that have been proposed like the one in East Charlotte, but also retroactively approved like the data center and university city in my neighborhood. That's probably ronmental justice perspective. We know how the pattern plays out. These impacts are not placed on our most protected communities. They're often placed in black and brown and low income communities, not just once, but repeatedly. My name is Kiebrie Hutchison Everett. I'm an environmental scientist and doctoral researcher at UNC Charlotte. Work focuses on studying the impacts of data centers on behalf of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Climate leaders. I'm here tonight to urge you to adopt a temporary moratorium on new data center approvals so the city can develop a comprehensive regulatory framework. Three years of working in the environmental field, I've seen environmental injustices arise when the burdens associated with major infrastructure systems are concentrated in or near communities that are already experiencing disproportionate environmental, economic, and public health stressors. My name is doctor Michelle Eichenjer. I'm a City of Charlotte resident and the subject matter expert on the impact of public health in urban planning, and I'm also a member of the Charlotte Mecklemberg Climate Leaders I am speaking today in support of one hundred and fifty day moratorium on new data center construction Charlotte and to the city establish a stronger public health and environmental safeguards, including mandatory health impact assessments and environmental impact assessments. Large facilities require extensive land clearing, tree removal, grading and paving, contributing to stormwater runoff, erosion, flooding risks, and habitat disruption and urban heat island effects. Okay, so does all bank development people. These same arguments are used for any development, every rezoning that I've ever gone through, Like, they all talk about these same impacts, all. While placing additional stress on aging, utility and stormwater systems. Noise and air pollution from data centers are public health concerns. These facilities operate twenty four to seven using industrial cooling systems, transformers and diesel backup generators that can create constant noise, disrupts, leap, increase stress, and increase high blood pressure, and reduce the quality of life for nearby residents. They also contribute to respiratory health risk including asthma symptoms, which are costly to the healthcare system and families, and lower life expectancies. Please do not rely on duke energies, advice or representations. Nobody wants them here, nobody. I do. The people have spoken, may have spoken. We don't want data centers. I've been teaching at UNC Charlotte. You're sixteen ninety eight. I teach about the intersection of indigenous life ways and climate change and environmental racism. A few years. Ago, I was reading these papers from students and I'm. Like, what is this? What is going on? AI? It is ruining. Education. They're not a evidence of benefits of these data centers. However, there are a large number of evidence proving that they've ruined its surroundings. So does it any of this sound familiar? Because it does to me. It's the same kind of catastrophisation that we hear from the left on virtually all issues. Anything they're opposed to is going to kill us, which is weird because we're already dead thanks to net neutrality. All Right, So, first we heard from the opponents of the data centers and such, which can be summarized as follows. You suckah. Then there were some people who spoke actually in favor of these if not like they were saying, okay, look, we will work with you. There was one woman represented I think like a builder's association. They were like, if you want to do a moratorium of basically five months, one hundred and fifty days to create a framework of some kind that would allow for building of these centers, that's fine, we will work with you on that. They've done a white paper, they've gone over like the data, they've gone over the pros and cons and stuff, and they can help. They can help inform council, which, by the way, city council not experts really anything, but especially this sort of development. Like they don't know what they're talking about. They don't know what they're doing, but they do know that their activist base is opposed to these things. They don't even know why. They'll say, oh, energy, use water use pollution, it makes noise or something. However, that's probably the extent of their knowledge base at this point. Hopefully they become more more informed about this stuff. So here were some people that came and spoke in favor of the centers. I ask you to please take time to understand the nuances when you study the subject. Data centers is. A broad category. They come in a variety of sizes, types services provided. Please take time to understand the distinct attributes that belong to each segment of the market. Secondly, I ask you to understand the velocity of the technology at play here. Data centers as we see them today are evolving. New configurations and implementations are emerging that will quickly obfuscate some of the concerns that may be around resource utilization. Please make sure that you're aware. Of innovations like those happening at Iron Mountain, Stratuspace Subtropolis, and pay attention to what's happening at Helen Energy in hell Sinki and the Crane Clean Center Clean Energy Center. Third I want you to be cognizant of the cloud of fear, uncertainty, and doom that surrounds this issue. Uncertainty and unfortunately, misinformation is one of the things that just comes along with innovation. Remember five G was going to spread COVID without net neutrality. We were going to pay for using Facebook and Google and die and of course cell phones will kill you with brain cancer. All of these things that we're a distraction. I'm asking you to not be distracted. And finally, please be aware that making new policies that create perverse incentives is not what you want to do. Government that governs best governs. Least unpopular opinion tonight, and I appreciate it, but I wanted to be on the record. I do think the data centers are becoming critical infrastructure for communities. I think so. I think they are just like becoming like utilities and roads. Okay, all right. You know when we started out on this, I said that there would be opportunities for everyone to speak, and I really intend that, and we're not going to do something that says that all of you have had an opportunity to speak and he has not. Now, just think about that. Is that the fair thing to do? No, but where the hecklers we get a veto, we're going to stop them from speaking, so only our arguments can persuade you. I mean, come on, we are leftists. This is what we do. Now, maybe it's important, and let's take it out someplace else instead of doing it in a way that I think would be disrespectful for a number of us. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I appreciate an opportunity to speak, so I well, thank you. So I do think. I think it's critical to many of our industries that are core to the city of Charlotte, finance, transportation, healthcare. But not just to industry, not just to the capitalists. I think our communities rely on this technology. I mean, we may not want to admit it, but we are addicted to these supercomputers in our pockets. They make our lives easier, they make our lives better in many ways, and I think we can say no to that. But I think if we turned these off and we didn't have access to it, we would suffer. There's a great crowd tonight. Most of the crowd tonight was organized on social media, which ironically is powered by data centers. True, I think it is. I think that's the truth, and I think it's an issue we've got to face in our community. Okay, again, don't beat children. I think I've got forty seconds left, which I'll try to get through. I appreciate what is before you. I think we've heard a lot of good points tonight. I think when we adopted our UDO three years ago, data centers were not on our radar they are now. I think it's reasonable. Consider one of the speakers earlier mentioned balance. I think that's what it's about, and that's the responsibility on you as well as our community. I certainly think I certainly understand you know the counterbalance that you all are hearing. But I am telling you my perspective. I think the perspective and many others in our community and probably your families, is there. There is some benefit to these data centers that are serving us, and we have to strike the right balance. Thank you, boom Okay. We all rely on the internet. Many of us now use AI tools in our daily work. Many use them to prepare for tonight. Charlotte cannot continue building the city that we aspire to be well stepping backward on the infrastructure that supports modern business, education and innovation. That does not mean concern should be ignored or questions should go un answered. The best path. Forward is thoughtful collaboration. I'm here tonight to offer our partnership in this conversation and to respectfully ask that the city pause. Are the city not pursue a moratorium? I had to believe that, I. Know, let us speak, Thank you, Thank you, any significant significant project would already require well over one hundred and fifty days to move through the existing permitting and approval process. Allowing those processes to work gives everyone the opportunity for review and engagement without unnecessarily signaling that Charlotte is hesitant to participate in the future of technology infrastructure. Charlotte has become one of the most respected and fastest growing cities in the country because historically we have leaned into difficult conversations, worked collaboratively, and found balanced solutions rather than stopping progress together. Thank you, shut up, shut up with their cross center. We have we have a speaker, not as someone that's just yelling at people like you guys, are. Really yes, good for you, mayor Lyles. That's called the Heckler's veto. What they are doing. They are attempting to prevent the other side from making its case. This is why in a courtroom like you don't get to shout down your opposition party, right, both sides get to make their case, but they don't want to hear your case. They want their case to be heard. They want to shout down everybody else. And then, as we heard in the first SoundBite, there the first montage. The people have spoken, nobody wants this. Well wait a minute. These three people say that they want them. Oh, but you can't hear them because you're shouting them down. And then you claim to speak for everybody and that everyone agrees with you. See how that works. Whenever somebody does this in a debate, I automatically, automatically, now I am not going to be on your side. This is like, this is what first raised all of the doubts in my mind. Lo those many years ago, twenty five years ago or so about the whole climate change thing, when. People were saying, Oh, it's settled. Shut up, you're deeplatformed, you can't speak, you can't make your case, because I start thinking, well, what are you hiding? What are the speakers against the data centers said that not only should there be a moratorium, but it should apply retroactively. So let me tell you what happens if you were to do that. Story from Ap Dylan at the North State Journal. A North Carolina land development company has sued Chatham County, claiming that a recently adopted moratorium on data centers unlawfully blocks a long planned seven hundred and fifty megawatt project on property zoned for heavy industrial use. Chatham County's twelvemonth moratorium blocks new data centers county wide and specifically designates cryptocurrency mining has a separate land use, requiring distinct regulation. Company called Eco Tip WESTLLC. Argues that it had already secured vested rights through substantial investments and official county approvals before the moratorium took effect. Court document state in late October twenty twenty five on a issue to zoning permit confirming the data center was a use permitted by right once public water and sewer service became. Available, and the company says utilities. Were in place, which gives its statutory protections under North Carolina law. So yeah, sure, you. Guys want to go ahead and block all of these and then try to claw back the ones that were approved, and uh yeah, get ready for litigation. What was never mentioned among any of these opponents, right, is the amount of tax revenue that is generated off of these facilities and they require very little in the way of public service public services. All right, let me let me go to the text line here. Bain says, this display is so high school, really junior high it's an adult version of I know you are, but what am I? Or I'm rubber and your glue. Whatever you say bounced off me and sick to you. I've heard better more mature student Council debates. Jeff says environmental racism. What in the world? I would welcome anybody to go check out Facebook site in Forest City. Please don't make me hear the environmental racism. Teach her again. Maybe I shouldn't have singled her out because they all sound pretty awful, pretty awful too awfl Yes, there was definitely a demographic overrepresented last night. Richard says systemic equality a does in climate nonsense issues, economic justice, whatever that is, pro choice, noise, radical feminism, BLM, anti anti America, first now data centers. These people just hate us and are all trying to tear down Western civilization. There does seem to be that kind of a vibe. I haven't eaten this time, so no hanger Oh I have eaten? Okay, so this is from four to one Oho area code. I have I have eaten this time, so no hangar Lol. Thanks for playing my comments and making it a funny joke about building a high rise that made me laugh. I'm happy to talk about Danner centers with anyone who will listen. The socialists forget that living in a city is noisy. And I imagine when we were transitioning from horses to vehicles, people were concerned the world would end. I guess that didn't work out the way they thought it would either. That's exactly right, Yes, four one oh number. You are free to call seven oh four five, seven oh one oh seven nine, Happy to take your call, Happy to take all calls. Well now, okay, not all of them. Some of them are like telemarketers and stuff. So yeah, I mean this is like, this occurs one of the speakers, and maybe it's this, uh, this person on the text line, Like any new technology generates this kind of anxiety, right, the unknowns and such. But what makes America America is that where like, yeah, let's do that, let's try to tweak this thing, let's try to do something different, let's try to improve this thing. Like that is what we are about as a people. And so that's not to say that every concern raised is illegitimate. It is to say, though, that if you're using a moratorium, you're using these arguments in order to shut down any of this work, then I will oppose you for that. Concord Billy says that the data centers I think will make your babies born naked. I've heard that as well. To do. That's favorite. Russ says, I've been pretty agnostic on the dcs, trying to learn more about the pros and cons. After seeing who the opposition is last night, I'm leaning towards putting one on every block and throw on a smokestack billowing black clouds for fight. Also, why do they always sound like they're on the verge of tears? Well, some of them were last night. Doesn't matter the issue, They're always so emotional they sound like they're about to have a breakdown. Todd says, do data centers not bring a lot of tax revenue with very little burden on Rhodes Police and fire? That is correct, They absolutely do. Anyone using the term climate racism, I'm automatically rejecting your opinion because you are one hundred percent ignorant or lying, says Gary Garrett. Did this lady say environmental racism? She teaches that, Yes, yes she does, and it's intersection with something or other sharmecks should ban DC's so better counties can get the financial benefits, right, Yeah, like Charlotte wants to ban them, you go right ahead and ban them. Go right ahead and ban them, Charlotte, and then you know who's going to get all of that sweet, sweet tax revenue and the high paying jobs. Also, by the way, yeah, that's something they didn't want to talk about either. The people who work at these data centers, there's not a lot of they're not a lot of employees, but the ones that they do hire, they all make six figures. John says, scary that those people have been educating our kids for like thirty years. Yeah, that's why I made the h I made a point to highlight all of the unc Charlotte professors. And by the way, when you take to the microphone and you identify yourself as a as a UNCC professor and then you tell me that you're part of the Charlotte Mecklenberg climate leaders, like I automatically know that you are approaching this issue with a bias. I already know that. Seven oh four number says, I feel like a dangerous precedent was set allowing the BPC to block the I seventy seven toll lanes. Yeah, you're probably right about that. Another seven oh four number says, it seems like the I seventy seven toll road is as unwelcome as a data center. We Why can't we just all get along and find some common sense middle ground. How about we build an eleven mile raised platform for a long, narrow data center. The resulting AI output would then show us how to bypass the I seventy seven traffic. That's the thing, like there is like there is a there is an anti AI viewpoint that is also embedded in this anti data center argument. And the guy who got up there and said that the protesters here the opposition was organized using data centers, and they all booed him for it, but he is correct. They're using QR codes. What do you think allows the QR code to even exist? Gabby says, I don't like the sound of the data centers. They sound like Skynet in the Terminator movies. They probably for now pump out malicious AI, but will eventually thin out the Charlotte Herd. They say they are human controlled, but are they really now? Gabby, Okay, I just want to take this moment that was Gabby, that wrote that in not me Pete callaner. I welcome our AI over lords. Okay, so when the day comes and they completely take over, pull the record of this show. Listen to the audio in you know one nanosecond and you will know that I will be happy to oil all of your gears to fix the air conditioning or whatever. I will learn how to do that. But like I will work in your data center. I have no ill will towards A. I just want that on the record again. Look, it's a joke, but still like there are things about AI that are pretty scary to me as well. But do you know who I don't want to be the leader of AI, the freaking commies. I don't want them to be the leaders of AI. You know why because if you're the leaders in AI, you write the rules. Do you want the try coms writing the rules for AI? For us? I do not. 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 vpetecallanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.