Maine nearly became the first state to ban data centers

Maine shows how public mobilization is making a difference in determining where data centers go, and how they impact local communities.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:20Flora Lichtman?

  Hey there. This is Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday. Data centers have been a hot topic in Maine this week. These centers, which are increasingly needed to support the AI industry, are controversial. They use a lot of power and water, and they can drive up electricity costs. The state's House and Senate passed an 18-month moratorium on data center construction. It would have been the first statewide ban, but Maine's governor, Janet Mills, vetoed the plan citing concerns about jobs. Here to break it all down is Pete Maguire, climate reporter at Maine Public Radio. Thanks for being here.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Glad to be here. Thank you.

• 0:58Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, so what were the details of this data center ban that was passed by Maine's legislature?

• 1:05Speaker 02

  So what they had proposed was an 18-month pause on all data center construction above 20 megawatts and the development of this coordinating council full of experts and government officials and utilities and other interested parties that would kind of come up with rules of the road and regulations for developing these facilities in the future.

• 1:27Flora Lichtman?

  So Maine's governor vetoed this. Do we know why?

• 1:31Speaker 02

  One of the main sticking points for the governor was this project in Jay that it's a town really near her hometown. You know, it's a place that she knows really well, and local officials there were kind of embracing this $550 million project that would bring in jobs and some economic development and rehabilitate, or reuse, rather, an old paper mill that closed down a few years ago. This is an area that's kind of been economically struggling since then. That was a big blow to the economy in the region, and people see this as a way to inject some money, some tax revenue, and potentially some jobs into the area. The governor found this to be a really sticking point.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  She asked for an exemption to the bill for this project specifically that didn't make it, and that was a big part of her decision making, I would imagine.

• 2:21Flora Lichtman?

  How did the legislation originate?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  It originated with this council firstly, and then it kind of morphed into a moratorium. Data centers have not been an issue in Maine. It just happened, maybe in the last six months, that these projects started popping up. And legislators kind of thought, well, even though electricity is really expensive in Maine, we have a cooler climate. Some people say that's really good for data centers. It saves on cooling costs and things like that. But let's get ahead of this, because we've seen what's happened in the rest of the country. And we've seen how upset people are getting about this and how data centers can influence increasing electric bills and the environmental concerns you mentioned about them. So let's get ahead of this. Make sure they're done properly when they come here.

• 3:08Flora Lichtman?

  So it originated with this council, but what about Mainers themselves? Has there been vocal opposition from the citizens of Maine?

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, in two cases. In one case, this development came forward as kind of a fully fledged package with a tax break. This was in the city of Lewiston. And it kind of got plunked on the desk of the city council. And people were really, really upset. And there was almost immediate backlash. And the city council immediately voted unanimously to cancel that project. Another one in a smaller coastal town. People didn't know about it until they found out through some filings that the town council was doing about this. So people feel like these are being developed in secret. They don't know about them until it's too late. And that has really increased opposition to data centers in the state.

• 3:59Flora Lichtman?

  Is there opposition to this ban?

• 4:02Speaker 02

  There is. Most Republicans in the state legislature voted against this with the idea, the argument being Maine has enough regulations. There are ways that we could regulate these facilities without having a moratorium. We don't need this council to make new rules specific to these. And because there are places in the state that could maybe benefit from smaller data centers, places that need some economic development, could do with the tax base, and whatever, you know, small jobs might be wrought there.

• 4:30Flora Lichtman?

  Why do you think Maine is out front on this?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  I think, like I said before, part of it has to do with the fact that we're last. This hasn't been a boom, you know? I mean, this hasn't been boom times like it has been in Northern Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Arizona, places like that, you know, where this has been going on for years and now we're kind of seeing the backlash. I think people who are in favor of this moratorium are saying, we have a chance here to get out in front of this and not end up like places where this has gone wrong.

• 5:01Flora Lichtman?

  Pete McGuire, climate reporter at Maine Public Radio. Thanks for filling us in today.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Absolutely, my pleasure.

• 5:07Flora Lichtman?

  Maine isn't the only state grappling with data center construction.

• 5:16Flora Lichtman?

  There are heated conversations happening in legislatures and community meetings across the country, like that clip you just heard from Franklin County, Missouri. But is community pushback stopping data center expansion? And how will that shape the future of this technology? Joining me to talk about that is Lauren Keeler, an associate professor and director of the Just Energy Transition Center at Arizona State University. Lauren, thanks for being here.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 5:44Flora Lichtman?

  Outside of Maine, where are we seeing pushback from communities?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Well, I'm here in Arizona, and we've seen organized opposition, you know, most prominently to Project Blue in Tucson. There have been opposition to data centers proposed in Louisiana. You know, Virginia is where we've got a very large cluster, but we're even seeing opposition there, oppositions mounted in Illinois. There's really been a push to expand data center infrastructure nationwide in response to expanding use of AI. And as that expansion continues, opposition grows.

• 6:21Flora Lichtman?

  And what's driving the opposition?

• 6:24Speaker 03

  I think most of the opposition is directly related to these very large, very energy and resource-intensive infrastructure projects right next door to people's homes. I think- Folks are rightly not convinced that the presence of data centers in your community directly benefits community members, and they're aware of some of the negative impacts now that data centers have grown in their quantity and people are talking about it. So they can be noisy, they're very large, folks are concerned about their utility rates going up. All of those are giving people pause and, you know, inviting the question, why would we want this?

• 7:07Flora Lichtman?

  The argument that's sometimes made is that data centers bring jobs. Is that true?

• 7:14Speaker 03

  Not directly. So the greatest jobs associated with data centers is going to be in their construction. For a very large data center, you could see 1,000 jobs associated with the construction of data centers. But when that data center is done being constructed and it's in operation, you're going to have dozens of jobs, maybe 100. And so the jobs are not commensurate with the resource impact. And that's why we really encourage communities that are interested in hosting data centers to go the extra mile and ask for additional benefits from those data centers.

• 7:50Flora Lichtman?

  Such as?

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Data centers can do revenue sharing. So communities could ask for a percentage of the profits to be paid into a fund that goes directly to public works or to education so that as data centers are financially successful, the communities next to them are financially successful as well. I also think safeguards against environmental pollution, overuse of water resources, the price of energy going up, all of those can be provisions that are built into an agreement with data center operators that protect neighboring communities.

• 8:27Flora Lichtman?

  You know, with data center legislation popping up in different places, where are data centers ending up? Like, do you think this is an equity issue?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Legislation is fragmented, right? It's not, we're not seeing federal legislation. And so data center operators are really interested in getting up and running. And so they're going to go to places where it is easier to get a data center. And so you are seeing impacts of organized opposition on where data centers are being located. Data centers right now, you know, we have clusters in areas that have previously hosted them where there's been a need. So you have a cluster in Virginia that supports the defense industry. You have a cluster in the Northwest that supports the tech industry, the aerospace industry around Seattle. Increasingly, we have a cluster here in Arizona that's supporting chip manufacturing.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  But yes, the, the lack of a federal legislation creates geographic fragmentation and puts the burden on communities to advocate for themselves when a data center operator is looking to locate there.

• 9:39Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm. You know, you've done a lot of work on the green energy transition. How does the pushback around data centers compare to wind farms or solar farms?

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's a sense of not in my backyard. I think that is parallel. But one of the things that, you know, I think is similar, you know, we've seen in Arizona, for example, a moratorium on solar development in the western part of the state. And what we heard from communities that lived there was, hey, you're taking out this big swath of desert and you're sending the power to LA and Phoenix. Where's the benefit for us? Right? So what communities are asking with these data centers is, hey, listen, this isn't because of my phone and my use. This is because of, you know, AI use by some company.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Where's the benefit for me when I have to live next door to this huge, hot, loud facility?

• 10:35Flora Lichtman?

  Are there ripple effects from data center construction beyond the sort of immediate effects of, you know, sound or electricity prices going up? Like, do they require a whole new power plants to power them?

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the greatest impact is going to be on the electricity system. Here in Arizona, the demand queue for new power to be added to our energy system over the next 10 years is as large as, as much power as they have added to the energy system in the last 50.

• 11:06Flora Lichtman?

  Wow.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  So.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  None of that can be met without new generation. So I think one of the risks associated with data centers is this rapid expansion of electricity infrastructure, new power plants, new transmission, and the cost of that getting passed on to your average utility customer. And so it's really important that utilities make provisions and work with data centers so that it's those data centers that are paying for the cost of that infrastructure expansion. That's not the default.

• 11:41Flora Lichtman?

  Do you feel like there's a way to do this right for communities and data centers to coexist?

• 11:46Speaker 03

  I do think that. I also think not every community is right for a data center. You know, if you have really scarce water resources, if it's really hard to develop renewable energy that can power these data centers, if you're in a place that has environmental hazards, maybe data centers aren't right. But I do think that for certain communities, you can develop data centers in a way that provides direct benefit to the people that are adjacent to those facilities.

• 12:18Flora Lichtman?

  Lauren Keeler, an associate professor and director of the Just Energy Transition Center at Arizona State University. Lauren, thanks for coming on today.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Thanks so much for having me and having this conversation.

• 12:29Flora Lichtman?

  This episode was produced by Kathleen Davis. We'll catch you next time. I'm Flora Lichtman.