I Live 400 Yards From Mark Zuckerberg’s Massive Data Center

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: this is cold water pressure in the kitchen this is where I fill up water for storage those are the things we have to fill up to flush the toilets so you can [00:00:14] Speaker 2: see the sediment from the data center Wow and that's just from the water coming [00:00:20] Speaker 1: out of your faucet yeah and this is what's in all the pipes just the well [00:00:25] Speaker 3: itself is probably 20,000 and that's not counting into all the replacement of [00:00:31] Speaker 1: the fixtures and pockets toilets and the lines that come underneath the house it's overwhelming because you you really feel like you are up against this huge wall that you can't penetrate there's nothing that that you can do and they don't care [00:00:52] Speaker 2: I'm here in Mansfield Georgia driving by Meta's new 2 million square foot data center facility facilities like this are being used to power things like chat GBT and other AI tools that are becoming integrated into our daily life data centers gonna be a very hot item this entire supercomputer is built to power rock we see data centers as the most exciting asset class that is building a [00:01:19] Speaker 3: two gigawatt plus data center that is so large it would cover a significant part of [00:01:25] Speaker 2: Manhattan but data centers come with big costs from light noise pollution to the environmental impacts to the potential rising costs of energy bills these facilities put extraordinary demand on the power grid and require entirely new infrastructure [00:01:46] Speaker 4: oh my god they should be responsible for that not us search the internet for profits that Meta has made Amazon Microsoft they can afford to pay for their own generation [00:01:58] Speaker 2: we came to Georgia to ask two questions what's the true cost of the AI revolution and who should be paying for it your house is here and the data center is right there it's less than 400 yards Beverly and Jeff Morris bought their home and hours drive from downtown Atlanta in 2016 but their roots in the community run much deeper being in the country has [00:02:25] Speaker 1: always just been my peace and my therapy when we found this place we decided that this [00:02:32] Speaker 2: was it it was perfect I was actually raised probably five miles from here felt like coming home the data center that's now the Morris is next-door neighbor happens to be owned by Meta the company you know for Facebook and Instagram but has also been breaking into artificial intelligence they started construction on this data center campus in 2018 [00:02:53] Speaker 1: definitely changed everything they destroyed the environment taken down all the trees across the [00:02:59] Speaker 3: road beautiful pines beautiful forest the light pollution is we don't have to have a nightlight in the house you can walk around the house at night and see everything except pride [00:03:13] Speaker 1: this is a video of the dust from Facebook where the construction was what it looks like right now on my front door the wind blowing in all of this stuff from across the construction across the road this is all from Meta yeah I was standing on my front porch I think eventually that affected our well water we're on a well here and we started having issues with our well in 2018 I have to replace the hot water heater I've replaced two washing machines and a dishwasher because of the sediment that's coming in a lot of what the Morris's are facing is from [00:03:51] Speaker 2: the polluting effects of this massive construction but that's only one part of the story there are serious costs to communities once data centers are operational too to explain that we have to back up for a second I wouldn't blame you if you were asking yourself what the heck is a data center anyway their origins date back to early clunky supercomputers or mainframes in the 1950s and 60s and then in the 90s with the birth of the internet the modern data center was born as a way for internet providers to connect businesses and the world to the web in the 2010s data centers became larger as they became critical to new cloud storage to the cloud with the cloud we share sync folder that allows us to all work on the same documents everything from your pet photos to entire workplaces to files for video streaming like this video you're watching right now we're in the cloud today we are in the midst of a tectonic shift in processing needs [00:04:46] Speaker 4: as large as the birth of the internet artificial intelligence a transformational moment for data [00:04:52] Speaker 2: center demand but the thing is ai processing demands are much larger one report showed that a google search using a chat gbt like ai feature used 30 times as much power as a normal google search in the next three years data center use of electricity is expected to double or even triple and the state of georgia has the [00:05:13] Speaker 4: fastest data center growth in the entire country the two biggest reasons data centers come to georgia are that electricity rates for industrials which is the class that they're in are 42 below the national average and the second biggest one are data center tax breaks they received over 180 million dollars in [00:05:31] Speaker 2: tax breaks last year the week we were in georgia a showdown was happening at the state capitol over [00:05:37] Speaker 5: two bills tied to data centers senator hofsteller had proposed two different bills and one of them was sb34 which was the data centers bill to move the burden of the operational costs of data centers from rate payers to the data center themselves and what is sb94 that is the consumer utility council a legal advocate for rate payers and small businesses bills like these are the result of mounting residential [00:06:05] Speaker 2: anger and the work of dedicated advocates across the state like diana deets who lives 50 miles away from [00:06:11] Speaker 6: the capital in fayette county this is a huge industrial project plopped in a residential area this was the original plan 122 acres and then the development authority got involved in 2022 officials in fayette county [00:06:28] Speaker 2: voted to annex and rezone an additional 412 acres for a data center campus fayetteville's city council voted five to zero in favor of the development despite passionate opposition from some local residents the site was then purchased by qts which is owned by blackstone for 153.8 million dollars these [00:06:50] Speaker 6: speculators investors are secretly buying up land right next to homeowners and it was all done so that when we all went to the four public hearings between the county and the city it was a done deal this is the one that's currently under construction and this is where gene and joe are gene and joe marshall live [00:07:17] Speaker 2: on the edge of fayetteville in fayette county on an eight acre property this driveway is almost the line [00:07:24] Speaker 7: for fayette county versus fayetteville where qts is um property one quarter we have absolutely no say in [00:07:33] Speaker 2: anything that happens over here despite their vocal opposition to the project living next to construction on all sides of their home has become their daily reality for the last two years they do nightly pours [00:07:45] Speaker 7: over here and in the back part at the other building the lights are shining and there is noise two three o'clock in the morning four o'clock in the morning so they don't stop oh yeah sure we went to visit [00:07:59] Speaker 2: nikki vanderslice who heads up the fayette county economic development authority a non-governmental agency that played a central role in the marketing of the land for data center development for residents who live alongside these data centers life has become very difficult what do you say to them [00:08:17] Speaker 8: well i i say to them that there's a couple of things one we were very transparent the development authority was very open about attracting a data center and there wasn't any resistance until it [00:08:28] Speaker 2: came to their property specifically vanderslice says data centers are good for the community [00:08:34] Speaker 8: even if some don't see the benefits yet in 2021 that property paid 36 000 in property taxes total in 2024 on raw land it paid 1.13 million dollars in property taxes that contributed 760 000 to our local board of education i'm apologetic that they're being impacted but i also see the benefits of what the companies are doing and how they're how they're improving our economy and so there's the balance that when you have you know 200 out of 120 000 people that you have to balance what's what's the highest and best use for the whole of the community it's just the height of selfishness to imagine that [00:09:16] Speaker 4: one county's benefit to the huge detriment of 158 other counties in georgia that now have to pay higher electric bills is okay it's not okay it drives inequity it's very immoral too that's patty durand and as [00:09:30] Speaker 2: you can tell she does not agree with nikki vanderslice patty is a long-time consumer advocate an expert on energy policy who's been raising the alarm about rising costs of electricity related to data centers our data center is going to drive up energy costs for residents across the state on may 1st georgia [00:09:50] Speaker 4: power residential rate payers experienced a 24 rate increase just since 2023 georgia power has raised [00:09:58] Speaker 2: rates six times and related to those rate hikes remember those two bills we mentioned earlier we were with patty as she was watching a live feed of the senate floor today is crossover day which means [00:10:11] Speaker 4: any bill that does not get through one side of the house or the senate to the other side is dead for the year and right now senate bill 34 is not on that list by later that evening both bills had failed [00:10:23] Speaker 2: to get a vote as disappointed and angry as patty was she wasn't too surprised georgia legislators are [00:10:31] Speaker 4: getting soaked with money from georgia power is that a conflict of interest absolutely it is clearly corrupting this is the highest paid utility ceos in the country why is the poorest region in the country paying the most to our ceos 23 million dollars it's ridiculous how much money they make [00:10:52] Speaker 2: our time in georgia is crucial to understanding what's happening all across the country because the growth of data centers is not slowing down anytime soon and tech billionaires have already been complaining about the amount of red tape involved in powering this growth getting energy permitted is like a very heavily regulated government function and if you're talking about building large new power plants or large build outs that is just a heavily regulated thing the regulatory body in question is the federal energy regulatory commission also known as ferk an independent and historically non-partisan agency that regulates interstate transmission of electricity natural gas and oil but just last month president trump signed an executive order placing ferk under white house control and he's been boasting about his ability to fast track new projects we're going to get very rapid approvals in the united states like with the ai plans under emergency declaration i can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting with this alliance between the federal government silicon valley and utility monopolies who's looking out for regular americans like the morrises during the peak season our electric bill was maybe 250 yeah and now it's probably 400. your electricity bill has doubled wow it's been a struggle [00:12:16] Speaker 1: every month it's a struggle jeff would like to retire but he keeps working because we have to pay our bills [00:12:22] Speaker 2: do you think that people should have to pay more because of data centers no absolutely not they should [00:12:29] Speaker 1: pay for that difference it's hard enough for a regular person to pay their electric bill as it is [00:12:34] Speaker 2: i don't think that's right at all we reached out to the big tech companies including meta and qts asking for an interview and a tour of their facilities but both declined to participate in the story durand says despite the bill's failure the fight will go on a number of other states have similar bills up for [00:12:53] Speaker 4: debate right now the reason i think other states should pass it whether we do or not is that data centers could possibly come to their state next there needs to be legislation to protect them because by all accounts data center growth is going to be very fast before you go please support our work by liking this [00:13:12] Speaker 2: video and subscribing to our channel we're always looking to tell more stories like this one unpacking economic systems that impact all of our daily lives what 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