For those of you who have seen the onslaught of data centers rising in Gainesville and Bristow, know that what you see is only 10% of what is coming.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors over the past eight years took huge campaign donations from the data center industry and in return rezoned our communities from residential to industrial.
These hyperscale data centers will surround homes and schools in western Prince William. Our politicians really don’t care what will happen to your health or that of your children. Once erected, the data centers will generate obnoxious noise and release tons of toxic diesel pollution from their backup generators.
I currently live in the worst data center site plan in the world – Amberleigh Station. Bristow will be the epicenter of the largest concentration of data centers in the world, surpassing Loudoun County and China.
Why do we need to suffer the greed and power trips of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors? They certainly wouldn’t put these monstrosities around their homes – but it’s OK for you.
It’s time to move out of my neighborhood before the first trees come down. I cannot and will not live in an industrial wasteland – Bristow and Gainesville will be destroyed beyond recognition. You will see towering data centers from Linton Hall Road that will forever change our beautiful neighborhood. Shame on our “Leaders.”
– Dr. Steve Pleickhardt, Bristow
(9) comments
The Future is not an "Onslaught"
Data Centers are the most important industry on the planet and are critical to everything we are doing and plan to do.
And yes, NoVA is the preferred site for Data Centers. Otherwise, developers would not be paying $1million per acre.
Navigate to the link below. This is most definitely an “onslaught”.
https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pwcva.gov%2Fassets%2F2024-12%2FPWC%2520Data%2520Center%2520Projects.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
Nah.
I wanna know more on these "tons of toxic pollution" that the diesel generators are producing. Especially when they are backup generators and not the primary power source.
Because that is a strong indictment against the fossil fuel industry as a whole and Dominion Energy.
See this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-20-billion-dollar-air-pollution-problem-2024-12
* “The team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, and the California Institute of Technology conducted what they say may be the first study of its kind assessing AI's impacts on air pollution.”
* “The paper, "The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI," which is set to be released later Monday, found that the generation of electricity for data centers hosting artificial-intelligence applications could pollute the air so much that by 2030, an additional 1,300 people may die prematurely each year as a result.
* “To examine the impact of diesel generators, the researchers looked at those permitted in Virginia, home to one of the densest collections of data centers in the world. Generators, the paper said, produce 200 to 600 times the nitrogen dioxide per unit of power produced than a natural-gas power plant.”
* “Even assuming that emissions by Virginia-permitted generators were just 10% of what the commonwealth's regulations allow, they would cause an additional 13 to 19 deaths each year. If the diesel generators emitted 100% of what is allowed, they would lead to 130 to 190 additional deaths, the researchers found.”
* “The public-health burden of Virginia's data-center generators amounts to $220 million to $300 million a year under the 10% assumption and as much as $3 billion a year under the 100% assumption, the study said.”
Then look at this article: https://www.newsweek.com/ais-air-pollution-problem-data-center-energy-use-adds-deadly-emissions-2000092
* “Ren and his co-authors drew on industry data about energy consumption by data centers and used a tool developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to calculate the air pollution and health impacts from the electricity use.”
* “However, many data centers also rely on backup generators separate from the electric grid. For example, when Elon Musk launched his xAI data center in Memphis, Tennessee, in July, it relied on a fleet of mobile generators, raising pollution concerns among residents there.”
* “The combined health toll from air pollution associated with data centers as energy consumption rises was surprising, Ren said, and in some cases surpassed the pollution from other well-known problem areas. It turns out that AI data centers will be exceeding the entire California on-road emissions."
I am so sorry, Dr. Pleickhardt.
The blueprint for this project has always been surreal to me.
https://www.insidenova.com/headlines/western-prince-william-residents-request-reset-transparency-in-data-center-planning/article_b861f3a4-a2dc-11ef-aacb-3f602a1ec19c.html
Scroll down to the blueprint with the orange rectangles and then compare those giant rectangles that represent data centers to the tiny squares that represent houses in the neighborhood that the data centers surround on three sides. Then realize those orange rectangles will be 85 feet tall (including rooftop chillers.) The eleven data centers will have over 50 train-car-size diesel generators each, so over 500 train-car-size diesel generators will surround this neighborhood. And behind this project of eleven data centers is a MASSIVE, sprawling data center park that really this neighborhood will essentially be inside of. This project passed the BOCS, 7-1.
What happens when the power goes out? DEQ says it will do a three-year study on the localized impacts of all these diesel generators. I sure hope that happens at a neighborhood level because the JLARC study says that the air will eventually clear. Probably didn't expect neighborhoods to have the level of impact of actually being within a massive industrial park. Because doing that to a neighborhood should never, ever happen. It is nothing short of oppressive.
In fact the JLARC report states that it is widely accepted standard planning practice to NOT put industry NEXT to residential. I'm guessing the commission thought it didn't need to say don't build an industrial park around two already existing neighborhoods. But it did need to say it.
That this could and did happen (under the previous board, again 7-1) requires accountability. That we have been through so many planning directors requires accountability. That noise studies could now be required but haven't been done for the county with the most approved data centers that have also been sited anywhere and everywhere needs accountability.
Loudoun has already scheduled a JLARC discussion. Every one of the four photos on the JLARC slide of poorly planned data center campuses was in PWC. When is our JLARC meeting?
Unfortunately, you are correct. I drove through the area a couple of weeks ago (I hadn't been through there in a couple of years) and it was shocking and amazing to see the deterioration to the area. The buildings are ugly as can be. The roads are beat up. there is nothing redeeming about their presence. A large data center can use as much electricity as a small city like Manassas, yet we can't buy incandescent light bulbs because of climate change. Idiots are in charge!
No one wants to buy nor carry in their inventory shitty CFLs more so than the incandescent bulbs or their prototypes which are actually legitimate.
As for LEDs some are better than others.
It's funny you bring up those light bulbs, as their lifespan was intentionally diminished in order to increase profit (yet produced more waste).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
Dr. Steve Pleickhardt has the misfortune of being surrounded by one of the crowning jewels of Prince William County’s data center delusion – the dreaded Hunter Property development.
The Hunter Property is being developed by the Dutch Yondr group. Yondr’s website boasts:
* OUR CLIENTS VALUE STRICT CONFIDENTIALITY. That's why you'll never know what projects we've done, or who we've done them for. Partner with us, and you can be sure our discreet approach won't leave you exposed.
Well, the residents of Amberleigh Station were certainly left exposed. It was Prince William County’s betrayal of its citizens that allowed Yondr to keep its promise to its clients. Dr. Pleickhardt had to submit a FOIA request to obtain the project’s site plan and learn what Prince William County government had allowed a data center developer to do to him and his neighbors.
But it didn’t end there. The county eventually approved over 800 acres of data center development in his area that will devastate Bristow neighborhoods and schools.
Few may remember how the data center overlay district was conveniently extended to accommodate the nearby Devlin Technology Park, which the Virginia General Assembly’s recent JLARC report (on page 80) specifically identified as a poor example of data center siting:
* “Elected officials have approved property rezonings that allow data centers next to sensitive locations. Prince William approved rezoning from mixed residential to industrial for the Devlin Technology Park, which is adjacent to a school and about 80 feet from residential zoning.”
After all the evidence that has come to light revealing our government's disgraceful sell-out of its citizens to the predatory data center industry, there has yet to be any acknowledgment of wrongdoing, conflicted loyalties, or even of bad judgment.
When is Prince William County government going to cleanse the sins of its past so it can restore faith with its citizens?
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