Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Data centers are great tax generators with less wear and tear than other uses.
They certainly don't complain about airplane noise or public bathrooms in parks.
Alright that is nice, but the amount of additional electricity that is needed for all of the approved, but not yet built data centers in Northern Virginia alone is equal to multiple Nuclear Power plants. Data centers consumed 21% of of Dominion energy’s electricity supply in 2022 and 24% in 2023. It will be well over a quarter this year. NOVEC is projecting 12% annual load growth for electricity consumption through the next 15 years and this is almost entirely due to data centers (5x electricity load needed by 2040). PWC. Approved the digital gateway and this project alone will require around 3 Gigawatts, which is equal to the electricity output of around 1.5x of the nuclear power plant at lake Anna. This is completely unsustainable and Northern Virginia cannot keep on approving them at this point. SCOTUS also killed Chevron deference so the EPA will be of minimal help to effectively regulate pollution going forward. We are on our own and will suffer the consequences of air pollution from the tens of thousands of desiel generators needed for all of the data centers.