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Two Factor Parenting is a conversation between two parents navigating technology's role in raising kids. He's the early adopter and tech optimist. She's the skeptic who asks "but should we?" Together they tackle screen time, AI, social media, and all the parenting decisions that don't come with a manual.
Two parents. Two perspectives. Raising kids in the age of screens, AI, and chaos.
Oct 18 - Ep 11
00:00:13 Matt: Okay. You ready to go?
00:00:15 Val: Ready? Hello, everybody.
00:00:17 Matt: Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode eleven eleven. If I'm counting correctly.
00:00:24 Val: This is a fun one.
00:00:28 Matt: This is very timely. I would say this one is very interesting in the news thing.
00:00:35 Val: We are going to be talking about data centers today.
00:00:38 Matt: Mhm. And because we wanted to have a fight. No I'm just kidding.
00:00:41 Val: No the problem is I recommended this as a topic for us to talk about months ago.
00:00:49 Matt: Mhm.
00:00:50 Val: And you completely blew me off. You're like, what?
00:00:53 Matt: No, no.
00:00:54 Val: You were like, why do we need to talk about data centers? And I was like, huh, I people are talking about data centers. People really have opinions about this, I think. And you're like, ah, that's ridiculous. I was like, okay, this was like what, eight months, eight, ten months ago or something.
00:01:13 Matt: I love how you. This is like eight, ten, twenty.
00:01:15 Val: I don't know what month is it?
00:01:16 Matt: Twenty, twenty months ago it was.
00:01:18 Val: I mean, this is when we were first kind of no this is when we were first thinking about this and thinking about what we would talk about.
00:01:26 Matt: Yeah. And I think, I think the part of it too is, trying to figure out, you know, how does this relate to like a, family perspective? And I think we've been a little bit on this parent kick right now. You know, we've definitely talked about the kids, and how, you know, kids are getting affected by, uh, technology, but we started, you know, in the last episode, we talked about how parents, are affected by technology, you know, talking through all these different things to kind of help parents out. And I think this is another one actually to talk through because this can affect house bills, This can affect, you know, what the backyard sounds like. Right. So I think it's, it is something that we do need to address, And start talking about it. just to kind of get kind of the vibe check. How do you know? How do I feel about it? You guys might already have an idea how I feel about it. I'm like, stick a data center in my house. No I'm just kidding.
00:02:25 Matt: I'm just kidding.
00:02:28 Matt: But then on your end, how do you feel about it when you with the research you've been doing too?
00:02:34 Val: Well, it's kind of interesting I think this first came on my radar because I was driving in the car and I heard on the radio, like on the news minute or whatever. Um, a county adjacent to us was having a town hall or some type of community meeting about data centers in the area and what that county was going to do about it. And I think like a lot of areas in the United States, you have cities and suburbs, surrounded by rural.
00:03:14 Matt: Yeah.
00:03:15 Val: And that's kind of where we are like very borderline edge of rural and suburb. So. The county was a very rural county. And I thought that was really interesting that they would be talking about data centers. I was like, wait, why is this very rural county talking about a data center? And that's kind of when it first came on my radar and I started seeing it appear a lot. And I've always been kind of neutral, actually, which is a little surprising, I think. Um.
00:03:45 Matt: Well, because we talk about technology, right? like funny enough, yes, we do have these conversations here on the podcast, but, um, we actually do have these conversations in real life,
00:03:54 Val: Well, that's why we started this. Also, I feel like I mean, not only are we talking about this in real life, but I think that our average daily technology use is. I mean, yours is certainly above most people's like your understanding and use of these technologies.
00:04:15 Matt: Yeah.
00:04:17 Val: So, so when I think about like the necessity of a data center to support the use of technology, I get it, you know, so I've always been pretty neutral about data centers because I'm like, yeah, you know, they, they have to support the technology use.
00:04:34 Matt: Yeah.
00:04:35 Val: And so I've always been pretty neutral, but I think the problem is that the way that they're talked about, they exist as this big, scary monolith. yeah, without really understanding what it is. And so that's kind of what I wanted to do with my research was actually understand more of what it is, what it looks like.
00:05:01 Matt: Yeah.
00:05:02 Val: And that was really helpful. so I found a video. it is from Google, but it is really helpful. So it's actually a video of a Google data center where a Google employee is like, hey, come along with me through our data center and meet the people who work at our data center.
00:05:23 Matt: How old is it? I'm just curious.
00:05:25 Val: Um.
00:05:26 Val: I don't know, but it's just Google Data Center three hundred sixty tour. Okay. And it's at their data center in Oregon. Mhm. But it is very hammy, I will say. It's clearly like a marketing tool.
00:05:48 Matt: You have to.
00:05:49 Val: But it was still very informative. And they actually did take you inside the data center. So you actually get to see what the inside of a data center looks like.
00:06:00 Matt: Yeah. It is funny how they do actually take the color scheme of Google into the data center. Yes, it was cute.
00:06:06 Val: And they were like, oh, I really like how their Google colored. Oh, you know, but it was so helpful and it was good.
00:06:15 Matt: That's important.
00:06:16 Val: It actually helped me just kind of see, okay, if someone was to build a data center, what's the scale of it? What's the size of it? What does it when they talk about, you know, two hundred thousand square foot data center, what would that look like? And when they're talking about jobs being created, what kind of jobs are being created?
00:06:37 Matt: Mhm.
00:06:38 Val: And that was really helpful, um, the thing that was most surprising about it is the security involved, because I think a lot of the arguments in favor of data centers are that it's a job creator. And after watching this video, I kind of went, no it's not because even at the start of the video, the Google guy is like, hey, come with me inside. But wait, actually, you have to have an enormous amount of security clearance to get into these data centers and not even all the Google employees can get into these data centers. And I was like, then what kind of jobs are you talking about creating with this thing? Like what? Like you're not going to be hiring people locally. Um, in the way.
00:07:24 Matt: That, I mean, I guess like, um, maybe in the way that they sell it.
00:07:27 Val: In the way that they sell it, they're like, it's a job creator. I'm like, no, it's not, you're not hiring teenagers right. You're not hiring local people for these incredibly high security jobs. And so that also helped me kind of level set when I'm reading all these things like that is an example of how I could level set and have a better argument and have better information. Yeah. So the tour was really interesting. Um, we'll link it obviously, but yeah.
00:08:03 Matt: That's so. Yeah. I mean, I think the really good thing you kind of called out something that was one of the things I've been looking at was, different research, just around kind of like what, what we see with, consumption locally all that kind of stuff like that. But then exactly to your point, one of those arguments about, it's a job creator, I would argue there's two really two phases of it, right? There's the actual construction, which can have upwards of, you know, one thousand five hundred people doing something on the thing where it can tap into the local area, electricians, construction, things like that. But the really important point is it's temporary, right? It's got to build it up now for.
00:08:48 Val: And they don't always use local construction companies.
00:08:51 Matt: Because they can. Right. Yeah. Because there's certain specialty things that they just legitimately can't do, right? And that actually is one of the things that like, that's where if you've seen in the news, Meta talked about training up electricians and training up plumbers and stuff like that for their data centers so that they can build these things out and, continue to do it. The reality check is businesses have incentives, right? There's a reason why they're doing this program. They're not doing it just for like the good old oh shucks kind of part of their heart. They're, they legitimately need this. Business is willing to pay for this. Right. And then there's the element of, okay, great, let's actually have that within the community. Right.
00:09:38 Val: Can you be more specific? What do you mean when you say business is willing to pay for this? What do you mean?
00:09:44 Matt: so my point there is meta investing in these electricians and plumbers and things like that, because they have they're trying to provide education back into these different areas because.
00:09:56 Val: Oh, but they're not just being altruistic. They're like.
00:09:58 Matt: Because they have to do it. Yeah. Like they don't have a choice. They're like, we don't have enough electricians and plumbers and construction, folks to.
00:10:08 Val: And we also need people with the security clearance to work on our stuff. So we should.
00:10:13 Matt: That depends. Yeah. Like security clearance and things like that. That's really kind of depends. Um, and the people that work in the data centers, it's usually in a combination, like they are genuine, engineers within this, data center Managing it Literally how it's working, with all the different servers and, data storage, all of that, right. But then there's also contractors that's a little bit of, my day to day job myself is helping the folks that actually go into these things replace boxes change. like server racks, things like that, there's that aspect and security is very important, right? Some of these, truly depends on the clients, In certain parts of the country, they are either part of the government, part of the state government. Um, scientific research, healthcare, there's all these things that have various levels of security required for the building of what, what they're doing. Even getting down to even in the building itself, having different sections of it.
00:11:13 Val: And that's a good point because in this video, he introduces you to people with specific jobs. He's like, hey, let's meet some of the people who work at this data center. And he mentions an engineer, but it's not like there are offices where people go to work every day. No, they're very specialized engineers. And so that was also something, again, just to have a helpful like, oh, this is what it actually looks like. This is what a data center actually looks like in practice. but that was a really helpful start for me, not really knowing a whole lot about data centers. It kind of just like put a face to the name.
00:12:02 Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's really cool. And that's, that's a great thing to kind of say, okay, what is actually in here? What's the anatomy of this thing essentially? Um, my experience with being in these things It's really not that many people there's like a little section and that's where folks kind of sit. And then you have the rest of the building, right? Um, again, depending on that example, which I can't give more detail, but in that example it was a fairly, say, smaller sized data center.
00:12:36 Val: When you say you go in data centers, do you frequently go in?
00:12:43 Matt: Not anymore. No. What I did in my previous role was when I would help certain clients. I would actually go into some of these buildings and work with the teams there in the building. But I did not go beyond that.
00:13:00 Val: Okay.
00:13:00 Matt: Not anymore.
00:13:01 Val: Is it these large two hundred thousand square foot behemoths that people are talking about building or.
00:13:08 Matt: Um, I don't know if it would be that large. Um, but it was also very specialized for the client at the time around the research group. Actually.
00:13:17 Val: Okay. So you have some experience with this. How has that kind of formed your opinion of the discourse that is happening around this?
00:13:32 Matt: Okay. Yeah. Here we go. Uh, no. No. Um, well, so okay, so how I see a lot of this. again, it really comes down to just being smart as we kind of build these things out. There are clearly bad examples out there of like, who, who was managing this? that was a terrible idea where it's like, you go out on your lawn and there's the data center right in front of you, right outside your door. Essentially. They're like, yeah, you can point right at it. You can see this where like, you know, people are showing their like the sound decibel kind of thing. And they're like, yeah, you can hear the data center and you and the thing, it's crazy.
00:14:12 Val: I mean, that's like building a highway in people's backyards one hundred percent.
00:14:15 Matt: You know, I know, so it's like, well, wait a minute. like, how does that work out? My experience in these things this was, this was far out, where other manufacturing was that for me? I'm like, okay, that kind of seems appropriate, right? like we didn't see houses next to us So for me, it's, it's that responsibility of knowing, okay, are we like, are we seriously building right next to like residential homes. That for me is where I would say, where was the zoning? Where was the city on this one to say, well, wait a minute You can't just kind of plop these things right next to someone's house. I don't think that makes a lot of sense, frankly.
00:15:00 Val: Actually So there are some counties, adjacent to us They're actually looking to readdress their zoning laws in general. Yeah. Um, they're saying, hey, well, let's maybe take a look at what our zoning laws are and see if we need to update some of those and make sure that.
00:15:19 Matt: SimCity was a fantastic game. Phenomenal game and a phenomenal way of teaching. Oh, hey, what are the residents near this area? Is it the sound? Right. The pollution piece again? Like it really gets down to how do we get smart about zoning?
00:15:37 Val: Not everybody wanted to play that game.
00:15:40 Matt: No. Uh, there there are a dozens of us. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But seriously, though, there are aspects of it that it does make you say, well, no, we should have smart. Yeah. You know, section of this, I think it's about, hey, how do we talk about this within reason, right? How do we think about cities as it continues to grow, How do we kind of place these things in areas that it's not right in someone's backyard? Um, I actually, I don't think it's appropriate these like outright bans we're just not going to do it. right? the interesting thing with Raleigh, it's a temporary moratorium, they're like, okay, hey, we want to pause here with the purpose of getting guidelines Um, and I think that's completely reasonable. And actually that's what these areas should be doing is saying, okay, what makes sense and expecting these companies because they will do the work. they, they are incentivized to do this, right? To figure out, can you handle the power consumption there? Like what does that look like? That shouldn't be on, the local residents, So the challenge is we run into points where we're talking about this total map, right, of data centers and their larger consumption or you know what I mean? Like for me, it doesn't line up to local reality. So this is not about, you know, the US has this amount of water. I'm like that doesn't, that's not realistic it's about point a dot at the map to say, what are we looking at and what's the water availability in that specific area. Right. So this is where I'm kind of like, no, you just be smart about this. you can put these asks on the companies. You should be doing it. I think it's completely inappropriate to just give the you're like, like, oh, they'll, They'll, they'll regulate themselves. like, no, then you're incentivizing them to go to the lowest possible option there. And that's their job. it's completely, not fair, frankly, to expect them to be, you know, perfect and fantastic if you don't give them something to aim at, right? And the thing that's really important here that I think people don't, you know, we think about We need to think about the peaks and valleys of an area, especially when we think about certain areas at their highest peaks during summer, With water consumption. Um, and then dealing with the valleys, like where do we barely use it? Because there are really good areas that actually have a lot of water, And power availability, you You know, that's how I look at it.
00:18:29 Val: So then doesn't that just put a whole lot more pressure on certain areas of the country?
00:18:34 Matt: Yeah. Um, you know, it does it.
00:18:38 Val: I mean, I get your point. You're saying like, oh, well, they have more resources, so we should put it all there.
00:18:43 Matt: If they do, again, the problem here is you have to really, you actually do need to do the studies. You do need to do the. The check within the local area, and that's for me is a key point of this.
00:18:56 Val: Well, that's why a lot of areas here are putting moratoriums on this. And it's not just Raleigh. Like, do you know, all almost all of the surrounding cities and counties have put moratoriums on data.
00:19:10 Matt: Because they probably have to figure out like, can we do.
00:19:12 Val: Cary, Holly Springs, Apex, Durham County, Chatham County, but Chatham County got sued for it because they were already in contract with a developer.
00:19:23 Matt: Yeah, that's probably.
00:19:24 Val: And then they had to pay, which to be fair. Yeah. You can't be you can't be in contract and currently like working on a data set and then say, never mind.
00:19:35 Matt: Yeah, exactly.
00:19:36 Val: but I mean, all of these cities have put moratoriums on data centers to to answer that question.
00:19:44 Matt: And then we got to make sure that they actually get through the checks? because in Raleigh, they actually have, milestones they got to hit. So they, they got to go through their checks that they have in November, December. And then I think there's a, town hall, I think actually, or some aspect of it in March.
00:20:02 Val: Well, Apex was really interesting because it actually blocked a company and there is actually a nuclear power plant. Yeah. Further out in apex. And there was a proposed data center to be built next to it.
00:20:16 Matt: Absolutely. Great idea.
00:20:18 Val: And that was blocked. Why by almost five thousand signatures of a local petition.
00:20:24 Matt: For.
00:20:26 Val: Same reasons to research the land, the energy and the water use. And I thought that was really interesting because it came up in my research about data center use and nuclear power plant use. And I asked the question of like, especially the water use, because I think something that people think about with nuclear energy is, don't those use a lot of water too? And we have a nuclear power plant in our area. The difference is that nuclear power plants produce energy.
00:21:02 Val: Another big difference is that data centers and nuclear power plants use water in really different ways. And I learned a lot about it doing research for this. But in order to keep this podcast a little bit shorter, um, We're going to leave it at that, that they use water in very different ways. And I would really suggest people do their own research about the ways that they do use water. But kind of like I had the idea, oh, don't they both use water? It's very different. And so that actually doesn't make them very comparable when it comes to the water consumption argument. So Along with producing energy, the water consumption argument doesn't really hold.
00:21:59 Matt: I think the thing that's kind of interesting, and this was something that was making the rounds. maybe like a couple weeks ago, there was this comparison of, almonds and like almond farming because people were complaining like, oh yeah, every time you do a thing in ChatGPT, it consumes X amount of,
00:22:18 Val: Water.
00:22:20 Matt: Yeah. Glass of water. What, a gallon of water or something like that. Um, the thing that's really funny is like what it takes to actually do almonds is actually it is, it is a lot of water to consume it. So there's even a joke of folks going like, yeah, after every time I do like my one hundredth, ChatGPT thing, query, I yeah, query, I eat an almond. And so it's Celebration, right? [inaudible]. But I mean, I think this is something that's also kind of pretty important, right? Like there's this whole thing on alfalfa, that's grown on, on the west side of the country. Um, but that's exported. So like all the things that are produced out of that is exported out of country. Right?
00:23:03 Val: Export quite a few crops.
00:23:05 Matt: Right, right, right. But that one's particularly interesting because it consumes a lot of water and it's not really to our benefit. It's completely to, you know, somebody else's somebody else in around the world. So, so these are the things we kind of go, okay, well, what's the real priority here? Like, what are we trying to.
00:23:24 Val: Yeah, are we going to split hairs over water use because we can find all these examples where we're using water for other things.
00:23:37 Matt: For certain crops that are even incentivized. Yeah. So for me, I think it's this is what I worry about is this, this kind of natural scapegoating of something you know, regardless, my view of this is like, well, what are the facts here? What's reality? And it's always going to be something in the middle, right? There's always going to be some element of, okay, where it's kind of works here. Uh, it's not really great here. Like a really good location actually to see what they kind of do. is Fairfax, Virginia, one of the highest concentrations of data centers in the country?
00:24:09 Val: That one came up for me too.
00:24:11 Matt: And if they, if anybody's going to know how this should work, that should be the study is what is Fairfax doing? What works? What doesn't work? What makes the most sense in that area? You know, what have they found that worked well for both sides. And for me, that has to be the priority. how do we help both sides of the equation here? Because we know that this is going to be here, right?
00:24:37 Val: Well, because what's the alternative, everybody?
00:24:40 Matt: Do we just not.
00:24:40 Val: Stop using their social media?
00:24:43 Matt: Well, so.
00:24:44 Val: Or.
00:24:45 Matt: Stop streaming, stop watching stuff, stop doing all of it.
00:24:48 Val: Yeah. And actually what was interesting is I found from Change Research, people's thoughts changed pretty drastically From a year ago. A year ago now, the the group of voters was not very large, I'll say that, but they polled about two thousand seven hundred voters in March of twenty twenty five.
00:25:12 Matt: Mhm.
00:25:13 Val: At that time, about sixty five percent were generally positive about data centers March or April twenty twenty six, it dropped to thirty six percent. So sixty five down to thirty six. And opposition went from fourteen percent in March twenty twenty five to what's this number? Fifty three percent. In twenty twenty six. So you think about the rise of AI just within the year, immediately affecting people's support.
00:25:53 Matt: Yeah. You know, what's kind of interesting about that whole the rise, the rise of AI. I mean it does feel kind of weird.
00:26:02 Val: That felt more like an explosion.
00:26:05 Matt: Well.
00:26:06 Val: Yeah, to me it was all of a sudden it was just like everywhere. I don't know, maybe that's just me.
00:26:12 Matt: I mean, okay, maybe.
00:26:13 Val: As a as a layman.
00:26:15 Matt: We'll see. And maybe that that's might be the other side of this too is, is asking the like for me, like the explosion was, a couple years ago, so for me, is this more of a symptom of, like political seasonality of this, that this is, hey, what a great little hot button issue to talk about.
00:26:36 Val: you know, what I was thinking of and you mentioned this a few minutes ago in terms of the environmental scapegoating, I think, especially in environmental causes, there tends to be one fixation point. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's scapegoating, but when you're talking about environmental causes and environmental activism, it can feel so big at times. And I think it's hard for an individual to feel like they make a difference. Mhm. That it's a lot easier for environmental activists to pick a thing.
00:27:21 Matt: Yeah.
00:27:22 Val: To rally against, you know, like what, a decade or so ago? It was paper straws and plastic straws.
00:27:29 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:30 Val: You know what I mean? And it was everywhere. It was like, don't use plastic straws. Yeah. But you know, it's not on the forefront of issues now. Yeah. it is data centers. And so I think that I see that more as a not as I don't want to say a trend, but I think in terms of getting people interested and active and caring about environmental causes, it's easier to pick something rather than, hey, you should just care about the environment, you know? So I see data centers as falling into that instead of like a political thing. I mean, in the way that you were talking about it.
00:28:22 Matt: Yeah. No. And, and I get that. I think, I think the, the challenge with a lot of this stuff is always going to be, how do we get to this, root of this thing?
00:28:32 Matt: Okay, so we've talked about, you know, some of the issues of this, right? And I think the thing I think we got to start, you know, we can talk through some of the benefits because there are there's some benefits to this.
00:28:45 Matt: like, there's also really good examples. You see a completely different tax base that has now come to some of these communities that didn't have it before. Right? Well, they actually have funding for education, for the schools, for, you know, the, the hospital. I mean, like, there's all these things that suddenly are now coming to these areas, I guess.
00:29:06 Val: Could you explain that more? Because I see that argument come up a lot is that it generates tax revenue, but I think a lot of us know that most of these companies get tax breaks for bringing their business into communities. and like we had mentioned before, there's not really a whole lot of jobs, long term jobs created by these data centers. So what tax revenue is actually being generated by these things?
00:29:33 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um.
00:29:35 Val: I could not find specifics.
00:29:37 Matt: So this is this is a good distinction to figure out because there's absolutely a state component where like a state could incentivize them. And then from a local perspective, there's property taxes that can come with that. Um, so like that's where they can generate that revenue there. um, I'm trying to think. Let me, I can research a little bit on this one. Let me consume some water over here. Jeez. Terrible joke, man.
00:30:10 Val: Horrible joke. I thought you actually meant drinking water. And then I realized what you were doing.
00:30:18 Matt: Jeez.
00:30:19 Val: That's sick.
00:30:20 Matt: That's so sick. So. Okay, let me kind of pull this out. So there. So there's a property tax bill implication of it, right. So the assess the taxable value of the data centers, land buildings and eligible equipment. And so they get taxed on that. So so it's like that piece of.
00:30:40 Val: Okay. So they are still paying property taxes right. It's not like completely tax free.
00:30:45 Matt: Right. Okay. Not absolutely free.
00:30:48 Val: Well, I don't know. You hear that being thrown around like they don't pay any taxes and as the incentive to bring their business here. And I think that is really scary for some people to hear that. Oh my gosh, these businesses aren't paying anything and they're just going to be sucking up our resources.
00:31:08 Matt: and it's hard because there's the local component, right? And then there's the state component. And then there's also a federal component. So all of these are coming into play. So it's really coming from these like property taxes So it's the land, the building and the equipment on the land right in the building. So all of that is kind of getting packaged in here. and that's what they're paying taxes on that one. So that's where this gets into this question of okay, now, cool. Now we can fund, these improvements, right? you know, for roads, parks, all these things. so it does actually reduce pressure off of residences, taxes. So they don't have to keep raising taxes for whatever reason. So for me, I'm like, this is the balancing act is that some parts of the country do have a lot of water or have access to, a lot of electricity, Because they can do solar panels, right?
00:32:00 Val: Like wind or something.
00:32:01 Matt: Wind. Yeah, absolutely. That where this makes a ton of sense. this is for me, this balancing act of, how do we make smart, progressive steps forward that are constantly trying to benefit us? Like we have to be constantly trying to find the win wins.
00:32:20 Val: Well, it seems like it would be better if it was happening in conjunction, right? Like building a data center while also investing in more green energy. But if you're not seeing that happen, then you're just.
00:32:35 Matt: Well, right?
00:32:36 Val: Using the.
00:32:37 Val: Resources.
00:32:38 Matt: Then it totally feels lopsided, right? Yeah. Then yeah, that would make a ton of sense.
00:32:44 Val: So one thing that I saw that I really thought was a great idea is that there are some companies that are trying to retrofit Buildings for data centers.
00:32:58 Matt: Oh, really?
00:32:58 Val: Yes. Oh, you didn't find any of this?
00:33:02 Matt: No, I was more focused on the, like, the resource kind of question.
00:33:07 Val: Oh my gosh, no, I loved this. Actually, um, there's one in North Carolina. It was an old paper mill and they retrofitted it to be a data center. And they have done this in Pennsylvania. they're looking at doing it in places like West Virginia, turning old coal mining facilities into data centers. Yeah. Especially places that like old manufacturing plants that already are big, large warehouses
00:33:35 Matt: That makes sense, right? Especially the old.
00:33:38 Val: Coal mining facilities like they already have the.
00:33:44 Matt: The infrastructure.
00:33:45 Val: Infrastructure there.
00:33:46 Matt: Yeah. Like some of the core pieces of it. Yeah.
00:33:49 Val: Um, And they also did this in Chicago with.
00:33:55 Matt: That's interesting because I feel like Illinois would be pretty aggressive, uh, with banning stuff.
00:34:00 Val: No, they did this in downtown Chicago with the Chicago Sun-Times printing plant.
00:34:06 Matt: Whoa.
00:34:07 Val: Yeah.
00:34:07 Matt: Interesting.
00:34:08 Val: Yeah. Uh, the former Sun-Times printing plant in downtown Chicago. It was abandoned in twenty eleven, and it was converted by QTS Realty Trust. Starting in twenty fourteen. And so you think about it too, like they can't build it anywhere. And you have this giant abandoned building in downtown. Now, the only problem with that is that some of these larger facilities, like a paper mill, for example, it is a huge manufacturing plant, but the servers are too heavy to stack them. So that can be a problem. there's a finite amount of space, you know, and there are a lot of costs associated with renovating a historic building. especially when you're talking about doing all of the water and electricity needed for that. But again, they're trying to look at places that already have. All the asbestos out of there.
00:35:13 Val: Oh my gosh.
00:35:14 Matt: Kidding, right. But oh what like the servers care.
00:35:17 Val: Okay.
00:35:19 Val: But like.
00:35:20 Val: I said.
00:35:21 Matt: They're trying to keep complaining.
00:35:25 Val: But like I said, they're trying to look at facilities that already have the infrastructure for that. so the retrofitting is really good for smaller data centers. Michigan was a place that had one done a dead mall in Indianapolis. Like, why build when you have a lot of this industry that is kind of dead and dying and it's literally just space that is unused.
00:35:52 Matt: Oh, totally. I mean, that is especially.
00:35:55 Val: If that's a resource that you want is, is just space.
00:35:59 Matt: Right? But sometimes the location is more important it's like more valuable, right. and if the incentive is so high there where they can go like, hey, we can retrofit this thing to actually give us, you know, some serious benefit right here, in downtown.
00:36:15 Val: Revitalizing a community like.
00:36:18 Matt: Absolutely.
00:36:18 Val: Keeping a historic property.
00:36:20 Matt: Which is cool. If you have like, if it's visually appealing, too.
00:36:23 Val: Mhm.
00:36:24 Matt: That's awesome. Okay. so I came into this, show to be very, you know, honestly, when we started talking about this, I felt very like, no, just build And I kind of came away thinking, just be more, you know, pragmatic about it. Right. And I think the reality is, you got to be smart locally for me is, is kind of my net you know, we shouldn't just be saying completely no. And are there smart ways for us to do this? You know, these moratoriums are not complete bans but it is if we do these things, then we need to do the, the homework to say like what works here, right? What is actually doable in this area, you know, for you to then build and move forward. I think it's smart. I think it's really smart to think about this like retrofit um, specifically in areas to then revitalize things. like, um, rust belt kind of thing. I mean, like, it's kind of frankly genius to say, can we revitalize some of these communities, with something there that we have all this space we don't know what to do with and capacity that could potentially handle it.
00:37:33 Val: So it's interesting that you're coming more toward like a neutral position. I kind of started off neutral, You know, not really knowing much the more that I've learned. I'm leaning more negative. And really, the thing that kind of tipped me on the edge was thinking about it more from the rural perspective The people that are being most affected by this are farming and rural communities, because that is where they want to build, again, these large data centers and buying up rural farmland to do it because the land's already cleared. It's already graded.
00:38:17 Matt: Mhm.
00:38:18 Val: And so a lot of farmland is being lost for the new construction of data centers. And the problem with that is that Once that land is built on, you can't turn it back into farmland. You know.
00:38:36 Matt: Is.
00:38:36 Matt: That but is that does that make sense though? Like of like, how big is a data center, like, compared to all the farmland that we have in the country?
00:38:47 Val: Okay. There was an article from the American Farm Bureau Federation that was pretty neutral. And overall, I read the whole thing? And it was pretty neutral. But Texas Tribune on Agriculture did an article. And it does say that sixty seven percent of new construction data centers are in rural areas.
00:39:08 Matt: Yeah, that makes sense. It totally makes sense.
00:39:11 Val: That's what I mean. That's what we've been talking about. And but they're fighting for the same resources land, water and electricity. And so tying it all in and bringing it back to what we talked about in the very beginning. Why does this matter?
00:39:27 Matt: Yeah.
00:39:27 Val: If you're talking about building new data centers in rural areas and taking farmland, what is that going to do for the cost of food? What is that going to do for the cost of electricity? What is that going to do for the cost of water as we get older, as our kids get older? And I think that that for me, tipped me more negative. And in a general sense, knowing that companies will not regulate themselves, they will not put the guardrails on themselves. And so it almost pushes individuals. We have to be negative about it. City councils, you know, local governments have to take a negative stance. We have to be the ones saying no, because we know that it doesn't incentivize companies to put the guardrails on themselves.
00:40:21 Matt: Well, yeah, but I think we're now getting into this realm of how do we be pragmatic about it, right? Because, I mean, so just from a USDA perspective, like there's eight hundred and seventy four million acres in twenty twenty five best estimates right now from a data center usage, um, by twenty twenty eight is eight hundred and eight hundred and ninety six thousand acres. So from like a farmland perspective, it's a thousand times more than how much a data center takes. So that's why it's kind of hard to say for me well, What's the balance here of I can give way more tax base to this community. Now, does the community need support to kind of make sure we're giving the developers the right ways to kind of manage this? Yeah. Or could communities get taken advantage of? Absolutely. Yeah. Like, that's not great. Like that's a terrible thing to happen. Right? Should we give them support in these areas so they can be understanding and saying, oh yeah, no, no, no, it should be here because then this won't get affected. Then we can still improve the community, got to be pragmatic about it I mean, I think that's a fair ask. then I think it's think from like a parent's perspective, it's okay to ask some of these questions. It's like, okay, let's talk through this. How are you guys going to consume? You know, how are you going to manage the electricity? How are you going to manage water? Do we have these things here? Because what you don't want is this the town council to go, oh, whatever. Yeah, sure. It's not good for the developer. It's not good for the people. Right. Because then it does. It just creates a, you know, a negative loop, if you will. for me, that's not moving us forward, Not being smart about it. right?
00:42:19 Val: I mean, I don't disagree with anything that you've said.
00:42:21 Matt: That's right. Because it's all positive. It's all good.
00:42:25 Val: It's not all.
00:42:26 Val: Positive. I just I just again, I'm this is the. Learning more.
00:42:33 Matt: This is the show me state coming out like no. But I think it's fair. No this is.
00:42:38 Val: Again my stance is.
00:42:41 Matt: Kind of.
00:42:41 Val: Thing. My stance is communities are generally going to have to take the stance of. A slightly more.
00:42:51 Matt: Yeah. And I know.
00:42:52 Val: Skeptical. I don't want to say negative individuals and communities should take a slightly more skeptical look at data centers just because Businesses are going to be incentivized to do whatever they can to get the data center built.
00:43:10 Matt: Because that's their job.
00:43:11 Val: Because that's their job.
00:43:12 Matt: That's their job. And so from a community perspective to your to your point, and I think we're kind of saying the same thing here.
00:43:18 Val: Yeah. I feel like.
00:43:19 Val: We are.
00:43:19 Val: Saying the same thing.
00:43:20 Matt: I think I think the word choice there is better. I think skeptical like, all right. Hey prove it. Yeah. Like show me the how that's going to work.
00:43:28 Val: And show me there isn't another option. Like we have this abandoned factory here. You sure you can't use that first? okay, fine. Now you can. Yeah. Things like that.
00:43:37 Matt: Yeah.
00:43:38 Val: You sure there isn't another option?
00:43:39 Matt: Convert that and then build that. Whatever.
00:43:41 Val: Okay.
00:43:42 Matt: Smart. Yeah. I think this is the reasonable position, right? And it's about how do we find what's the thing in the middle here that makes the most sense, right? That we can then move forward helping out a community and at the same time actually allowing us to progress because the demand is there. Yeah. So cool.
00:44:04 Val: Well, we're still married, so.
00:44:07 Val: We made it.
00:44:08 Matt: Each each episode is a.
00:44:10 Val: Challenge to the.
00:44:12 Matt: We've passed the.
00:44:12 Val: Test.
00:44:13 Val: We really were like, oh no. Um, I learned so much from this episode. Honestly, doing the research on this, I learned so much. Um, and that's why I like doing this with you is that it's parenting related, but it's nice to think about different topics. And again, think about the future, think about your community, think about your resources. And. It is getting tough out there.
00:44:46 Matt: it is. I know you got to be, you know, approach things in a pragmatic way. Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
00:44:53 Val: Thank you guys for listening. Bye, everybody.
00:44:56 Matt: Take care folks.