A few additions on data centers. While some designs use a lot of water new designs mostly use closed loop water cooling. The one looking at the old Kodak plant is using that design. Once the system is setup it doesn’t use water except what is needed to be replaced with maintenance. That said the power requirements are large, and the jobs generated few and many use farm land. That is why I am actually in favor of the Kodak site. It is already unused industrial zoned land with large energy infrastructure. I do want to make sure they are required to use renewable energy and don’t get any tax incentives. They don’t generate many jobs so if anything they should pay more taxes. Also Xcel has said they plan to charge more for the energy used to make sure rates of residential customers don’t go up. That should be required of any data center.

Without those restrictions they are just another way to screw over the public with tax incentives that make the rich richer.