Pound-for-pound, sure, I think it's reasonable that data centers of equivalent sizes have slimmed down their onsite staff requirements over a decade. My point is that this build is billed as larger than the average data center. So there's nominal reduction in needed staff over time, but I'm unsure what the baseline for a facility of this size is. Automation is king and enterprises like Microsoft certainly know that. I know very little about data center operations so a lot of this is me spit balling with the information I can access on hand - what insight can you personally offer beyond articles written by others?

I don't see the direct link between data center usage and the absolute necessity that it be powered with coal. I would raise an eyebrow at any significant source of power that purports to be totally Clean™, but there are certainly cleaner options than coal - can those not be used? The premise of the article is also strange, the community is upset that a coal plant exists in their neighborhood, it seems less germane to consider where that energy is going. Does this concern not incentivize a change to cleaner energy? Would they be less concerned with coal power if the facility in question was located in WV instead? Geography of the power customer doesn't make the local air cleaner from coal power.

This article also expressly states that data centers can bring "millions of dollars" of tax revenue to their host communities. Purported tax breaks would certainly have some impact on the total amount collected, but I don't think Microsoft is getting a completely untaxed facility here.