UMBT Conducts "Special" Meeting To Discuss Those Evil Data Centers

About a year ago, warehouses were the bogeymen. Politicians loved to rail against them, and we all lapped it up as we continued ordering toilet paper through Amazon. But there's now an evil more evil monster lurking around every corner - the Data Center. Never mind that they've been with us for decades. Never mind that they are a critical national infrastructure to support both our economy and yes, our national security. They're bad, I tell you. 1,000,000 Facebook groups can't be wrong. 

On Friday night, I could have stayed home to watch President Donald Trump and our betters in the Washingtom press corps insult each other. I opted instead to travel to Angle country, where Upper Mount Bethel Tp was hosting a hastily called "special" meeting in an effort to put the brakes on yet another potential and very evil data center located on Pektor property by both the river and a power plant. 

I arrived a little late, so I missed the remarks made by His Eminence, the Right Reverend Ron Angle. But that's ok. Though Supervisors have limited Angle to three minutes, he manages to inject himself after nearly every speaker anyway, So I got the drift. He thinks a lot of the kneejerk opposition to data centers is misguided. But he's wrong. They're evil, I tell you, the stuff of nightmares and science fiction movies where the noise they emit are really some sort of radio frequenct that turns us into pods. 

I pulled into the parking lot of what is actually the public works garage because the second largest municipality in the goddamn state of Pennsylvania is unable to afford a frickin' municipal building. And that's pretty much because the people who live there - at least the ones with money - don't want anything that could actually help people who are working two or three jobs to make ends meet. The ruling class has decided that data centers are bad, and they know best. A year ago, they thought they were great, much preferable to an evil warehouse, but that was then. 

Before I walked into the garage, I looked over the packed parking lot. It was full of big-ass SUVs and those massive trucks with V-8 engines. Not an ebike in sight. These folks are very environmentally conscious, except when it comes to themselves. 

The reason for the rushed meeting was because the evil data center was just far too willing to work with the township. Supervisor David Friedman, who has previously botched up several negotiating sessions with Tam Pektor, was again spearheading the back-room meetings with Talen Energy. Talen Energy had offered a community benefits agreement of $25 million. Friedman reportedly said, "Make it $50 million and we have a deal," thinking this would be enough to send Talen away with its tail between its legs. Instead, after telephone calls with several Tallen execs, their ambassador came back and agreed.

What little is left of Friedman's head must have exploded. He was sure he had scared them off, but instead, they agreed. now, Friedman would have to break his word again, which obviously doesn't mean much to him as he also once promised to resign and then refused to keep his word. Friedman huddled with John "Voice of (some of) the People" Bermingham and came up with a plan that would scare away that evil data center for good. They decided to propose an amendment to the zoning ordinance that would impose all kinds of conditions on when and where they could be placed.

Good idea, but bad timing. Very bad timing. The evil data center, which I've told you is very bad, filed what is known as a "validity objection." In layman's terms, that is a giant FU to the township. It means that Talen can build a data center wherever the hell it wants and there's not a damn thing the township can do about it. It means that instead of a $50 million community benefits agreement, the township gets zero.

Great job, guys. 

But there was nevertheless a procession of NIMBY speakers who basically are unreservedly opposed to data centers no matter what the benefits might be.  They're bad, I tell you.

One heavy fellow wearing a "Jesus is King" T-shirt and who may have been thinking that Jesus is Burger King, claimed they are "out of control" and "poisoning the water supply." I've got news for Burger King. The people who live in Upper Mount Bethel are already poisoning our water supply with their own shit. Water tests done along the creeks on 611 show unusually high amounts of chemicals that come from residents' refusal to actually build a proper sewer. 

These are the same people who incidentally complain about sludge. 

Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that everyone in Upper Mount Bethel hates data centers. There were a few who said we should at least have an open mind and take a tour or two. 

But when I hear these phonies raise environmental concerns, I have to laugh. Though they are the new bogeyman, consider these facts: You could give up a lifetime of reliance on data centers and AI, and the amount of energy saved would be negligible compared to canceling just one trans-Atlantic flight or switching to a hybrid car; A request to ChatGPT consumes as much energy as one second of a clothes dryer; our 14,000 golf courses consume 550 billion gallons of water a year; we use 3 trillion gallons of water a year just to water our lawns.

But don't let facts get in the way. Data centers are very bad,