My father is Terry Rodgers, one of the world’s leading experts on the commissioning and environmental standards of data centers.
And I’m just a resident of Spartanburg, South Carolina, where a widespread public movement is underway to oppose new data center construction – and where a march is scheduled to take place in a few hours. I’m no expert on data centers, I just know my community and our neighbors.
Last night, I had a debate with my father over text message about data center construction. I’d like to provide it in full here so that readers can get a sense of both sides of the issue.
My words are provided in italics and aligned to the right.
His words are in quotations and aligned to the left.
The conversation starts with screenshots of a post on Facebook shared by local activist Eric Allison.
Dad. Is this the data center you’ve been involved with in Spartanburg? The one at the old Kohler Plant on Hwy 176? Is this information correct?
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TR: “I’ve had no involvement with any data center projects in SC. I met with a potential client a year ago but the deal didn’t go through.
“And don’t believe everything you’re told. The land use permitting process is incredibly bureaucratic, formal, and documented. Everything from the power and utility agreements and demarcations of who is responsible for what, codes and ordinance compliance, etc. infrastructure upgrades. And most is public records. And it moves like a snail. I’ve been witness to the developers realm for the last year. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. We can only clear trees during certain months in PA when the bats aren’t mating and we can’t disturb the endangered rattle snakes. Wet lands, corp of engineers, national forest service, noise regulations, and a hundred more boxes to check. And legal repercussions for cheating.
“There are plenty of regions and counties that want the jobs, tax revenue, and local investment that developers will cancel or avoid the not-in-my-backyard counties. T5 held a community outreach mtg in Marble NC when pitching a 60MW data ctr project. The mayor literally asked what kind of robots were we planning to build and would they be walking the streets and driving their cars. And then ended up supporting the project which we are just completing now. The local tax coffers of this town of less than 1000 will be overflowing.
If you don’t have power locked in; not a plan, but under contract, then investors won’t invest.
“Also, the post is about a plan for a 500MW data center to provide its own power plants, so your electricity rates don’t go up.
“Every technical marvel and convenience you enjoy depends on data centers. “
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Thank you for your response. I understand what you’re saying. However…
Cherokee County, NC, where Marble is located, is mainly a retirement community where the median age is 55, and 20% of the population does not own a device to access the internet (according to 2025 county data). The main employer is the US Navy in Andrews. So a data center in a town of 1000 can get away with hiring only a handful of people who are supplementing a substantial pension or a military spouse’s income. There is also a drug trade – there was an OD outbreak in Andrews last year – but my friend Stephanie in Macon County runs the only harm reduction clinic in the region, and she does it without any support from any government agencies. So I honestly do not know what Murphy’s tax dollars are going to do besides pay local officials.
Let’s talk about Spartanburg County – we’re not a small community. There are two main reasons people are up in arms right now. The first is that the public was not informed or given the chance to weigh in on the data center on Hwy 176, or any others being built, and they were furious when they found out. Some county council members are definitely going to be voted out, and there’s another march scheduled tomorrow.
As this post states, we were also told that it would only be a 50 MW data center, then it somehow became 450 MW. No one believes that the plans started with a small data center and grew naturally. The public understands they were lied to by our representatives. Some concerned neighbors were even told that this would be a solar-powered data center generating its own electricity. I don’t believe they’ll generate their own natural gas and electricity, and we’ve already seen our Duke Energy bills increase quite a bit in the last few years – I still haven’t been able to pay off mine since the ice storms in January and February and I can’t afford to run my thermostat. Some communities have monthly bills higher than their mortgages right now.
The second reason people are up in arms here is the pollution; when they found out about the data center already under construction, people started doing research. I never realized how bad for the environment they were before my neighbors informed me. The needs of a 50 MW data center vs 450 MW is massive, and there’s serious concern not only for the wildlife, but for neighbors living right next to the site who were not informed or given a chance to weigh in. Cancer rates are higher, the noise is 24/7. They are furious.
A while back I drove around the Facebook data center near Forest City to get a better idea of the impacts. The community there – and that entire side of Rutherford County – has not economically benefitted from that site unfortunately. Securitas used to have the security contract there, and their guards only got paid $12-13/hr. The data centers only employ a few dozen people or so as well, and while I really don’t like the factories and distribution centers we have in Spartanburg County, they can employ hundreds of people (when goods like car parts are being ordered and made) for the same amount of green space lost.
It also creates an impact on nearby farmland, which is a huge part of Spartanburg County, and the local farmers help us keep food prices lower. They are currently struggling with drought, and we can’t afford to use more water to power data centers when they’re struggling to water their crops; but if they are forced to sell their farmland, there’s always a developer eager to buy up already-cleared land and slap down some kind of concrete monstrosity on it.
During the current economic downturn, while people aren’t buying new cars and other goods, there have been a lot of mass layoffs announced here. Today it was Thyssenkrupp. That’s given those companies the chance to automate their administrative processes – like accounts payable, for instance – so that they won’t be rehiring so many of us whenever the global economy does pick back up.
I’ll say this though – the backlash has brought this huge community together across the political spectrum and led to a movement the likes of which I’ve never seen before, and it’s actually beautiful. I’ve never been so proud of my community.
We are especially opposed to mass surveillance, and a lot of my neighbors have started referring to AI data centers as “mass surveillance centers.” Dynamic pricing for instance – if you walk into a grocery store or shop for plane tickets online, they may use an algorithm to determine your identity and how much you can pay, and charge you a higher amount. Flock traffic cameras can’t seem to prevent crime, they don’t keep Main Street any safer here in my neighborhood, but they’re used by border patrol and other govt agencies to target drivers based on “suspicious” driving patterns. Facebook shut down my account as soon as I posted an article about billion-dollar oil future trades on Kalshi and Polymarket, and wouldn’t let me unlock it without providing YOUR old credit card number (which I didn’t. Screw that.) Spartanburg County has decided they’re strongly against all of this surveillance, and against the jobs that are being replaced by AI. We can’t even afford whatever technological marvels you might be referring to, but we know who’s profitting from them.
I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to attend the anti-data center march tomorrow or not. I have decided I don’t want that facility being built 5 miles from me, or the other one proposed in Cannons Campground. But my neighbors were successfully able to get the Tyger River DC canceled – the corporation pulled out when they were no longer going to get a tax break.
I would ask you to please remember communities like mine that do not want these facilities and are being forced on us anyway. In the meantime, I am really proud of my community. And the council members who allowed this to happen are definitely going to be replaced in November.
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TR: “Ignorance is bliss.”
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Yeah that explains why everybody got so upset when they realized what was happening lol
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TR: “Name one aspect of your life that doesn’t involve a data center. Phone? Texts? Taxes? Groceries? GPS? Banking? Gasoline? Streaming? Research? Socializing? Clean water? Apps? Weather forecasts? Healthcare? Road maintenance? Photoshop? DoorDash? Uber? The internet? Etc? How many cars were taken off the road when instead of everyone driving around buying stuff they ordered online and several delivery vans deliver everything to everyone?
“Data centers provide capabilities. It’s what they get used for that determines good vs bad. You use them to expose fraud and help your community. Others use them to commit crimes. Or funny cat videos.
“It is my sincere hope and belief that we need new capabilities to solve the problems facing the survival of Earth. The irony is the immediate collateral damage. As I ended my presentation in Malaysia, AI will either destroy the planet or save it and it’s a race to see who wins.”
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Well that is a good point Dad. But this article – which quotes JLL by the way – states that data center growth led to a 34% jump in GW usage in 2024 alone. I don’t believe that internet usage among the general public or even critical services jumped 34% in 2024, especially when a big chunk of the Carolinas was without power AND data connectivity for weeks or months during that year. I believe it’s the corporate AI boom that has been causing a lot of this recent spike, not only in data center construction, but larger facilities – actually this article just introduced me to the term “hyperscale data center” (what the heck is that?)
Tomorrow I’m going to forage blackberries from the bushes in my neighborhood as I’ve been doing lately; I’ll gather my quarters and buy a dozen eggs for $4 from a small local farmstand in Cowpens; and maybe [good friend] and I can make it to Strawberry Hill and get a bushel of peaches to split. A data center isn’t responsible for any of that, but data center pollution and water consumption could threaten any of those crops in the long run. Thanks to data centers, I have been downloading free open source books and articles; and IFPRI, the World Bank, and other groups have a lot of them regarding agriculture, climate resilience, and food security. It is clear that we need to protect our climate and our water supply more than we need apps and streaming, especially when a lot of those apps are constantly recording data for advertising and surveillance, instead of the actual main functions of the app. (It’s the reason we both have refused to download Tiktok for instance.)
I’ve never heard anyone argue that healthcare or weather models shouldn’t be prioritized, or that they aren’t a valid reason to use AI. They’ve saved a lot of lives from recent tornado outbreaks for instance. But I’d say the majority of people feel that contributing to climate change isn’t worth making fake cat videos (Phoebe is chirping in my living room as I type this.)
Unfortunately the water that comes out of my tap is not so clean and trustworthy – it causes an itchy rash when I shower and my dishes don’t come out of the dishwasher clean anymore – so I went down to the healing spring in Blackville last week for fresh water… which is maintained by the local Mennonite community. Definitely no data centers involved.
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TR: “There’s hope. Quantum computing is quickly becoming a reality. Small prototypes are solving problems in minutes that classical computers can’t solve in years. They will achieve practical ‘quantum supremacy’ I think probably in 3 to 5 years or sooner.
“And quantum computers use almost no energy other than the cryogenics to cool a computer chip to absolute zero. A million qubits is a million molecules.
“If you want to double the compute capacity of a classical computer, you have to double the amount of transistors. If you have 10,000 Nvidia GB300 processors (chips), you would need 10,000 more.
“With quantum computing, every time you add another qubit you double its capacity. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,…..you get to the trillions pretty fast. And quantum supremacy is estimated at about 60 qubits and IBM has achieved 120, but error correction and duration remain challenges, but it’s not hypothetical, it’s producing the promised results
“The Aurora supercomputer at Argonne uses 60MW. A quantum computer will use kilowatts.
“When you couple AI and Quantum, you get some really powerful capabilities.”
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In that case, why do they need to keep building massive data centers now instead of waiting a few years for quantum technology to reduce the size and energy requirements?
And how do most ordinary Americans benefit from this when their jobs are replaced?
I believe it’s because of the desire for mass surveillance under the current administration, because they know it is and will continue to be opposed by the majority of Americans across the political spectrum.
Quantum data centers years from now can’t fix the economic or environmental problems that the current growth of data centers are already causing.
(Mom, these are the jobs that the government is hiring right now, FYI. This is what DOGE slashed every other federal budget for last year – especially FEMA which is also under DHS – and why Trump designated the rapid construction of AI data centers as a matter of national security, while labeling renewable energy as a national security threat.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/05/07/ice-deployments-states-data/89966257007
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TR: “Again, you’re lumping all data centers together and blaming them for what this administration is trying to do. So simple and so convenient and in line with conspiracies.
“The intelligence community have their own data centers that you don’t hear about. They wouldn’t use a public cloud. And Snowden exposed the same long ago.
“Technology, robotics, automation, and innovation have been eliminating jobs since the start of the industrial age. The rest of the world is using AI. My mentee from Wuhan China works at the New Jersey Institute of Technology specializing in using AI for institutional research. She says it does all the data collection and compilation that consumed most of the human resources time and effort freeing them up to assess and analyze the data instead. Some jobs go away and new ones are created. Some lose, some win. It’s a great time to be a mechanic or electrician. 6 figure salaries with no school loans. Software Programmers, not so much.”
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That’s not what’s happening here in Spartanburg County or in most of the US. And as for intelligence…
Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sundar Pinchai all met with Trump before his inauguration – when Biden warned of an “oligarchy” forming during his exit speech. They were all front row at his inauguration – along with Jeff Bezos, whose AWS data centers are utilized by the US military (like the ones Iran targeted in the Middle East).
Elon Musk was blitzed on [removed to avoid being sued by a weird billionaire] at the inauguration and gave his famous Nazi salute – right in front of Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish. The very next day in a DM conversation on Facebook, I was automatically censored from sending the video of that salute to anyone – that’s AI censorship. So I tried asking Meta AI about it. See the screenshots above. Zuckerberg had that information blocked or removed from his company’s AI so that it would pretend the incident never happened, while the internet was exploding about it.
(Those screenshots might look a little confusing- I was having a conversation with a real person but on Facebook Messenger, you can tag @Meta AI in order to ask it a question directly in the chat.)
I’ve never believed for a second Zuckerberg became one of the richest men in the world simply by selling ad space on a dying social media platform. And in March he was named to a new White House council on AI, same time that Scott Bessent announced a series of conferences with big tech firms and major banks about deregulating AI – and the news was quietly censored about the billion-dollar oil bets on Polymarket and Kalshi.
Putting this info together is what got my account permanently closed on Facebook.
https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/us-senator-insider-trading-trade-trump-iran-trader-war-bets
Hey remember the pedophilic birthday letter Trump sent to Epstein that came out in September last year?
When I tried to upload it, automatic AI censorship again. Not even if I added squiggly lines. Not even if I inverted the colors. Not even if I shared it as part of a screenshot showing what happened when I tried to share it. When I tried to share it in comments instead of a post, the camera icon just turned red and wouldn’t do anything.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that 5 months later, it was revealed that Zuckerberg, along with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and other tech executives, partied with Epstein as well.
So why would the federal intelligence community avoid buying bulk collected data from these creeps just as easily as anyone else on earth? What mechanism or circumstance would prevent that – just because they have their own data centers?
Hell, they’re using Google’s AI, Meta’s Llama AI, and 6 or 7 other corporate AI platforms in the military now.
https://www.gsa.gov/about-gsa/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-meta-collaborate-on-ai-adoption-09222025
https://apnews.com/article/amazon-aws-data-center-uae-iran-bahrain-71066b0a822c4cfd88b61e3fe79af917
But it is obvious that you cannot automatically censor communications unless you are automatically surveilling them.
That’s why Trump’s admin considers it a matter of national security.
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TR: “It amazing how you always know more than everyone else on every topic. Reminds me of someone…never mind.
“Wish me luck for next week when I’m a panelist at the Data Center Investor Conference and Expo. And presenting at the 7×24 Exchange International conference in Orlando in June. And the ASHRAE mtg in Knoxville in late May. And back to Kuala Lumpur in Sept. And a conference in August in Dallas. And most importantly when I’m in San Antonio in late June where I’ll be updating ASHRAE/ANSI standard 90.4 Energy Standard for Data Centers which has been adopted as code in most states and into the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).
“Unfortunately, South Carolina is still using the 2009 version of the IECC so 90.4 doesn’t apply there.”
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Hey, I just pay attention to what’s going on and cite my sources.
I think this would be a good discussion to have at your conferences:
If quantum computing is going to drastically reduce the footprint of data centers in a few years, why are big tech companies like Meta and AWS – along with the Trump admin – pushing so hard right now for massive data centers before that happens, despite the opposition from the public and documented harm to our climate and environment?
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TR: “I never said quantum would replace classical computers. Quantum does not manage emails, excel sheets, or funny cat videos. It doesn’t stream YouTube or phone calls. Same for HPC. It takes a classical computer to tell the quantum what to solve, and after quantum solves it, the answer has to be converted back to ones and zeros so we can understand the answer. They are different tools for different jobs. AI, HPC, and quantum are good at math. That’s why they use GPUs vs CPUs. But even the most powerful HPC computers can’t solve math problems that quantum will solve in minutes. So HPC will be impacted a lot. I’m not sure about AI.
“Like I said, nothing is as simple as it seems. “
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This is what I was circling back to, especially the highlighted part
Absolutely nobody I know is going to be able to afford a quantum computer or probably even a new laptop lol. I just meant for data centers.
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TR: “HPC = High Performance Computer (aka supercomputer) = Aurora SC which as I said will be impacted by quantum.
“HPC and AI run as many GPUs in parallel as if they are one gigantic processor. Aurora idles at 30MW and when someone in the NOC hits “enter” or “run”, it jumps to 60MW in milliseconds. Tens of thousands of GPUs (Aurora has over 67,000) working on the same problem at the same time as one processor. AI is similar.
“Legacy cloud computing is completely different. Thousands of servers each with lots of apps doing lots of different things at the same time. New Edge data centers are 5 and 10MW air-cooled like we deployed 10 yrs ago. Financial and insurance companies’ data centers are very different than social media (google, facebook, etc). They vary greatly.
“When this administration leaves, the next one will need these tools to repair the damage.
“You’ve never known a world without data centers and seem oblivious to how totally dependent on them you are. When you scan an item at the grocery store checkout, you’re using multiple data centers (grocery store’s, bank’s, suppliers’ logistics and transportation, purchase orders, etc).”
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Oblivious? That’s an unnecessary comment, because nowhere in this conversation have I suggested we shut down existing data centers or stop using technology altogether. But with a 34% increase in electricity usage in 2024 alone, I think we should be a lot more mindful of how many new ones we’re building and what the purpose of all that data storage is – because utilizing resources for healthcare and weather models is not the same as govt mass surveillance, or dynamic pricing at supermarkets, or cat videos.
And if I took a video of my cats right now and sent it to you, the data is stored on the phone in my hands and the phone in yours. That data does not need to be stored in a data center unless it’s uploaded to the cloud for some reason. But in order to use an AI program like Sora (which just got deleted) to generate a fake video of cats, it would probably use computing power from a data center somewhere – and that’s not a good use of our limited resources, especially when most of the US is still in severe drought status (I saw today Concord is going to implement drought restrictions in a week.) Our farmers have been struggling under these drought conditions. I would rather have affordable food than AI-generated content. The vast majority of people feel the same.
I haven’t been able to scan items at a supermarket since the beginning of the war – I can’t afford it. I got donations from a food bank instead. What does AI have to do with that – besides driving the current war that’s sent the global economy into turmoil, and limiting the number of accounting and administrative jobs that are available for all of us right now, especially in Spartanburg County, one of the fastest growing areas in the country?
So you mention logistics and purchase orders, but since 2023, companies even in Greenville have been building AI programs and having their accountants train them to process invoices automatically. I’m certainly not oblivious to that. The majority of Americans are struggling to pay for groceries or their bills right now. How are more data centers – raising the cost of our utilities and our food – going to help us right now while taking our jobs?
I really wish there was an answer. It would make me feel a lot better about the future. But this is why most of the world is starting to turn against the constant and rapid construction of new and larger data centers with larger energy requirements and carbon footprints. I haven’t heard anyone demand we shut down existing ones (except maybe Virginia, sorry [younger brother who lives in VA]) but when it’s gotten to the point that local governments are forcing or sneaking them past their own citizens, like what Spartanburg’s county council did, it’s probably time to pump the brakes.
You mentioned mechanic and electrician jobs earlier, but if that was actually a booming industry, industrial hubs like Spartanburg County would be thriving – and companies like Thyssenkrupp wouldn’t be announcing mass layoffs in our county this week. [Robotics company] wouldn’t have a hiring freeze and [good friend] would be able to find a job somewhere else with his robotics degree. [Steel manufacturing company] wouldn’t be posting fake job postings in Greenville on their website. BMW would have more than a few jobs available at their largest worldwide plant in Spartanburg, half of which are co-ops.
We are not a tech center like Silicon Valley. We are a manufacturing hub that relies on electricians and mechanics when the global economy can afford to buy and ship products.
Speaking of silicon and computer chips, Spruce Pine, NC – that beautiful little town 2 hours north of me that got hit so hard by Helene – produces 90% of the world’s computer chips. But even they mass laid off workers late last year, and Mitchell County was already not an affordable region for anyone to move to besides retirees (Appalachian mining towns never are.) They do not have any other industry besides tourism, they do not have jobs that can afford the houses that are still standing. They do have some of the kindest people I have ever met, and I’d HIGHLY recommend visiting the town sometime, especially the little free geology museum near the Blue Ridge Parkway with extremely knowledgeable staff. But they do not have a grocery store anymore – Ingles never reopened after the flood. The nearby Walmart parking lot unfortunately became a tent city after Helene.
This is the town that makes your entire industry, and all of that technology you mentioned, and much more, possible – it was nearly catastrophic when they were wiped out by Helene, the National Guard and Army Corps of Engineers did incredible work to rebuild the mines so quickly. But it hasn’t provided them or their families with economic prosperity.
So maybe the conversation at those conventions you’ll be attending should be:
How do we ensure that the data centers we are building are for the benefit of all the public, since they utilize the public’s limited resources and are subsidized by the public’s utility payments?
(It was now 3 AM in the morning and there was no response after my last message.
Thank you for reading and God bless Spartanburg County.)
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