A data center in Killeen?

The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended disapproving a data center, but the Killeen City Council will give final consideration at a June meeting. Is a data center in the city inevitable? The Inside Killeen crew goes in depth on the issue with James Sills, a resident who attended the P&Z meeting.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Inside Kalean podcast brought to you by KDH News. This is a podcast that talks about news, politics, and the like from Inside Kaleen. My name is Kevin Limity, and I'm joined by my co-host Dalen Che. How are you doing, Dalen? Doing good. How are you? And Hamida Bachway. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hi, I'm doing good.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hamida's also manning the uh soundboard today as well. So, anyways, so this particular episode is going to be talking about the data center that recently cropped up as part of a PZ meeting in Kalean. Now, we're actually joined by a special guest today. His name is James Sills, and he was at that particular meeting that I was talking about. Uh how are you doing, James? Doing good. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, and James was one of the, I don't know how many people, but at least like half a dozen people that spoke during that meeting. And my initial impressions of the whole thing was first of all, it's very, very obvious that this does not have a lot of support. Both from the residents who were who you know made their presence well known by coming to a PZ meeting. I mean, the meeting was filled up to such an extent where it was almost like a city council meeting. Yeah. And I mean, you could, I mean, so I've never seen a P and Z meeting that crowded. And the other thing is there were free, in addition to KDH News, there was also free television stations that were also there. So there was a lot of like media at this event. So that's very important as well. I mean, data centers like in the past like I would say like half a year or so have like become extremely controversial for a variety of reasons. I think most of the time people are just not really so crazy about the water usage and and how much energy it uses. Now, these particular people, they're called, and I don't even know if this is the right way to pronounce it, but on mine, they like say that they're only a small scale data center, and that in fact they're not going to be as like big as like the other people or whatever. In fact, I think I remember recall them saying something like that they were trying to beat the giants of like uh meta and stuff like that, which I don't understand what in what context that would possibly exist at, but I mean that's what they said. But anyways, maybe we could just start by uh asking you what's your initial impressions were from going to the PNC meeting and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah, I I mean obviously there was a lot of discussion and and people there about that. Um I think you know, data centers is just a very hot topic across the country, right? Beyond Texas. And you know, so I think Texas this year or next will become the largest state, well, or largest data center state across the country. I think Virginia currently is in first place, but yeah, we're second. Yeah, once once the the new interconnections come in, the the Texas will be first. So, you know, I think data centers in general, it's it's there's a lot of different types of data centers. And I think that's that's probably the first thing that people would probably want to understand just in general. You know, data centers have been around for a very long time, decades, right? When you see watch old movies, you see a massive building, and all you see is just rows of racks of those are data centers, right? And over time, you know, for in the past 10 years, there were data centers that were more geared towards like cloud computing, right? So everything moved to the cloud. Their focus was way more on like storage, you know, and there's data centers still today that are that have nothing to do with AI or crypto mining, right? Like in Waco, there's something called data bank. You know, they're they're whole, they're a massive data center in Waco, but their whole job is just storage, right, for businesses, data storage. So, you know, the the concept of data centers is just more of a of a facility that that is equipping, you know, technology equipment for a very specified purpose. Now, AI and crypto mining, what's happened there is those facilities, they are doing a lot more computing. So that that compute requirement is far greater than what we've seen in the past with cloud and you know just just data storage. You know, so the for compute, you know, you really need two things. You need power, you need cooling. And so that's where you've seen these increases, right? So across the board for sure, lots of different sizes of data centers. I I would probably concur with the applicant statement that from a scale perspective, they they are a smaller scale, right? 10 megawatt facility is probably you know one-seventh of the size of what's being done in Temple. So it's just, you know, from a scale perspective, that that is smaller in in that regard. So does doesn't mean that they still don't need power and and cooling, but definitely not at the large scales of some of the other things we've seen in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

What's your personal feelings on data centers?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

So obviously there's there's a great need for them based off of how as a society we utilize technology. And so how how they're how they're facilitating providing us those services, you know, that that's I think where the debate is. It's like how do you build technology that's safe for the environment, you know, does not take away our our resources in the city. I think that's the debate topic in itself. But you know, but the technology itself of what it's doing, there there is a need. And and I think, you know, there's different scales of what people see as AI, you know, some just see it as the Gemini or co-pilot or you know, just just just the normal things use day to day. But there's a much better usage that that's being applied for AI across healthcare, the military, you know, education. So there's there is a there is a need uh for the output that they provide. I think it's you know, how can you get there without impacting our environment and and city resources to to facilitate that? I think that's the real issue. I I do use the technology, I see the technology in different aspects of just normal day-to-day. So I I do believe that the capability they provide is is needed for today.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

And I just got breaking news that just was slipped under the door of this podcast studio. So apparently it's going to be considered by the city council on June 2nd, and it will require a free force majority in order to pass. So, because of that, I would imagine that some way they crunch the numbers. And you are still you're very experienced with this because of like some of the situations in the donut hole. But like, I'm assuming that like they must have calculated that more than enough people were dissenting for it to be built, that now it has to have a free force majority.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, I mean, I the only thing I could suspect was you know, the the the uh the church, the the the people that represented the church were at the PNZ and they spoke against this. I think that border, the the amount of acreage that they have that abutted that property probably equated to the required percentage to to require that supermajority. So that that's probably what happened is they they just have that opposition that that had meets that calculation of of just total size.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, and I just want to briefly talk about this because it also came up in the email too. The city has been using a term that I don't think I've seen anywhere else called a commuting and energy research annex to describe the type of facility that is being built. Now, I actually plugged that into Google yesterday, and the only results that came back were actually the results from referring to this proposed facility. So, I mean, so it's obviously not a very widely used term. And you know, I use quotations to make sure I got the exact phrase. And so I just was kind of curious. So, what do you think? And I I can open it that up to you guys, you guys feel free to jump in whenever, but like what do you think of them using that phrase? Do you think it's appropriate to call this a data center, or is or do we need to use this? I mean, because like the basically the city spokeswoman, Tori Bethany, like she she kind of she didn't like demand, but she like suggested that I I I use that term when describing it. And I could totally understand why, given the controversy, people might not want right us to use the term data center. But I don't know, what do you what do you think of that?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

I mean, I I can see so yeah, like I kind of alluded to it earlier. That this is not a typical data center in in the regard of what you would see is from Meta or Microsoft or Apple. So they they do have kind of a hybrid concept of they are they they are providing a a uh substantial compute requirement, right? So they are using compute mining and you know processing power to to supplement some type of data center operation, right? So whether they're gonna use it for crypto mining or for for to help with AI, you know, there's different aspects of AI. So it could be for inference, it could be for deep learning, machine learning, right? So there could be a variety of ways that they leverage that, but they they are still very much using it in the in the same terms of of what data centers typically do. The other part that they are doing is is kind of the energy portion of this, right? So their virtual power plant concept that they're uh proposing. So again, it's just storing power in in batteries, and then essentially either you know offloading that back to the grid based off of ERCOT's requirements, or selling that power at at their will when typically the the price point's the highest, right? And so I think that's what a lot of people don't understand is you know, when you see like solar buyback programs and for electricity companies, things like that, ERCOT sells electricity, right? Or they buy it. And so electric companies can sell electricity, and so they're they're very much it's like a stock market. The the prices lower in raise all day. And when you get to peak times, you know, you you could sell a kilowatt hour for hundreds of dollars in in a market, right? And so that's what people like with Tesla power walls, they do, they store power and then they sell it when they want at peak times, and they you can you can actually make money from that. So I that this is the similar concept, right? Is they're gonna have power, electricity that they can sell back to the grid at rates that they can make money, or if Urcott says, Hey, I need your 10 megawatts, shred it back to the grid so I can go take it to someplace in Kleen or Austin or wherever they deem necessary, that'll be ERCOT's decision. But they pay millions of dollars for for that capability, right? I I don't know what 10 megawatts would would be, but like something in like Temple would be millions of dollars for that company to shred uh that power back to the to the grid. So um it's it's like I said it's a play on words. But they are doing two different things. They are doing a compute aspect, right? Data center, but they are also uh providing some energy concepts that can be shared back to ERCOT.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, and from my understanding, like a hot uh what is it, 10? 10 megawatts. Yeah, that supposedly that's not like very big compared to what other data centers are.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

No, it's not, it's definitely not. Like I said, it's that's about one seventh the size of what Rowan's doing in Temple, you know, tenth, fifteenth of the size of bigger ones across the country.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So just to follow up on that point, do you think that the outrage is somewhat overblown?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

I don't I don't think it's overblown. I think what's what's happened, right, is data centers in general, there it's a lot more negative negative publicity that you see. Uh, you typically don't see positive publicity surrounding a data center, right? Because what what what could they tell you that they're doing that that from a metric perspective they could show you is positive, right? And so I think that's what's difficult to do, but you use it every day. It doesn't matter who you are. If you have some type of technology, you were using the output that data centers.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

We're using it every day because of those centers. Absolutely. And on top of that, there's job groups, may not be the biggest, right? But it opens up doors for jobs.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, and and you know, this because it's small, there's absolutely there's no benefit from a job perspective that you would see very much in Kleen, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Um it opens up job benefits. How many do would you think?

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Well, on a typical scale, it's 20, correct me if I'm wrong. Is it 20? For for bigger ones, yeah. For 20. But if we're looking at it on the Kaleen scale, I don't see it being a lot because of the size of the city and then demand.

unknown 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

It'd be about three.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

And then would you think they would hire people from Kaleen or people outside?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

It would probably be outside.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So I don't think it'd benefit Kaleen like at all.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

It look it comes out to who's more applicable.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, and they and and it was touched on during the P and Z, right? That the about three to four people.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

I believe what they said was that they were gonna have 14 people overall, but there was only gonna be like two people like on site, on site, and then the rest of them were gonna be working remotely. And I think the and I'm pretty sure that they said that the and this could be wrong, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that they said that the on-site people they were gonna look for within an hour radius from Kullian, and guess what what is in an hour radius from Kalein? So yeah, so I I I think that I think that Him is right in terms of like jobs, it's not gonna help us.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, because there, I mean, there there are specified jobs for to work at a data center, you know. So you use they usually call them like L3 data center technicians, things like this. So they're very specified jobs. So, you know, for AWS, Google, Microsoft, Apple, you you have to go through their training programs, get certified, things like that to be able to operate at those. Now, this this data center is what I would call co-located. And I and I say it that way because as they stated, they would they would probably sell you know portions of their compute to to other providers, right? So let's say Microsoft says, hey, I want to take a third of your data center and use it for for my compute just so I can take some off of Austin because they charge me more money, right? So though those concepts, they're co-located. They're gonna they're gonna kind of farm out their compute to whoever's gonna pay them more, and that's fine. So you you don't get to some of those kind of requirements that you would that if you were gonna have like an AWS or or Google or Meta, where they're a certified technician. It doesn't mean that those people don't know what they're doing, but they don't have to specifically be certified to work in a metadata center to work in the one in Kaleen. And so, you know, obviously, I I think what would have benefited them very much is if they had spoken to like AM, Central Texas, and CTC and built an internship program or or a part-time program, right, where they can facilitate bringing people in, training them, or having them get that work experience, right, as they come out of those schools, or even use high school for the STEM programs, right? Just give them summer internships, things like that, where I think you you you kind of bring the community more. So from a job aspect, you you're not getting to where people are making those jumps today, right? Where you're saying, well, they're never gonna hire Kaleen people. But that can change soon, though.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Sure. Later on, if that center was approved, it can change, like you just said, AM, Central Texas, they could build those walk away. The reason why I say no one's applicable now, I'm looking at it on the collegiate level, where right now you have students who go to AM, CTC, probably transfer out, do internships to run the inner city of Austin. I agree. Uh yeah, that's been a it goes both ways sometimes. But if you were to bring more what's that word? You bring that bridge, if you make that bridge to cross people through, yeah, there's a chance it can happen.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Yeah, and it and it happened, you know, and and I think that's so the Rowan thing in Temple, like I know it's a different thing, but I I think from a public relations perspective, they've they've tried that, you know, they've they've done a little bit better of trying to facilitate more for people from the community to for for jobs there, and and you know, they've given back to the city. Again, I I'm not advocating for that place. That that data center is a completely different configuration is to the one in Kaleen, right? They're they're two million two million gallons of water up front, right, of is is significant, regardless of what the mayor stated, right? Your water rights doesn't mean you have the water, it just means you have the rights to it. You know, 43,000 uh gallons an acre, like that doesn't ensure that the lakes are full, right? So the question is what what do your rights give you if you're the the lakes are empty? So I think that that concept is completely different than the one in Kaleen, but I will say from the company perspective, they got they try to get out in front of that as much as possible. This company, unfortunately, they did not. And so when the PZ happened, I don't think it mattered what anyone said at that meeting that the negativity was there because on the agenda, it just simply set a data center. Yeah, and that's it. Like people automatically associate data center, you're taking away my water, you're gonna kill the environment. I'm gonna lose all my power. Yeah, there's noise pollution, like it every all of those triggers happen because that's what you see every day in the media. And and again, a lot of it is valid, it is very warranted for those scales of data centers. I think this one is a is a different concept. I I don't think all of those are applicable. And so, but it wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't have mattered what people said that night or the applicant said people were not leaving that meeting without those thoughts that you're gonna take away all our power, you're gonna have noise pollution, you're gonna drain our lakes, you know, all the negative things that come with it, regardless. So I I think it's a different concept. Some of those don't apply, you know, and I can I could explain where those differences are, but it it really comes down to education. People, in general, when these projects come up, I think there should be community forums. There should be a lot more discussion about the project that's being brought forth. They kind of skirted around some answers, and I think that that was a problem. So I think you just gotta be up front. Like, what are you trying to do? How are you benefiting the city? What are you doing negatively? And then try to work those issues out.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

You're talking about the differences you mentioned earlier.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Yeah. So this this particular product from a water perspective, so they are using uh a closed loop system, but they're using uh like a dielectric oil. So they're not using water to in that closed loop system to cool the batteries in the compute. And so the way that works is you you basically have tubes that go around the facility, and they usually go directly into like the rack systems. There's a lot of steps in between, but they're basically taking that away. Oil and it's cooled down and it's providing, you know, one, the the heat dissipation from those, those, you know, if your phone gets hot, things like that, if you're using kind of too much CPU on your phone, it gets kind of warm. It's it's very similar concepts, right? So you have to dissipate that heat. You know, if you look at an old desktop computer, you see the big fans and stuff like that. So that's how that's how, you know, what we call air-cooled system. You keep a room very cold, and then when those they suck in the cold air and they exhaust the hot air, right? So that's a very air-cooled system. A liquid cooled or a closed loop liquid cooled is it's taking that liquid and bringing it directly into those systems, right? At a at a cool thing, it dissipates the heat that's sitting on top of like the GPUs, those heat plates. It's moving that heat away, right? So it gets to the plate, it cools the plate, and that way the plate is staying at a at a sustained temperature, so the GPU doesn't get hot, right? So it's kind of like a heat sink concept. They use like a concept of like a radiator, very similar, right? You put anti-freeze water in your radiator, that creates a cooling effect for your engine, kind of a similar concept, but they're not using water to do that, right? So they're using this oil, which you know would cycle through, you know, over time that has to be flushed out, it has to be replaced. And so that that would probably use water, but nowhere at a scale that you would see at any other data center. So it's it's not taking water in, it would not need like two million gallons of water up front, like Rowan. So it's a different concept. That the water usage is I'm not gonna say minimal, but it's way less than any other data center that you would see around here. So they need water for their facility to, you know, for for the people that work there. They'll need water for their, you know, just air conditioning system in general for their offices. They would need water to do maintenance on, you know, their fans, their coolers to flush the system, things like that. But they said like it wouldn't use as much as you know, a multifamily home of three to four people. I don't think that's accurate. But I would I would say probably a large home uh with with a lot of people taking showers a day, and you know, maybe seven or eight people. But again, in comparison to other data centers, that's that's I would look at what from one to three percent of water. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's it's hard just just because I don't know in in gallons like what that would be. But like I said, I I would think if you're you know six, seven thousand square foot home with six, seven people in it, that's probably an equitable comparison of the their water usage over a year. Now, the problem with the oil is you know who who's managing that, you know, what what is it gonna be? What precautions do you have in place for safety? You know, does does the fire department have the ability to you know take or put fires out based off that oil? Things like that, you know, that most of that oil is safe just because of what it's intended to be, but it there's no guarantees, right? So I think there's just a lot of those types of questions, like more environmental and safety. They did not, I know in their plans they have fire suppression systems that that I suspect are built for you know electrical fires. But it's one of the things, you know, I talked to Councilman Kendrick, it's one of the things I brought up to him is, you know, I think it's very important for the city council to bring in the police or the the fire department to get a better understanding of their capability to put a large-scale electrical fire out, right? Because I think last year the the city had to go and buy, you know, the blankets and the the I don't know what is the liquid that puts out electrical fires for electric vehicles, right? For Teslas, things like that, right? Because Teslas catch on fire, you can't just go to a fire hydrant or some water, right? It doesn't work. So there's very specialized types of suppression and blankets. So, but when you're talking 30 30,000 square foot facility that's all electronics that if they were to catch on fire, how do you prov you know, how do you fight that? So I think those are a lot of the questions that would need to come up.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, like the P and Z meeting was weird in a sense because like everybody came in knowing only one thing that a data center was on the agenda. Yeah. And, you know, obviously, you know, people don't really want to see that. But at the same time, people had no clue what was going on until it was presented. And a lot of that stuff was very technical and like and like hard to grasp. So like, so I feel like people still kind of walked away, kind of kind of not entirely sure what was what what it was or what was going on. I mean, you know, um one of the commissioners, Cedric Moss, spent a very decent amount of time, like I would say, sort of like grilling the uh the the uh applicants, you know, the people who were gonna try to start the data center. And at some point it just felt like it was going in circles. Like, like I feel like there was I feel like maybe I I feel it, but I feel like that was like the best way to pretty much kind of sum up like how overall it felt because there was no there was no presentation given ahead of time, there was no preparation made by anyone to give them an idea of what was coming down the pipe, and everything was all this information was sort of just thrown at everybody, and we're just left in the aftermath trying to digest like what exactly it was. But nevertheless, the PNZ did vote it down, which really doesn't mean basically what it means when the PNZ recommends disapproval, yeah, which is not the same as denying a permit, like other outlets have like reported. When they recommend disapproval, it simply means that the PNZ does does not feel like it fits the city for whatever reason, and the council ultimately will make that decision.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah, that that's correct. I think Commissioner Moss, I think he asks a lot of the questions that the people wanted to ask, right? I think you're right. You know, and I think he he really got after a lot of those points of just asking about job creation, things like that. Now, from a you know, PNZ planning and zoning perspective, not totally within that that lane, right, of what they're trying to get after, right? Of what a commissioner would ask in a typical PNZ. But I think he asked a lot of the questions just people wanted to know, you know, in general. So from a land use perspective, I think that's where that's where the PNZ lives, right? And I've always said that the PNZ they represent the people very well because they don't care about budgets, they don't care about constraints, things like that. They just want to does this fit in the community? Does this fit in the city? And you know, that's I think how they make their decisions. So they felt that the the time was not right at this moment for that. But you're right, the the council is who ultimately will approve or disapprove, and it'll be a brand new council.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, and as you've experienced before, we've all experienced collectively, very often the city council will vote against a recommendation of the PNZ.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah, and I think because from a council perspective, they typically try to look at the totality of the the project or the you know what's being brought forward, right? So PNZ is very land focused. The council then takes into you know considerations of budget, you know, what what what revenue is being brought in, you know, longer scale, you know, where where can this improve the city, what what what can it do for us? But yeah, I would I would just say and I and I've I've tried to put this out a little bit. If I were the city, right, I would I would build an ordinance with a zoning district that's specific to I I would call them techno technology centers or you know energy centers. They can make it one word or to use the terminology they're asking you to use, but make a district, a zoning district that's specific for those. Because right now, what was proposed is a cup. It's a modification to an existing zoning that has nothing that does not cover a data center very well, right? The setbacks and all this. So you what you see is like, well, we're gonna do this with a cup, but here's you know 10 bullets of caveats and recommendations from staff that we we think you should do, right? Have this much setback, have this much for environmental, have much for acoustic sound, right? So you you there's nothing that's really built in the ordinances or or zoning for this type of project, and I think that's wrong. So if I were the city, I would build that in that's very specific to these types of projects, not not a 10 megawatt. You gotta think bigger, right? I do agree with one thing the mayor of Temple said. If they don't do it, somebody else is gonna do it. Right? If if Rowan didn't come to Temple, they could have gone to Saledo, they could have gone to Georgetown, they could have gone to Clean, they could have gone to Kempner, they were going to be here, right? That data center is going to get built. That amount of water is going to get used, that amount of power is going to be drained from the grid. Doesn't matter the location, right? You you we're all affected by those things, right? People think it's in temple, no big deal. No, they're gonna they're using our water, like we, you know, they're using the WICD, whatever water, or you know, they're we're gonna take that away. They're gonna affect the Urcot grid, whether it's in Temple or here, it doesn't matter. That that that power is gonna be taken from the grid. So I think from from a city perspective, they they have to understand that that this is not gonna stop, you know. So you have to build a zoning district specific to what you want. And I think as long as you don't impact Senate Bill Six, right, which is which is coming, which kind of regulates very large-scale data centers in the state of Texas, uh you you you have some room to to to build revenue from a from data centers, right? Charging fees for megawatt usage per megawatt, things like that. So I think that's something the city should really take into consideration. But you know, this this particular project, I would say of all the projects around this state, like this one would be the the least amount of risk for this city. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, and I think that the people who presented to the PNZ, I'm not sure if they were entirely expecting the blowback that they received. I mean, it's possible that they were, but they didn't it didn't seem like they were. So, like you know, maybe I think that probably what they're sort of charged with is kind of like coming up with a better way of like selling it to the residents.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, I I think I said that well, and and I think I said this to the uh representative from Belton Engineering, you know, the first guy, the younger guy, very technical, right? He's the he's the ones and zeros guy, right? He's very technical, and you could you could talk to him about the very granular details of of that project, and he would know. But that doesn't speak to people very well, you know. If you if you're in there talking over people's heads, like it's shutdown time, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:05

People's eyes just glaze over, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:07

The second guy, I think he had more personality. I think he'd try to do better at explaining it in more layman terms, but you could also tell he was he was getting frustrated, right? So we're you know, answering the questions a couple times or repeated. So I I think that's bad, right? Because once people see there's there's two things that are gonna happen when people see that you're frustrated is you know, one, if that was the reaction they want, they're gonna keep doing it, right? To make you more frustrated, or second, people just again they close their ears.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Like it's not exactly fun to be like grilled by like some kind of city official, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

No matter what the circumstances they need someone in the middle, right? They need a guy that can answer some technical questions, but explain it in a manner that's you know people can understand. My I and and to educate. And I told them that. It's like you need you could have walked in here with a slide that just had a building with like a thousand pools next to it, and then a building with one pool next to it, and you go, This is what we're doing, right? This is what Rowan's doing, this is what we're doing. We're we're just one pool, like we're very little, yeah. And people would have understood that, right? Visually, that makes sense. It's like, okay, well, you're using less. Doesn't mean you're not using any water, but you're using far less than everyone else. Okay. Can I ask you one thing?

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Sure. What about the see one of the guys who spoke at the PNZ, he was from that church, that particular church nearby. And his biggest concern, I think, was that was the noise level from the data center. Do you think that his his complaint is valid? Because uh some of them, I think, were arguing that like it actually would not make that big of a sound.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

There's so there's two types of sound, right? There is a there is a you know what what you would hear from like a uh an air conditioning blade turning on, right? You hear that, you hear that that fan sound, right? But there's also a sound that's more sensory, and it's like a hum, right? And it and it's you hear it and it doesn't go away, right? It's like your ear ringing, okay? And it may not be that loud in your head, but you hear it, right? And some people, I don't, I don't remember the name of the it's not a disease, but it, you know, it's an it's I I have it, right? Like people chewing gum with their mouth open or crunchy sounds like it bothers me, right? I can't remember what what it's called. It is an actual like uh medical issue, but that that is the sound that bothers people. And so for for them, I very much believe that from an acoustic perspective, what they would do would meet the city requirements, right? Because, like in that the the presentation, the city said, you know, we're gonna have an acoustic engineer come out and measure, they have to be below this threshold for a specific type of business. I I don't think that's a problem, right? It's it's not that sound though, right? It's the hum, it's the constant, you know, just just something on, right? That you know it's on, you know, like maybe your fridge or something like that. Just that humming sound of an electronic noise, that bothers people. And that I think is you you can't get rid of that, right? Because that hum may only be 40 or 50 decibels, which is below the the threshold requirement. But it's still a hum, it still bothers you, especially when you're there 24-7 and you hear that sound. Yeah, I mean, I I don't think they're gonna be able to get rid of that sound. I don't think that's possible. But but just loud sound from coolers and fans and things like that, for sure. Like that, that the way they're building the acoustic walls, the trees, things like that, that will dissipate vertically. But the bleed over just from the humming, that sensory sound, they're not gonna get rid of that. So I don't I don't know what what would prevent you know could you could do to prevent that. But I would just say most manufacturing businesses would probably have these same sound, right? If you were to go to the business park or power lines, like if you if you were to go to Featherline and go to the substation, right, and just and just stop there, you you'll hear it. Like it is a it's just a loud humming noise, and that's just electricity, you know, going over those lines. So that you're like I said, you don't prevent that, but it's everywhere. It doesn't, I mean, you know, and that I think that's their argument, right? It's like even if you hear that, you know, Best Buy has that, or you know, some other manufacturing company has that. That the the power line has that noise. I can't get rid of it, but you're not preventing them from doing stuff either, right? So I think that's that's really the that's something you're not gonna prevent for them. But I don't know if that's enough to you know disapprove.

unknown 40:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Kevin, the media feel is up to your council, would y'all vote for the center?

SPEAKER_00 40:38

I wouldn't vote for it. That's why I don't see the reason for it to be in Kaleen. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

I'm gonna whiphold judgment on expressing an opinion on this. I think that there is like a lot of people that do not want this. And I kind of tend to lean towards like what the people want as opposed to necessarily what I want. Like I'm sort of a I'm sort of like a people pleaser in that respect. But I whatever decision is made, I hope it's made with using good judgments and facts and not just like rushing to a conclusion. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anybody like particularly would is in love with this idea, like regardless of how whether it's on the same scale as some of the other data centers we've seen in the immediate area, but like, you know, but I I still think that we should approach it cautiously, or at least I at least that's what I think the city council should do. And I kind of feel like now that there's a new a practically new city council that's gonna be with uh four new members free at large, one district free. Oh, and one district too as well. Uh so actually that's that's five. Uh so wait five in a mirror, yeah. Yeah, I mean I still can't wrap my head around that even now. By the way, in case you're listening to this, we're recording it one day before the election. But but yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of gonna withhold my judgment on it. I think that people should really consider weighing the the quality of life versus like economic benefits. Right now, it really doesn't seem like there really is that many economic benefits for the city. So that's a strike against it. And you know, personally, I think that just by virtue of being a data center alone, regardless of what you call it or how big it is, I think people are just gonna, you know, automatically just disapprove it. And I and I expect the council is going to disapprove it unless there's some kind of major like strategy change by the applicants.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yeah, there's definitely a need for these type of things, but I think they need to put more thought into it before deciding. What about you?

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah. For me, I'm all for economic development, but also right now, looking at Colleen where it's at right now, it's not time for that just yet.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

In the future, I would be all for it if it's time for that demand. If it's that demand for that center, all for. But right now where Colleen is sitting, I don't think it's that time just yet. But it's not something I would just put off. I'll say come back in the next few years.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, I also like how they're they don't use as much water as most centers as well. So they're doing something right. So that's good. I just think they need to put more.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

I think it'll come out more clearly too at council because from what I'm hearing from James and Kevin, it was a lot of pushback at the PNZ meeting so they can really get everything across and really get the clear message of the pros and the cons. It was more of cons, cons, cons. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah, and I and I think you're

SPEAKER_01 44:00

gonna see you're gonna see some community forums for for this i i do think that's coming before june 2nd for sure whether it's council led or applicant led or whatever it is like i think you're gonna see efforts to to provide more information i i think for me what i would just say if i always like i look at pros and cons right i do truly believe there will be data centers in clean like that that's going to happen and so i think the pros of this type of project you know are that it it has very low water usage i i do believe they are providing some level of grid stabilization you know just being able to shred the the the electrical load that they have and back into the grid things like that i think there's there is some capability that they're they're doing there i think the one thing we don't know is what is the property tax revenue for this project and i don't and you know if if some were to say like the city is going to bring in two million dollars a year from this project alone that that's a hard that's a hard thing to pass up yeah in a in a two acre lot right like you're just not really getting that you know or it could be more it it just really depends right I think temple the Rowan's like seven million a year I don't I don't think this is going to get that but if it's a million dollars for two acres of of land usage it's it's difficult right it makes it very difficult to look at and go no we don't want a million dollars so you what you would then have to look at is the cons right especially with the uh property tax exemption for veterans because there are so many veterans in this city and you know I mean city manager Ken Kegel who you know he's on his way out he's retiring but that's something that he has repeatedly like stated has been a huge issue although he did get some pushback some people like oh well that means that you don't care about veterans but you know of course that's not I'm sure that's not true but like you know that's he but the thing is like if you're if you're losing like so much property tax on that I mean if some if all of a sudden this this company comes in like and like offers that like you said how do you say no to that yeah it gets difficult and you know the the disabled veterans you know that's a state mandate right and so I think I think the city isn't blaming uh veterans to be because let's just be very real right the the veterans that live here bring in more economic impact of just shopping and and being here alone way more than what we lose right but at the same time the sit the state should be re reinvesting that money back into the city but but yeah it I think that's where you're going to have those decisions that are very difficult and it's gonna be really hard for people if they don't get the information like this project right there's not a lot behind it.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

If the council just go in and approve it because that they can offset one or two million dollars a year in property tax revenue right like people are not going to be receptive of that right because they don't understand what what else is going on with that type of project. So I think that the city really they have to build a zoning district for these types of project like that that to me there is so much room with that as long as you're under a I think it's 50 megawatt and 75 megawatt project that the state can't regulate what that city does there's so much room where the city can make money uh of just just so just allowing it right if you charge a hundred thousand dollars a megawatt right for that facility to be in your city this is a one million dollar project just in fees on top of whatever you would make a proper right so the the state can't regulate that they do it for in Senate Bill 6 right that's part of what they're doing right so I think anything above 75 megawatts they're saying you got to pay$5000 a megawatt right to the state or the city or whatever to to for fees but yeah I mean I get it right I if I sat here and said I think it's a great idea like I'd probably be a very disliked person but but that's okay right I but I I would say and I've said it since I I want more information right but I think again based on what could be presented what could be done what's probably coming this is is the least amount of risk for this area for as far as data centers are concerned. This is a very small project based on what what other people are doing and again it it's not gonna stop like Encore is making I think their net income just cleared a billion dollars this there's there's 293 gigawatts of of pending interconnects for ERCOT to put that in scale right now like when we had the real super bad summer peak like hotness right the whole state used about 78 megawatts the entire state right or sorry gigawatts I said megawatts gigawatts right that they have pending connections 293 gigawatts and and 70% of those are data centers right so by by 2030 or 2031 this state will will clear probably 250 to 290 gigawatts of of power requirements. Yeah and what complicates that what what really complicates that and I'm not I don't get into politics but what really complicates that is many people don't know this but Texas has a very very heavy usage of solar and wind power to sustain the grid a very significant amount it's well over uh 50% in a lot of the projects the growth to support data centers right to get to support 250 290 gigawatts a lot of that was expansion of solar and wind but the bill right the inflation bill the one big beautiful bill those bills that were approved they've they've reduced that expansion in the state because the grants and the tax breaks all those things that the companies were getting to build bigger solar farms or put in more wind wind turbines that's been reduced and so that expansion is not happening at the rate that will be needed. So that's where you see like Encore putting in more transmission lines right no they that the one going through Holland and Saledo the 765 volt transmission line project like that's just one of many in the state and that's why the federal government and unfortunately it doesn't impact Texas the federal government is now trying to require that large scale data centers are self-sufficient on power. They have to have their own power plant and so you there was an agreement recently with Meta Apple Microsoft all of them they said hey there it's I think it's a rate buyback program something like that.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

So if if their data centers in a local area if they cause electricity rates to go up that those companies will pay back to the city to offset those but the second part of this is that the federal government is trying to require that large scale data centers are their own power plants they have to put in their own the what they call behind the meter right they're not using the grid that doesn't apply to Texas because of ERCOT because they're not using federal or you know the the federal grid or shared grid at all ERCOT's its own entity so I don't want to be like a Debbie Downer but supposing in the future we had some kind of major like freeze or something where the power went off and stuff you think we should we have we would have to blame the the data centers I I would just say when Yuri happened if if you go back and look a lot of the major companies still had power and it wasn't due to their battery backup system.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

So EarthCot there's a there is a prioritization of who needs to run in this state right and I'll tell you Encore is probably one of them like there's Encore's not going to go down regardless of what happens right that doesn't mean you're not gonna get power it just means that Encore is going to be able to operate and and I get that right it makes complete sense is if if power goes out across the state like you need the power company to have the ability to use electricity to ensure that they could you know do the calls and do everything else. But for sure it's there is a priority I I would just say I don't think that that data center would be prioritized over homes in Kaleen but I would just say what would happen is ERCOT would tell that data center to shut down give me everything that's in your battery storage and I'm gonna put it back into the grid and and I don't think that will stay in Kaleen that power is going to go to Austin or somewhere else for usage. So that that's just kind of how that that goes right um but well I mean this is definitely a meaty topic.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Yeah but I guess we're gonna see what happens I mean I think a lot of this is gonna hinge on who gets elected the city council um and maybe to a lesser extent the mayor but but James I really want to thank you for coming on uh it's been very enlightening do either you guys have any thoughts final thoughts or should I sign off I think I'm good over here. Then I am going to sign off this is Kevin Limity with KDH News. This is Inside Kalean with Dalen Che and Hamida Botchwe our producer and I hope to see you guys soon take care