“Data centers are next level. … It's not just that it's unsightly, even though it is. And it's not just about the noise, even though that's part of it. Data centers are a physical manifestation of economic anxiety that people have around AI. And you have leaders of many of these companies going on a podcast and saying, we think this is going to take a bunch of people's jobs.”
Volts · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
David Roberts noted that ballot measures against data centers won almost everywhere in the midterms. Spears said this opposition is different from usual local fights over energy projects, and explained why data centers draw so much anger.
Transcript
Yeah. Well, the only thing I'll say that against that a little bit is that data centers, like we've seen NIMBY fights against clean energy.
Sure. Yeah, those are not new.
Right. Those aren't new. That's not going 80-20. I mean, data centers are a popular 75-25. Data centers are next level. There's been some interesting coverage on this. It's not just that it's unsightly, even though it is. And it's not just about the noise, even though that's part of it. Data centers are a physical manifestation of economic anxiety that people have around AI. And you have leaders, many of these companies going on a podcast and saying, we think this is going to take a bunch of people's jobs. And it also, some people might die.
Yes. It might also drive us to extinction, P.S.
Right. So I will say that that's a big difference in driving some of the opposition. And then people see, oh, there's a physical manifestation of that happening near me. I don't think that's something that's a PR problem that you could say. I'm not in charge of.
Yeah, I do think data centers have become a stand-in for basically like modernity,
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