“My theory of this is that the data centers are like fly paper. And attracted to the fly paper are all of these concerns that are actually at core about AI, and about the concern that AI is out of control.”
Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
Bryony Worthington noted that dozens of ballot measures this election were aimed at stopping data centers. David Victor, who studies the electricity business, argues the backlash is partly a proxy for wider anxiety about AI, and that some complaints, like water use, don't hold up.
Transcript
…and shaken them down for big investment commitments. Nobody really knows what that means in practice, but these are hundreds of billions of dollars. What's plausibly going to happen is we're going to see those Asian vendors build factories in the United States and sell product in the United States.
…that's all predicated on data centers. And if there's one thing that did emerge in this election, it's the kind of unpopularity of data centers. And I think there was something like 35 or 40 ballot measures, which were basically saying we don't want any more data centers. So what's going on there?
Yeah, so I find it interesting as somebody who studies the electricity business. For a decade or more, we've all been expecting demand for electricity to rise. The narrative for a long time was it was electrification because of decarbonization. And we're seeing in some states, California probably most prominently, because of decarbonization concerns, national security concerns, electric vehicles, a significant part of the growth in electricity in California is related to EV charging. But that's the aberration. Across most of the country, the main growth in electricity consumption is from data centers. And it's concentrated in a few places. It's historically been concentrated in Virginia. There's a kind of network in Loudoun County outside Washington, D.C. The politics there have kind of gone sideways. Then it moved to Texas. The politics in Texas have gone sideways. Governor-elect Inojosa, Democrat, she announced at election that she was going to put a pause on all new data center…
Yeah, it's really counterintuitive, isn't it? And you're right. It is a complete fly paper of issues, including the ownership model of these data centers, right? They're often owned by these big tech companies, these hyperscalers. There's this kind of revolving door where people are selling credits…
Yeah, I think it's also created a lot of challenges for the power industry. Like this is an industry that's mainly regulated. Some parts of it are actually state-owned. Most of it's privately owned. Heavily regulated. And it was kind of a boring industry for a long time. And frankly, if for…
Yeah, and I think there's also an element of not wanting your politics to be for sale to the highest bidders, right? I mean, what we saw in Texas was remarkable, really. You know, Elon Musk put in hundreds of millions of dollars into this election to try and keep Texas red. He completely failed…
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