Natural Gas 4 Us: BIG AI MUSCLING IN with MAGA and Bernie PUSHING SMALL BACK.

Quoting recent report by Kerwin Olson Executive Director of Citizens Action Coalition:

It’s not a novel observation to say that supporters of President Donald Trump and supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders find common ground on many issues. They often share a skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people. In Indiana, this agreement includes a distrust of data centers. “The MAGA crowd and the Bernie bros have both figured out that they’ve been getting duped,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy nonprofit. “It was data centers that really brought it all together. “Olson’s organization is running a campaign to persuade Indiana lawmakers to place a moratorium on new data centers and to redesign electricity rates to protect residential consumers from rate increases related to data center development.

He has received an emphatic response, with groups from the left, right and in-between booking him for speaking engagements and offering their assistance.

Election results last week confirm a similar dynamic in much of the country. Democrats won races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and for two open seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, campaigns in which data centers and rising electricity costs were issues.

While much of the discussion is about data centers, the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama.

“It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

Concern about data centers is rising almost everywhere. Google scrapped its plans for a large data center in Indianapolis in September amid local backlashes. In northwest Indiana, residents in the small city of Hobart have organized to oppose two data centers, raising concerns about the projects’ electricity and water consumption

Vivek Shastry, a senior research associate at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told me that it’s important for the AI and data center industries to find ways to provide local benefits to host communities and to minimize any negative effects on household electricity costs.

The demand for clean reliable energy along with water makes the Pennsylvania Marcellus Utica Basin a real and dynamic opportunity for property scaled development for and in specific geographic and geological area less attractive to the emphasis on high demand and power outlays yet providing smaller projects to be supported by the state government and the private sector to bring benefit to rural and less profitable areas of the shale basin.The state could support smaller electric generator projects using natural gas prudently to provide needed surplus energy on demand or for special generation needs specific to the local community that are not as profitable as gas produced in more prolific projects or magnitude and investment return. A number of rural counties would be targeted in Northwest and North Central Pennsylvania. These would include Lawerence, Butler, Mercer, Venango, Clarion, Jefferson, Elk, Clearfield, and Cameron counties. Projects would range from 25 to 50 megawatts in size with potential of three projects per county.  Again, the smaller project footprint would greatly lessen the negative environmental impacts of noise, air emissions and water contamination. These projects would be developed with the states advancing funds for power construction, along with termed power purchase agreements with the revenue going to the counties. Landowners would be compensated with a set lease fee, if they choose to join land groups leasing their land at a fair lease fee set equal to those participating and a set gross royalty payment between well drilling and production costs are not deductible from royalties. The exploration companies and their investors receive a fair return having their investment carry less risk and exposure. Different tiers of projects would be determined by need, and development possibilities with the project being one of providing back-up power on a demand basis, or constant electric power on a demand basis, or constant electric power for a smaller scale specific AI or DATA processing facility on an existing usage that guarantees and provides low cost power for either a public facility like a county hospital, or universities, public airport, etc., or a local manufacturing plant that then guarantees ongoing and possible expansion of employment. MAGA and Bernie Share Small as Common Ground.

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