Julie and Chris Borneman signed petitions, wrote to their local officials, put a sign in front of their house, and joined a campaign against putting the power line through their property.

The recent expansion of data centers and associated power infrastructure is unprecedented, according to Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, a local environmental nonprofit. She has worked at the nonprofit for 15 years.

“Prior to 2021 I had only worked on two or three transmission line proposals … Within the last three years, I’ve been a participant in stakeholder meetings for at least a dozen transmission line proposals,” Bolthouse said. “We’ve never seen this many transmission lines at once.” 

The Piedmont Environmental Council has been keeping track of all these data centers and associated power infrastructure.

Bolthouse said the power company and state regulator have been approving many of these projects, but there is not enough public information about how much energy the data centers use, and their impact on air and water quality. 

“We need transparency so that we can proactively plan ahead,” said Bolthouse. “Right now, what we’re doing is basically like our utility is handing out blank checks that we, the rate payers, are on the hook for paying for.” 

To that, Aaron Ruby, spokesperson for Dominion Energy, the largest utility in Virginia, said, “as a public utility we are the most heavily regulated industry in Virginia.” 

He said the state regulator reviews the energy costs to make sure everyone is paying their fair share, and the share of energy costs that households pay for has gone down, whereas the share for data centers has gone up.

He also added that Dominion Energy expects the power demand from data centers to nearly quadruple over the next 15 years.

The demand for power has never gone up by so much, so quickly. 

Some of the electricity will come from natural gas plants, but Ruby said most of that will be from renewable energy like wind and solar power.

In a statement, Amazon pointed out that their company has been the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for four years, and that 90 percent of the energy the company uses comes from renewable sources.

Local officials say data centers saved their economy during the Great Recession of 2007. Buddy Rizer helped bring data centers to Loudoun County in northern Virginia, as the executive director for economic development for the county for the past 17 years.

He said they brought in data centers because during 2007, the local economy took a big hit when the housing bubble burst. The county lost a third of its tax revenue.

“Data centers have such an inordinate return on investment for a community that there’s nothing else that comes close,” Rizer said. “As an example: for every dollar a data center uses in services in our community. We get $26 back. There’s nothing that comes within $24 of that.” 

He said the revenue from data centers helped transform their local economy, so they could invest in their schools and roads. He added that the tax revenue from data centers is almost a third of the county’s budget, and completely funds their operating budget.

But Rizer has also heard the concerns about how quickly the industry is growing in their area.

“When you’re in any job 17 years, in your community, you become your job … especially a fairly public facing job like mine,” Rizer said. “I have a lot of conversations at the grocery store or when I’m filling my car with gas.” 

He expects the demand for data centers to continue to grow. 

Rizer said cloud computing led to a big wave of data centers, then it was the demand for online services during COVID-19. Now, the big driver of growth is artificial intelligence. 

He said data centers actually do not have a lot more room to grow in Loudoun County anymore. The more recent proposals for new data centers have been in the surrounding counties, Maryland,  states like Kansas and Mississippi, or other countries, like China, India, Japan, and Malaysia. 

Posted June 27, 2024 11:23pm EDT

Hours before the two presumptive nominees were slated to hit the debate stage for the first time in the 2024 presidential race, First Lady Jill Biden stopped in Virginia Beach on her way to Atlanta to support her husband, President Joe Biden.

“You all know that there’s two visions for America and you’ll see them tonight when you watch the debate,” she told the crowd that had gathered inside of the Biden-Harris campaign office in Virginia Beach for a sign-making event.

“You’ve already chosen your vision, or you wouldn’t be here,” she said to the crowd of Biden supporters. “The vision you’ve chosen is for strong, steady leadership versus the other vision, which is chaos and corruption.”

Earlier, another crowd had gathered near the entrance to parking lot of the strip mall where the campaign office was held. They wore red hats with “make America great again” embroidered on them, held signs in support of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presumptive nominee, and wore shirts with slogans on them like “Joe and the hoe got to go.”

The First Lady’s visit, announced Tuesday, underscores Virginia’s standing as a battleground state during the 2024 presidential election. Her visit came after Trump had announced his plan on Saturday to visit Chesapeake for a campaign rally on the day after the first presidential debate.

“I want you, tonight when you see them debating, I want you to hear Joe’s words but most of all, I want you to listen to his heart,” the First Lady said, as she rallied the group to help get out the vote efforts in the largely active and retired military community.

The pro-Trump demonstration had cleared out of the area by the time the First Lady left in her motorcade.

Democratic voters on the pending debate

Barbara Nesbitt, a retired teacher, said she is happy there won’t be an audience at tonight’s debate.

“It won’t be such a clown show,” she said. She’s a little nervous, ahead of the 2024 rematch in November, but she said she hopes Biden wins overwhelmingly. “To let them know we’re not stupid in America,” she said.

Maurice Hawkins, a Democratic voter in Virginia Beach, noted that the commonwealth has voted for a Democratic president since 2008, when former President Barack Obama won his first term in office. The last Democratic presidential nominee to win in Virginia before Obama was former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Biden won Virginia by 10 points over Trump in 2020.

“In Virginia, we know that we’re a battle ground state, year-in, year-out. All our races are tight. This area is going to be a strategic region in regards to voter turnout, to determine how Virginia will go out,” he said, referring to the Hampton Roads region – which includes both Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

Sandra Brandt, chair of the Second Congressional District Democratic Party, said she feels confident Biden will perform well in the debate.

“I feel good, I think the president has been looking at all of the issues,” she said. “I think he’ll do an excellent job.”

She noted that the Democratic Party has a lot of work ahead, between June and November, but she feels confident in Biden’s chances of winning the election.

“Tonight will be historic,” Charles Stanton, 69, chair of the Norfolk City Democratic Party said, in the parking lot of the strip mall after the event had wrapped.

He called himself an “optimist on America” and said he hoped the 10% or 15% of undecided voters will shift to the Democratic camp after the debate.

“We are going to have one candidate on the stage with a historic record of accomplishment and another candidate on the stage with a historic record of being indicted 88 times, convicted 34 times,” he said. “It’s just not a choice, I mean it truly is decency versus debauchery.”