XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! The Logic-less Crusade That Just Killed a Data Center.
The data center was set to be constructed on a piece of land that once held a mall. That mall closed 24 years ago, in 2002, and the area has been vacant since. Upon hearing the news that the lot was set to be developed, Taylor Frazier McCollum recalls that she “was like, ‘Oh, hell no.’” Why? Were the weeds sacrosanct? Were the server racks destined to be installed atop ground that, in happier days, played host to a beloved Foot Locker? Did the ghosts of a defunct Zales call out to her in the night? “Why would you want to bring water-polluting, diesel-generating data centers right down the street from where people live, work, play?” McCollum asked. “It just didn’t make sense to me.” That the plans “didn’t make sense” to her is no doubt true. But it is true because she is evidently ignorant, reckless, and, in this particular case, allied with a Marxist group that is directly linked to China.
Is it rude to say that? So be it. Where, I wonder, does Taylor Frazier McCollum think that money comes from? Where does she expect that Prince George’s County is going to get the funds it will need to close its budget deficit or to pay for her grandfather’s new roof? Most of what McCollum believes about data centers is hysterical nonsense — the product of a rolling, Luddite moral panic that has activated the worst instincts in the electorate. Still, suppose, for the sake of argument, that McCollum is correct to assume that a data center would be less desirable than a new mall, or a museum, or a field full of daisies. So bloody what? We do not live in Eden. We will never live in Eden. Life is full of trade-offs. If we want energy, we need energy infrastructure. If we want paychecks, we need jobs. If we want tax revenue, we need businesses to provide it.