Op-Ed: NJ’s urgent need to regulate power-sucking data centers
This op-ed supports a legitimate zoning concern to dictate energy production methods and policy in the state.
The first issue regards data center zoning.
Before facilities are approved, local governments should require a thorough analysis of the impacts to agricultural land, local water supply and communities by increased noise, heat and air pollution. In particular, we need to understand the risk of depleting aquifers, such as the 17 trillion-gallon Kirkwood-Cohansey, used for drinking water and for farmland irrigation.
The existing New Jersey siting regulations are
New Jersey does **not** have a single, settled “AI data center regulation code.” What exists is a mix of **general permitting rules already in force**, **data-center-specific laws**, and **pending bills** that could add major requirements. The biggest practical issue is power: AI facilities can require enormous, continuous electricity, and New Jersey is moving toward making large-load data centers bear more of their own grid costs. (1)
Currently water impart is not a zoning concern which is not good. The legislature is generating new data center zoning requirements. When will they be completed and requirement specified is unknown. However, the new requirements will not apply to data centers currently under construction. The time to implement the new requirements and obtain permits will increase and is also unknown.
The op-ed demand that intermittent wind and solar power data centers is a defacto ban on data centers construction. Data centers require dispatchable and reliable electricity. That is impossible for wind and solar. Even battery power requires gas power backup for reliability. Instead of mandating `clean’ energy supply a two year operating wind-solar-battery demonstration system would easily prove feasibility, but that proposal is always ignored.
Also ignored is why a massive energy shortage exists. This is due to the forced shut down of eight dispatchable and reliable coal and gas plants in the past ten years.
(‘1) AlexAI Q- Please identify required regulations for New Jersey AI data centers?
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