Disclaimer – this is not an exhaustive list of resources. We hope to continue adding helpful links to this page.
Reports and Studies
- Report to the Governor and the General Assembly of Virginia, from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) Study, 2024.
- This study was commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly in spring 2024 after legislators rejected all proposed legislation proposals to reform the data center industry.
- Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models
- a study on data center water usage by Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, Shaolei Ren
- The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI
- A study on the air pollution effects of data center by Yuelin Han, Zhifeng Wu, Pengfei Li, Adam Wierman, Shaolei Ren.
- Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power, March 5, 2025.
- A study of ratepayer impacts of data centers by Harvard Law School
- Data centers drive buildout of gas power plants and pipelines in the Southeast, January 29, 2025.
- A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)
- Issued Air Permits for Data Centers, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
- A searchable database of air permits issued by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for data centers, including procedural reports and guidelines
Overview and Impacts: Webinars
- The Local Impact of Data Centers with Julie Bolthouse, Piedmont Environmental Council land use director
- A one-hour webinar presented by the Ohio State University Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. January 24, 2025
- Unpaid Toll: The Health Impacts of Data Centers
- A 90-minute webinar by Nature Forward on unmitigated public health impact of data centers with Shaolei Ren. February 25, 2025
- AI consumes a lot of water — but why?
- A TED talk on Data Center water usage with Shaolei Ren. October 2024
- Your Hour With APA Virginia: Planning for the Infrastructure of the Digital Age
- A webinar presented by Piedmont Environmental Council Land Use Director Julie Bolthouse. Virginia chapter of the American Planning Association, August 28, 2023.
Articles of Interest for Communities & Locality/Municipality
Taxes and Tax Revenue
- Data Center Tax Revenue Can Be Hard to Predict – Fauquier Times, Oct. 25, 2022
- City Officials Caught Off Guard as Bank Tenant Sidesteps Millions in Data Center Taxes – Potomac Local News | May 5, 2025.
- Secret data center tenant in Manassas not subject to business property taxes – Inside NoVA | May 7, 2025
- Guest Opinon: Banking on data center tax revenue? Wait before cashing that check | Culpeper Times — Opinion | insidenova.com – Culpeper Times, March 18, 2025
- Prince William County spending nearly $500K to fight data center lawsuits – Prince William Times, Dec. 3, 2024.
Power Shortages Impacting the Industry
- Power Shortages Can Lead to “Zombie Data Centers” – Business Insider, Oct. 23, 2025.
- Data Centers Face Seven-Year Wait for Power – Bloomberg, Aug. 29, 2024 [requires a subscription to view]
Other Topics of Interest
Realities of Jobs Creation: The AI Data-Center Boom Is a Job-Creation Bust – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
The Electrical Grid: How Tariffs Could Shock America’s Power System – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
Water Supply: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia’s water – Grist, May 8, 2024.
Air Quality: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Noise & Visual Impacts: Data centers are changing the landscape. Here’s how they may affect rural Virginia – Cardinal News, March 12, 2025.
Importance of Local Zoning: Northern Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else in the world. Here’s its advice for Southside | Cardinal News, March 17, 2025.
Data Center as Bad Actors: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Latest News Stories
Residents Wrangle Over Transmission Line Proposal for Rural Virginia
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Inside Climate News
(05/26/26)
Deborah Blackburn leaned on her cane in a line to enter the Central High Cultural and Educational Complex, angst-ridden over a giant transmission line proposal for reasons that are common refrains here: It’s all to benefit data centers in Northern Virginia, and it will disrupt the rural character here outside Richmond. Up for public discussion in Goochland at the recent meeting Blackburn attended was a segment that would start at the Joshua Falls substation in Campbell County, about 115 miles west of Richmond.
Data center battles started in the states. Now it’s Congress under siege.
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Virginia Mercury
(05/25/26)
The future of data centers and their huge appetite for electricity is quickly escalating as a political flashpoint from coast to coast, moving from cities and states now to the nation’s capital. But finding consensus on how to proceed in D.C. is tough, with the industry spreading around millions to make its case, some lawmakers pushing a moratorium, and others looking for ways to ease the burden on Americans without halting development.
Data centers should consider impacts to rural communities
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The Washington Post
(05/25/26)
AI is reshaping industries, national security and the economy. But farmers and ranchers are not opposing the technology. They are asking legitimate questions about property rights, water usage, power reliability, utility costs and whether local residents will have a meaningful voice in decisions that permanently reshape their communities.
Americans don’t want a data center in their backyard
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Daily Kos
(05/24/26)
Let me make you an offer. I want to build a warehouse of machinery that will fill the ears of every passerby with the soft whine of industrial noise, will drink up your water reserves so much it lowers the pressure in your shower, and will jack up your utility bills—if not force your town to risk losing its access to electricity altogether—all in support of a technology expected to cost millions of Americans their jobs. In return, my warehouse will hypothetically provide you with significant tax revenue, though you will need to give me a 90% tax abatement for the next 20 years.
Don’t Want a Data Center in Your Town? You Might Be a Chinese Spy.
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Mother Jones
(05/23/26)
Utah political consultant Gabi Finlayson was driving out of a canyon last week when she got the news that she had been accused of being a Chinese government operative. She was driving to a speaking engagement in central Utah with her colleague, Jackie Morgan. When their car climbed out of the canyon and back into cell service, their phones were going off.
Residents say $1 billion power line for Virginia data centers will devastate farms and family land
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The Cool Down
(05/22/26)
A $1 billion power line proposal tied to Virginia’s booming data center industry is drawing fierce backlash from rural residents who are being asked to give up farms, forests, and family land for electricity they will not directly benefit from. According to 7News, Valley Link, partly owned by Dominion Energy, is proposing a 765-kilovolt transmission line running from Lynchburg to Culpeper County, along with an 88-acre substation in Culpeper. It would be the most powerful transmission line in the country.
Va. congressmen file energy cost transparency, data center attack protections bills
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Virginia Mercury
(05/22/26)
As utility costs surge and the proposed Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy merger could mean a change in energy policies, U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Woodbridge, this week proposed two bills to heighten electricity rates transparency. Another Virginia congressional representative, U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Loudoun, pitched a measure to strategically protect data centers and surrounding communities from attacks by international adversaries.
Va. congressmen file energy cost transparency, data center attack protections bills
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Virginia Mercury
(05/22/26)
As utility costs surge and the proposed Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy merger could mean a change in energy policies, U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Woodbridge, this week proposed two bills to heighten electricity rates transparency. Another Virginia congressional representative, U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Loudoun, pitched a measure to strategically protect data centers and surrounding communities from attacks by international adversaries.
Digital Gateway legal proceedings could stretch into mid-2027, attorney says
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InsideNoVa
(05/21/26)
The ongoing PW Digital Gateway appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court stemming from data center developer QTS is facing a drawn-out timeline that could stretch into May or June 2027. Separate legal challenges from the Oak Valley Homeowners Association and the American Battlefield Trust are heading to Richmond before the commonwealth’s high court.
Your AI chatbot is polluting my backyard
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
(05/21/26)
Although data centers underpin the global digital economy, their impacts are highly localized. Disparate health outcomes from air pollution, a drying Potomac, and intense noise pollution are among the many consequences falling disproportionately on hotspots like Northern Virginia, where development is outpacing infrastructure capacity and regulatory oversight.
Digital Gateway legal proceedings could stretch into mid-2027, attorney says
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InsideNoVa
(05/21/26)
The ongoing PW Digital Gateway appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court stemming from data center developer QTS is facing a drawn-out timeline that could stretch into May or June 2027. Separate legal challenges from the Oak Valley Homeowners Association and the American Battlefield Trust are heading to Richmond before the commonwealth’s high court.
The Data-Center Divide
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Harper’s Magazine
(05/20/26)
Clearly, money has played a decisive role in the politics of AI, both on the federal level and in states like Michigan. But it is no less influential in local politics, all the way down to individual counties. As in Michigan, Virginia’s principal utility, Dominion Energy, wields immense power thanks to its bottomless purse. Since 2010, the company has contributed more than $1 million to Luke Torian, the delegate representing Prince William County in the state assembly.
Virginia tribes say data centers could harm rivers
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The Virginian-Pilot
(05/20/26)
A proposed ordinance that would encourage data centers in some areas has drawn the concern of the King William County’s Indian tribes… Allyson Gray, a council member of the Pamunkey tribe, told the board on April 27 that the tribe was opposed to the ordinance. Among the worries, the tribe is worried about impacts that data centers could have on the Pamunkey River, she said.
Data center projects move into eastern Prince William
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Prince William Times
(05/20/26)
For years, Prince William’s growing data center footprint has been centered in Manassas, Gainesville and Bristow. But now that’s changing. Three new proposals could bring the giant facilities closer to Woodbridge and Dumfries.
Dominion just can’t kick its fossil fuel addiction
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Virginia Mercury
(05/20/26)
Flush with success after the SCC ignored legal deficiencies and approved the company’s plan for a large gas peaker plant in Chesterfield, Dominion Energy is pushing its luck with a proposal for a massively bigger gas combined-cycle plant.
Why a Southside megasite pivoted from manufacturing to data centers
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
(05/20/26)
When the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill was envisioned, leaders saw it as a comeback to manufacturing to power jobs for a region seemingly lost after the exodus of tobacco and textiles.
Data centers aren’t just getting bigger, they’re also more expensive
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Washington Business Journal
(05/20/26)
While the artificial intelligence sector hasn’t yet delivered Earth-shattering efficiency en masse to its customers, it is delivering a seismic impact upstream with its insatiable appetite for computational power. The sharp increase in demand from data centers is straining the U.S. skilled trade labor ecosystem, and it’s weighing on the companies carrying out data center projects.
Preservation, environmental groups say Valley Link transmission line risks Va.’s natural resources
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Virginia Mercury
(05/20/26)
The 765 kilovolt line would be the largest in Dominion’s operational portfolio, able to carry 6,600 megawatts of power from Joshua Falls in Campbell County into Northern Virginia, where energy-intensive data centers are clustered. The transmission line is intended to be “on and off ramps” for additional lines to bring power on and off the route.
One of Virginia’s most endangered historic sites in proposed Valley Link project area
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CBS 19 News
(05/19/26)
A meeting was held Tuesday morning opposing the Valley Link transmission power line project. Preservation Virginia, one of the largest groups at that meeting, releases a list of threatened historic sites each year. One of them is in the path of the project, which would stretch a 115-mile, 765-kilovolt powerline from Campbell County to Culpeper County.
PJM gets emergency approval to curtail data centers, large loads during hot weather
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Utility Dive
(05/19/26)
“The projected level of generation outages coupled with the forecasted demand raises a significant risk of emergency conditions that could jeopardize electric reliability and public safety,” PJM said. The curtailments would be a last resort before ordering rolling blackouts, according to the DOE’s order, issued under the Federal Power Act’s section 202(c). Only large energy consumers with backup generation would be affected.
Google’s second Chesterfield data center could impact wetlands
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Axios
(05/19/26)
Google’s proposed western Chesterfield data center campus could disturb wetlands, streams and possible unmarked graves, according to newly released federal permit filings.
The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam
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The Wall Street Journal
(05/19/26)
Booed commencement speakers, blocked data centers, plummeting poll numbers: Fast-growing industry has a faster-growing crisis. In one poll after another in recent weeks, respondents have overwhelmingly voiced concerns about AI, a challenge to claims by industry executives that their technology would gain popularity by improving people’s lives.
Google’s second Chesterfield data center could impact wetlands
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Axios
(05/19/26)
Google’s proposed western Chesterfield data center campus could disturb wetlands, streams and possible unmarked graves, according to newly released federal permit filings. Why it matters: The documents offer one of the clearest looks yet at “Project Loch,” which is part of Google’s broader $9 billion expansion in Virginia.
Pittsylvania data center project approved with more investment and jobs than previously announced — as long as tax breaks remain in place
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Cardinal News
(05/19/26)
Danville and Pittsylvania officials signed off on an AI data center project at the Berry Hill megasite that would be one of the largest industrial announcements in the U.S. — if the state does not end the data center tax exemption next year. This exemption is set to expire in 2035, but a proposal to end it early, in 2027, has been a hot topic in the General Assembly. The House and Senate are diametrically opposed on this issue, and their disagreement has held up the General Assembly’s approval of a budget.
You Can’t Just Plug in a Data Center
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Knowledge Problem
(05/19/26)
Most of us experience electricity as a subscription service. We move in, call the utility, set up an account, and expect the electrons to arrive. The power system is one of the great coordination achievements of modern life precisely because, for most of us, it disappears into the background. When it works, we do not notice it. When it fails, we notice nothing else.
