The data center war
5/16/202624 min
There’s a growing disconnect between a local community that says it’s being treated as the "guinea pigs" in a new industrial revolution, and Washington politicians. This show was edited by Kasia Broussalian, fact checked by Esther Gim, mixed by Shannon Mahoney, video edited by Christopher Snyder and Shelby Smith, and hosted by Astead Herndon. A massive new data center in Vineland, New Jersey. Photo by Alex Peterson. You can also watch this episode on youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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First 90 secondsAstead Herndon· Host0:00
Okay, so today we're driving to Southern New Jersey. [upbeat music] I'm heading to a data center. [door closing] Convertible? Are we sure it's hot enough for that, my man? [laughs] That's a little aggressive, King. Okay, so a couple weeks ago, I read a story in nj.com, and it was all about how there's a data center going up in Cumberland County, the poorest county in New Jersey, that's receiving some community pushback. And this immediately got my attention because data centers are going up all across the country, and it feels like an issue more people should be talking about. According to one stat I saw, there's more than 4,000 data centers already across America, and more than 2,000 that have been announced or are already under construction. That's kind of crazy. I feel like we should be hearing politicians talk more about this, but we haven't really heard a consensus. One member of Congress told me that he wants to see a moratorium on data centers, but a senator told me recently that he thinks they're a necessary evil as things like AI become a bigger part of our economy and our society. So that led me to think, let's do some journalism ourselves and figure out what people actually think. Are data centers really a necessary evil? Let's find out.
Speaker 21:17
[upbeat music] So good. So good. So good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom