Data Centers

Just up until recently, Ohioans were not aware that there were over 200 data centers already operating across Ohio with many more planned on the way. How did we get so many so fast when it was just becoming an issue for many? Well, it turns out that the Kasich Administration wrote a secret deal that allowed data centers to be built without having to pay any sales tax for 30 years. And no one in the legislature knew anything about it and even Gov. DeWine was out of the loop.

So we have trouble in Ohio again when it comes to power generation and politics. How surprising!

For years we’ve heard from Republicans that Ohio should have a basket of energy resources to enable future growth, however, the reality is that they’ve allowed the oil and gas industry to throttle the solar and wind industry in Ohio where seven projects have been halted mainly through disinformation campaigns waged by outside interests allied with the industry.  By the  way, those seven projects could have added more than enough to the baseload to handle the extra demand. And now that the data centers are sucking up all available power the oil and gas industry wants to build gas-fired power generators to handle the increasing load, when the sensible thing to do is to allow solar and wind to compete fairly and build because they’re cheaper, can handle the load and don’t pollute.

That’s why there has to be a moratorium on data center applications right now. The state needs to take a hard look at the deal Kasich cut with the mega corporations and other players associated with this development, and look into rescinding it. Ohio needs to also examine its existing power infrastructure, future developments in modernizing the grid and expanding its overall base load capability.  We need to rebuild and modernize our infrastructure across the state before building any more of these centers that not one person has ever been able to say exactly what they do.