AI doomsayers proclaim the sky is falling, with each new data center taxing the electricity grid, sucking up scarce water, and immiserating local residents. It all seems quite dire—and it reminds me of the last time a massively beneficial technology was almost stopped in its tracks by misplaced NIMBYism: fracking.
Just like fracking, the fears fomented by data center opponents are overblown. And, again just like fracking, the benefits of the AI revolution will be manifold.
Back when fracking was still new on the scene, I attended many town meetings in my native Ohio debating drilling leases and pipeline mineral rights. There, alarmists poured panic into an information vacuum. Agitators hawked worst case scenarios about earthquakes and flammable drinking water. Activists spent years blocking not just regional pipelines through Ohio and Pennsylvania, but the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines nationally. Everyone was afraid.
Shale advocates had to break out of the doom loop and avoid being smothered to death by bureaucracy. But after they did, nobody can deny the results. The U.S. produces more crude oil than any country, ever, and we are the global leader in lower-emissions natural gas. Our energy revolution increased our national security, lowered prices, and helped reduce carbon emissions.
The anti-shale brushfire burned itself out as energy abundance became a reality and prosperity scaled.
The AI buildout has even more potential to benefit America than fracking, but it must first overcome the same obstacles that constrained shale. Once again opponents are catastrophizing growing pains, drawing developers into a quagmire of process and oversight, and spreading fear in the place of reasonable dialogue. Discrete projects have become national proxy battles over the technology itself.
Declinists are developing clear lines of attack against data centers, arguing that they will exhaust precious water reserves and tax energy grids to the point of failure. While these sound like valid concerns, they are sensationalized into broad, unresolvable claims. Even if data centers didn’t use a single electron or drop of water, opponents would criticize them merely for occupying empty land—just like the natural gas pipelines before them. The endless controversy is intentional.
As with fracking, declinists want to bog builders down in endless debates over edge cases or hypotheticals. They take a kernel of truth—that fracking creates wastewater or AI is energy intensive—and then amplify their critique into giant, generalized claims. All the while, developers waste valuable time, and public opinion hardens against new technology every time innovators get bogged down debating such edge cases.
Shale overcame these obstacles by rising above apocalyptic hypotheticals and leading with confidence and clarity. They centered attention on jobs, rising incomes, and boosting economic activity. In time, people saw the results and real-world benefits overcame manufactured skepticism. A 2023 PwC study assessed that shale accounts for 10.8 million direct or induced jobs, while incomes and state and local tax revenues climbed alongside. Meanwhile, groundwater is still clean and city-destroying earthquakes never came.
Fracking’s victory was so absolute that former vice president Kamala Harris had to embarrassingly reverse course, switching from opposing fracking as a presidential candidate in 2020 to swearing up and down she would protect the industry in 2024.
Data centers should follow the same playbook. This means leading with tangible benefits for communities, validated by workers and utilities. They should address legitimate challenges briefly and directly while avoiding forums designed to air grievances.
Then, as they build, they should ensure people see the results. They should show how operators have learned to optimize cooling systems, recirculate water in closed loops, and draw from non-potable sources—all methods to drastically reduce water usage.
They should tout tangible local benefits like jobs, rising incomes, increased economic activity, and growing local tax revenues.
They should proudly highlight the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, where AI companies vowed to build, bring, or buy the energy their data centers require. As I’ve argued before, this pledge is on course to create a positive energy feedback loop, as tech companies surge investments to increase energy supply, driving down electricity rates as they deploy advanced nuclear, solar, wind, and their own natural gas turbines.
Over time, those who opposed data centers will be like those who opposed fracking, desperately trying to explain away their past opinions.
Shale won the day by barreling through the fearmongering, sticking to a simple message, and delivering real results. Now, AI should operate with the same confidence as shale, winning people over with growth and prosperity that can’t be denied.
Innovators have long struggled against fearmongers. But AI has an ace up its sleeve. Fear can’t beat success.
Chris Johnson is president and co-founder of the American Energy Leadership Institute, a conservative energy policy research and advocacy organization working to ensure America leads and dominates the 21st century.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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