The residents came in camouflage hats and red shirts signaling unity, more than 300 of them packing into a rural Pennsylvania planning commission meeting to protest a proposed data center they feared would carve up their farmland and upend the quiet rhythms of their valley.
Most were loyal supporters of President Donald Trump, who carried their home of Montour County by 20 percentage points in the 2024 election. But they bristled at Washington’s push to fast-track artificial intelligence infrastructure, which has driven data-center growth in rural areas around the U.S. where land is cheap.
On a recent November evening, residents in this county of 18,000 people stepped to the microphone, questioning Talen Energy (TLN.O), opens new tab officials about how their planned data center might raise residents’ utility bills, reduce working farmland, and strain local water and natural resources.
I hope the company was honest with them. Really, really honest with them.
We at Talen Energy are here to make what remains of your lives completely miserable. Your electricity bills will rise so much, you will only be able to afford electricity on weekdays. The water coming out of your faucet will cause blisters on your skin before we eventually reroute all potable water in your town to our data center. And despite our facility gobbling up hectares of your grandfather’s land for pennies on the dollar, we won’t even hire you to scrub toilets in it. Cry to Trump all you want, who do you think let us build our plant here?
