If data centers are just “sharks,” they are simply doing what sharks do—eating. You can’t blame a shark for being hungry. But you can blame the lifeguard who unlocks the gate to the beach and invites the shark in because he was promised a cut of the concession stand sales.
We are told we live in an era of scarcity: water is finite, the grid is fragile, and shared sacrifice—turn off the lights, shorten your showers—is the only responsible path. This narrative, delivered with solemn urgency, dominates public discourse. Yet step behind the curtain, and a different reality emerges. Here, in the back rooms where deals are made, scarcity proves remarkably flexible.
Resources flow generously when the right players request them for the right purposes. The crises that demand restraint from ordinary people become the justification for exceptions, subsidies, and priority access for the powerful.
At the center of this contradiction stands the modern data center: the humming warehouse powering AI, cloud computing, and the digital economy. According to IEA estimates, global electricity demand from data centers is projected to more than double by 2030—growing from around 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024 to 945 TWh—a rate of 15% annually that far outpaces overall electricity demand.¹ In the U.S., where hyperscalers dominate, projections vary but point to data centers potentially consuming 6–12% of national electricity by the decade’s end.
This boom is not hidden; it is celebrated. Tech giants naturally seek the resources required to fuel this growth; that is their nature. The betrayal lies not with the companies, but with the gatekeepers—utility regulators, state officials, and grid operators—who were sworn to protect the public interest but have instead become the silent partners in its erosion. What is marketed by these officials as a societal imperative—progress, AI leadership, national competitiveness—is, in practice, a sophisticated form of redistribution. Benefits concentrate among shareholders; burdens—higher rates, strained grids, water stress—are spread diffusely, frequently landing on communities with little leverage.
Act I: The Manufactured Urgency
The drama begins with crisis framing. Politicians have found the perfect alibi: “America risks falling behind in the global AI race.” This urgency grants them permission to bypass the very zoning laws and environmental protections they once championed. In states like Virginia and Arizona, legislators have pushed laws designating data centers as “critical infrastructure,” effectively stripping local communities of their ability to object.⁵
The same citizens urged yesterday to conserve for the planet’s sake are now told by their leaders that the planet’s future hinges on massive AI campuses. The narrative shifts fluidly to serve the moment, providing cover for officials to prioritize industrial demand over residential stability.
Act II: Selective Scarcity
Scarcity is not purely physical; it is allocated by rules that bend under pressure. Energy infrastructure has long been described by regulators as aging and underfunded, demanding conservation from the public. Yet when hyperscalers arrive, the regulatory checkbook opens: fast-tracked transmission, special tariffs, and specialized rate structures.
In Northern Virginia, Dominion Energy’s expansions—driven largely by data center growth—have contributed to proposed rate hikes, with recent filings linking billions in grid upgrade costs directly to this sector.² In Georgia, regulators grapple with proposals where new transmission primarily serves data centers. Yet, the costs are partially socialized across all ratepayers—a shift initially defended by officials, sparking bipartisan pushback.³
Water tells a starker story in the arid West. Households face strict conservation during droughts, while a single large hyperscale facility can draw millions of gallons daily for cooling. Crucially, while this volume is a fraction of agriculture’s use, the quality differs: data centers often require treated, potable water—the same water communities drink.⁴ In Phoenix-area clusters, aggregate demand reaches tens to hundreds of millions of gallons per day. While residents are asked to let their lawns die, their representatives negotiate industrial allocations that exempt massive facilities from the same austerity.
You can’t blame a shark for being hungry, but you can blame the lifeguard who unlocks the gate.
Act III: The Ritual of Consent
Democracy appears on stage: public hearings, comment periods, community benefit promises. But the true script is written in private. Local officials, eager for tax revenue headlines and campaign donations, actively court these resource drains. They trade their constituents’ long-term quality of life for a short-term political win, often signing strict Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to ensure the public realizes the true cost only after the ink is dry.
By the time input is solicited, momentum is already built. The leverage is capital flight: “Approve us, or we go elsewhere.” Desperate localities bid against each other, with public servants acting as eager brokers, selling off local resilience for the promise of jobs that rarely materialize in significant numbers.
Act IV: The Green Transition Hijack
For years, the public has invested—in higher rates, taxes, incentives—to build a cleaner grid for EVs, heat pumps, and renewables. Now, officials are allowing new renewable capacity to be diverted to feed data center growth. Tech firms claim “100% renewable” via credits, yet actual electrons may draw from the existing mix during peaks. This doesn’t broadly decarbonize; it powers private expansion, potentially delaying fossil phase-outs for others. The climate narrative that rallied support for collective investment is now being used by policymakers to justify capturing much of its output for concentrated gain.
The Final Act: Reclaiming the Stage
This is not a system failure but its design: concentrate rewards, diffuse costs, invoke urgency, stage participation, wrap in virtue. Data centers are the current flashpoint, but the pattern recurs across resource-intensive sectors.
Calling it out isn’t anti-innovation—it is a demand for faithful stewardship. The tech moguls are merely playing their hand. The tragedy is that the officials seated across the table—the ones supposedly representing us—have decided to fold, cashing in their chips while the lights flicker for everyone else.
True progress requires transparency in deals made in our name, cost allocation where primary beneficiaries pay proportionally, and mechanisms ensuring the energy transition serves the many. The curtain is pulled back. We must reject the role of the passive audience and demand a stage where the lights stay on for everyone, not just the machines.
Footnotes
- International Energy Agency (IEA), Electricity 2024: Analysis and Forecast to 2026 (Paris: IEA, 2024), 8, 16.
- Virginia State Corporation Commission, Final Order: Application of Virginia Electric and Power Company for Approval of 2024 Biennial Review, Case No. PUR-2024-00038 (Richmond, VA, Jan. 2026).
- Georgia Public Service Commission, 2025 Integrated Resource Plan Update: Order Adopting Stipulation, Docket No. 55378 (Atlanta, GA, Dec. 2025).
- Ceres, Drained by Data: The Water Cost of the AI Boom in the American West (Boston: Ceres, September 2025).
- Virginia General Assembly, House Bill 1521: Critical Infrastructure Designation for Data Centers, 2026 Sess. (Va. 2026).