The self-anointed tech messiah has found a new frontier: your neighborhood.
Ben Cable (Originally Posted on Substack Nov 24, 2025)
By Citizen Ben
The monster in your backyard: data-consuming fortresses of AI power that are devouring America one substation at a time.
They promise “innovation,” “jobs,” and “American greatness.” But under President Trump’s second-term policies and Elon Musk’s unregulated AI empire, they’ve become something darker – a new industrial land grab disguised as technological destiny.
The Great American Plug-In
In July 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order on Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure. The title sounds harmless enough, but the translation is pure corporate candy: Fast-track everything. Ask questions later.
This order threw open the gates to an unprecedented build-out of AI-driven data fortresses—power-hungry, water-intensive, and wrapped in patriotic slogans about “America First.” Agencies were told to clear red tape, ignore local objections, and bless almost any energy source that could spin a turbine: coal, gas, nuclear, geothermal—you name it.
The Department of Energy (DOE) quickly lined up federal lands for development—Idaho, Oak Ridge, Savannah River—while FERC was instructed to get these megaprojects connected to the grid now, even if ratepayers foot the bill later.
“Efficiency, accountability, sustainability? Buried somewhere under the ribbon-cutting ceremonies.”
When Innovation Moves In Next Door
Data centers used to be tucked away in industrial zones. Not anymore. They’re showing up beside schools, churches, and small homes—replacing zoning maps with blueprints for billion-dollar infrastructure.
What follows is predictable: diesel fumes from backup generators, endless noise from cooling systems, and skyrocketing utility bills.
Citizen Ben PODCAST: Fortresses – The Ugly Costs of AI
State regulators in Virginia and Georgia warn that the new AI boom could drive residential power rates through the roof. And the water demand? Astronomical. Cooling a single hyperscale site can gulp millions of gallons a day—water that won’t be there when a drought hits.
Add in the sweetheart tax abatements and “innovation incentives,” and you start to see the real exchange: Big Tech gets the tax relief, your town gets the turbine hum.
Elon Musk’s Data-Center Empire
Enter Elon Musk, the man who loves to break molds—and occasionally, the law.
His AI startup, xAI, has been erecting what it calls “super-computing complexes” across America. The first and most infamous sits in Memphis, Tennessee—a majority-Black neighborhood already burdened by decades of industrial pollution.
According to multiple reports, Musk’s team installed dozens of methane gas turbines without proper permits, feeding colossal server loads for AI training.
“Innovation shouldn’t require a permission slip,” Musk sneered online.
Translation: Rules are for everyone else.
Environmental groups have sued, alleging the turbines emit dangerous levels of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Residents say they’ve watched smokestacks appear overnight. TikTok videos of gray plumes went viral this summer, showing the neighborhood choking under Musk’s self-proclaimed “innovation.”
It’s not just the pollution—it’s the pattern. Build fast, brand it futuristic, and let the community clean up the mess.
The Trump-Musk Symbiosis
The Memphis project didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened under the umbrella of Trump’s “AI Action Plan”—a policy that practically begs tech billionaires to “accelerate America’s AI infrastructure.”
The result is an unholy alliance of deregulation and hubris: the White House promises “innovation without obstruction,” and Musk delivers it—with a carbon plume and a grin.
“This isn’t innovation—it’s extraction with better branding.”
And here’s the kicker: even conservative lawmakers are balking. Kentucky’s Rep. Thomas Massie—no left-wing environmentalist—warned that these data-center projects “trample local control.” When both Greenpeace and Goldwater’s disciples are reading from the same script, you know something’s off.
The New Smokestack Economy
Let’s stop pretending data centers are clean. They are industrial operations that consume and emit on scales rivaling mid-century factories.
- Noise & Pollution: Constant hum, diesel backups, gas turbines.
- Strained Grids: 100 MW loads that force utilities to build new substations overnight.
- Water Drain: Millions of gallons per day—vanishing into thin air.
- Economic Inequity: Local tax breaks, federal subsidies, global profits.
“The data we’re storing may be virtual—but the damage is painfully real.”
In Memphis, people smell it. In Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” they hear it. And across the nation, they’re starting to say: enough.
Civic Homework
Okay, let’s talk about what you can do before the next AI fortress plants itself down the street.
- Check your zoning board agendas. Look for “server farm,” “data infrastructure,” or “AI energy project.”
- Ask your utility provider how much of its new capacity is reserved for corporate data loads.
- Demand environmental transparency. You have a legal right to see impact reports.
- Show up and speak up. Public hearings only work if the public attends.
- Connect across politics. The alliances forming here—between rural conservatives and urban progressives—might be America’s most hopeful new coalition.
Because while Musk and Trump build monuments to their vision of progress, it’s your power lines, your water table, and your lungs that make it possible.
Call to Action
Technology doesn’t have to be extractive. Progress doesn’t have to mean pollution.
But if billionaires keep rewriting the rulebook and presidents keep signing blank checks, it’s up to us—citizens, journalists, and neighbors—to remind them that democracy still has zoning laws.
So find out what’s being built near you. Ask the uncomfortable questions.
If we’re going to cheer new tech, we should also demand accountability. So here’s what I suggest: stay alert, stay engaged, and stay loud. If you live near a proposed data-centre project — or know of one — dig in. Ask:
- What are the projected power and water demands?
- What environmental review was done (and was it public)?
- Which community is impacted — and what benefits — or risks — have been disclosed?
- Who is footing the bill when, not if, the AI tech bubble bursts?
Because if Elon Musk (or any other giant tech player) is going to build the future, we have a right to ask: who pays, who benefits, and who’s being left behind?
Show up, speak up, and share what you learn.
Stay loud. Stay curious. Stay Citizen.
— Citizen Ben
Listen to the Citizen Ben PODCAST: Fortresses – The Ugly Costs of AI
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