The Trump administration has pushed to speed AI data center construction and preempt state regulations
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The Trump administration has announced a massive plan to redevelop a former nuclear enrichment site in Kentucky so it can host an AI data center, the latest in a string of similar conversion plans.
“The U.S. government is leveraging its assets — like our federal lands — to add power generation, create jobs, and ensure the United States wins the A.I. race,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Wednesday statement.
The project is located at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, which enriched nuclear material for the military and later commercial uses until it closed in 2013.
The initiative is backed by more than $100 billion in private investment and will create approximately 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs, according to the Trump administration, which is partnering on the project with Brookfield, NextEra Energy, Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System.
The campus will include a new, two-gigawatt natural gas power plant that officials say will produce more energy than is needed by the data center, allowing the local community to benefit from the surplus.
The administration is attempting similar projects across the country, including redeveloping a former nuclear enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, to host a 10-gigawatt data center plan and exploring another data center at a federal nuclear site in South Carolina.
Separately, the Interior Department in June approved plans to put a data center on land in Nevada once slated to become a utility solar array, in what is believed to be the first data center project on Bureau of Land Management territory.
Environmentalists and local leaders have taken issue with the plan.
“We’ve had no conversations, there’s been no chance for the community or for the city to provide any input to the federal government,” Boulder City spokesperson Lisa LaPlante told ENERGY WIRE this month. “This feels so unprecedented for us to have a project placed in our city without the chance to weigh in.”
The Trump administration has pushed to accelerate the construction of data centers as part of its larger pro-AI strategy, arguing such facilities will help create jobs and power a key technology as the U.S. competes with rivals like China.
As part of the effort, the president, whose campaign and presidential projects have enjoyed large donations from the tech industry, has urged Congress to preempt state AI regulations and has allowed “islanded” power plants only connected to data centers to be exempt from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Acid Rain Program.
Polls show local opposition to AI data centers is growing, with critics citing concerns over noise, environmental impacts and tax incentives given to data center owners.
The White House has helped organize a voluntary pledge from industry participants not to pass on elevated electricity costs to customers.
Jesse Lee, senior adviser at advocacy group Climate Power, recently told Reuters the pledge amounts to an unreliable “pinky promise” from the industry.
"Instead of allowing affordable, scalable clean energy onto the grid, Trump has actively pressured tech companies to power their data centers with fossil fuels that will increase utility costs and expose Americans to toxic pollutants," Lee said.
High demand for AI, whose data centers require vast amounts of electricity, is complicating plans to stop the climate crisis by switching to renewable energy sources.
At present, there is not enough renewable power to meet the voracious present and expected energy demand from data centers, and major players like the Trump administration have exacerbated the mismatch by pulling back on investment in renewables.
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