A Kansas company has decided not to go ahead with a controversial proposed data center in East Texas because the firm says it cannot comply with development standards recently adopted by Gov. Greg Abbott.
“Data centers that want to do business in Texas must meet a clear standard. This project did not,” Abbott wrote in a statement released Thursday. “Texas requires companies to put communities first, protect our natural resources and power grid, and respect the quality of life of our residents. Diode did the right thing by withdrawing their project. If other data center developments refuse to meet these standards, I expect them to do the same.”
According to the Texas Tribune, Kansas-based Diode Ventures had proposed building a data center in Henderson County near Cedar Creek Reservoir, a historic waterway in a community heavily involved in water conservation and located to the southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported the site was expected to take 12 years to build out and consume 5 million gallons of lake water per day by its fifth year…