The city is having a meeting tonight called, “Let’s Talk About Large-Scale Data Centers.” It is subtitled, “We want to hear your thoughts.”
Boy, if there ever was a phrase that sounded like it had been through three committees and a lawyer, that might be it. In my opinion, this kind of thing often feels less like “we want your thoughts” and more like “we want to be able to say we listened to the community’s concerns before doing what we were already leaning toward doing.”
Lubbock Should Ask Hard Questions About Data Centers
I am no expert in any of this, but Lubbock has always risen and fallen, at least emotionally, with cotton farming. Cotton may not be the only thing that drives Lubbock anymore, because we also have Texas Tech, hospitals, retail, manufacturing, food production, and a lot more going on now. But it is still bred into many of us that a good cotton season means a good year for Lubbock, and a bad cotton season means the whole area feels it.
The problem is that cotton needs water. Data centers can also need water, depending on how they are cooled. To be fair, not every data center is the old-school water-guzzling monster people picture. Some newer facilities use closed-loop cooling systems that can reduce ongoing water use. That is good, but it does not erase the question. In West Texas, water is not just another line item. Water is the line item…