Tyranny is on the march in Mason County.
Just northwest of Maysville, the county is trying to seize land from farmers and residents so a big electric utility can build a data center that would gobble up 5,000 acres - almost 8 square miles.
The data center would be run by East Kentucky Power Cooperative. EKPC is ostensibly a nonprofit utility, but the data center push sounds more like something from the most notorious proprietary companies.
The entire event has been wrapped in secrecy, as several county officials signed confidentiality agreements about the project. People who were approached about selling their land didn't even know what it was for until later.
This comes after state lawmakers and the Beshear administration passed a measure to give massive tax breaks for data centers. In addition, the Trump regime granted exemptions for utilities to release pollutants like mercury, which would otherwise violate federal regulations. What's the point in having regulations if utility companies can receive exemptions just for the asking?
These data centers primarily serve AI platforms of huge corporations like Google and Facebook. This is while flawed AI models are being used to police online content and determine eligibility for government benefits such as Social Security Disability Insurance. The data centers use huge amounts of power, strain power grids, and drive up energy costs for everyone else. If the Mason County project is built, its power usage is expected to grow 20 times in its first 5 years.
The county now says it won't use eminent domain to take the land, but don't laugh too hard at the idea of the government confiscating land for a private company. Virginia already abused eminent domain to give land to the politically connected Dominion Energy to build transmission lines for a data center.
Meanwhile, electric utilities keep giving deep discounts to data centers while hiking rates for everyone else. More handouts for big corporations. Imagine that!
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