As artificial intelligence, data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities proliferate across the United States, communities in which companies are looking to place these operations are beginning to push back more forcefully.

Indeed, as municipalities and towns throughout the country have learned, the activities going on at these centers are not only noisy, but monopolize power sources, causing utility bills for neighboring homeowners to skyrocket (covered extensively by ELM, including as recently as March).

Earlier this week in North Carolina, just this past Monday, the Town Council in Weaverville unanimously approved a motion to prevent crypto mining facilities from moving into Weaverville. Specifically, the motion directed a change in city code that, practically speaking, discouraged such businesses from setting up shop before even being able to submit proposals, as these data centers have been able to do in other North Carolina towns. The mayor explained that this was a result of residents’ fears about mining centers hogging local resources such as energy and water for cooling purposes.

These foiled data center plans are not just the result of communities preemptively saying no, but also of companies deciding against moving into communities, given widespread opposition, resulting in millions of dollars in losses companies deem more palatable than running operations in an unfriendly environment. For instance, just yesterday, a Northern Virginia data center into which developers had already invested tens of millions of dollars over several years was scrapped partially due to intense opposition from local residents. Moreover, the tax breaks that these centers have usually elicited from state legislators across the United States were proving to be less of a sure thing given increasing opposition from state lawmakers.

Not all communities have been able to successfully prevent or evict these centers, though. Perhaps that’s because there might be ways around these facilities’ aggressive and expensive energy consumption. For example, a new 40,000-acre AI data center proposed in Utah is expected to generate and consume more than twice the power its home state uses – but it will supposedly run off the electrical grid, instead using natural gas. Last week, Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority approved a development agreement for a “hyperscale” data center that could eventually consume up to 9 gigawatts of power that would be provided on the enormous campus itself. This would be made possible by the center’s connection to the Ruby Pipeline, a roughly 700-mile natural-gas conduit running through Utah on its way from Wyoming to Oregon. In fact, a project stakeholder has even claimed that the power generated on-site for this ambitious project will be so substantial that it might boast a surplus that can be distributed elsewhere.

Will the communities alienated or burned by earlier or pending data center plans be able to be convinced to welcome back these businesses if the latter succeed on showing they can achieve what the hyperscale data center planned in Utah hopes to achieve? Only time – or perhaps state and local legislatures looking for development – will tell.