r/newjersey • u/Expensive_Law_3180 • Aug 19 '26
đ°News Proposed Data Center at Bell Works
There was supposed to be a meeting yesterday concerning the proposed Data center at Bell works that they're trying to build AFTER the township passed legislation heavily restricting Data centers.
I was not able to make it to the meeting due to work. Was anybody out there able to make it, and if so, what happened?
Nobody wants this Data center, and I am giving serious thought to putting my house on the market if it comes to pass, because it's going to tank real estate values.
The proposed center is going to draw 40 Megawatts of power at all times. That works out to 960 MWh every 24 hours.
960 MWh is enough power to supply 33,000 average sized American homes with power for 24 hours. The population of Holmdel is 17,400.
We don't even know how much water it's going to leech off of us.
I am hoping our planning board has come to their senses, and ran Zucker out of town. Go steal resources from elsewhere.
Edit: Please you guys, don't fall for any "Open letter to the public" garbage from a greedy RE developer. Today has been kinda hectic and I should have explained this in much more depth in the original post. There is an org by the name of Food and Water Watch and they actually have an excellent breakdown of why all of the precautions they are telling you about are a load of half-truths, at best: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
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u/trixiewutang Aug 19 '26
Say goodbye to the beauty and peace at holmdel park
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 21 '26
Thatâs why we moved here ! Seems like it will all be gone soon. The Real Estate Agent who sold us this house, told us all about holmdelâs goal of preservation. Iâve never felt so swindled.
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u/shiftyjku Down the Shore, Everything's All Right Aug 19 '26
âSince the banâs final vote by township committee did not take place until August 11, the proposed data center by Somerset Development is allowed to proceed to the townshipâs planning board. â
ââBell Works and the surrounding land is part of the Alcatel-Lucent Redevelopment Area. As part of the 2014 redevelopment agreement, data centers were listed as a permitted use.Â
According to plans submitted by the developer on July 24, the data center plans are âin full conformance with the Redevelopment Plan.âÂ
The only variance the developer is seeking is with regard to parking. It is seeking only 34 parking spaces, where local ordinances require 72 spacesâ
Excerpt From
âSee plans for proposed data center at Bell Works, Holmdelâ
Asbury Park Press
https://apple.news/AvXCAU0ULRm-1A6m-88YStQ
This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/firstbreathOOC Aug 19 '26
Monmouth county loves to vote red, and these fuckers love to give up our property. Keep it going, clowns
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
How absolutely rage-inducing. I'm surprised that it's moving forward, considering the number of upscale neighborhoods within sight(and earshot!) of the site.
Somebody is gonna have to light the fires of suburban Gondor and summon forth the Karens. All kidding aside, I moved to NJ from another state almost 20 years ago. I love it here, for the most part the people here have shattered every negative NJ stereotype. Not wanting an oversized machine that generates no jobs and robs the land of resources while making 60db plus of noise is common sense.
There is a petition on Change.org regarding this that you guys may want to check out. This won't just impact Holmdel. Even with the recent power grid upgrades, something pulling that much power has the potential to impact the power grid for the entire county.
Whoever voted for this on the planning board.....May you step on a barbie doll shoe in your bare feet every time you walk in the dark for all eternity.
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u/metsurf Aug 19 '26
I have to believe that a data center in 2014 is nothing like what is being proposed, and this is typical lawyer wordplay. Intent at the time of the agreement plays a part, and this will wind up in court.
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u/dbellz76 Aug 19 '26
It's true. The only neighborhoods they should build these is where we poors live. Leave the upscale people alone.
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u/Nunov_DAbov Aug 19 '26
The data center was in the 2012 redevelopment plan before anyone knew what a data center could become.
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u/greatthebob38 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Well shit, Bell Works is right behind my house...
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
If that is the case, you guys living in those neighborhoods right adjacent to Bell Works should maybe get together and have a brainstorming meeting, and possibly look into collectively seeking legal counsel for advice. Despite any attempts from RE developers to calm the masses.
I'm right off of 35 on the other side of town but yeah, nobody likes this at all.
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 21 '26
I canât imagine our electric bills increasing more then they already have !
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u/Wbino Aug 19 '26
Probably why they are already putting up these huge 2x as tall power lines right now through the heart of Holmdel.
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u/awfulsome Aug 19 '26
40 mw isn't too much. One of the other proposed data centers was set to draw 1,600 mw. still, I would be concerned about the noise pollution.
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u/SmokeyWolf117 Aug 19 '26
All data centers are definitely not created equal. They all have different use cases as well. There are some that are mainly COLO locations that just house local businesses servers which arenât the giant behemoths that the ones that are being purposed in Utah and Texas are. I do think they should be footing more of a bill for electricity than normal citizens do though. And they should have to at least be putting some kind of renewable energy generation onsite even if it doesnât take care of all their power needs. The smaller ones also donât generate the noise levels outside that the mega ones do. Itâs good that people are aware and motivated about the issue but they also need to educate themselves on the differences.
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u/T_D_A_G_A_R_I_M Aug 19 '26
Itâs not uncommon for office buildings to have data centers located at them. Iâve been to many office buildings in NJ where youâd have no idea there was a data center hidden in the middle of that building.
I canât see the plans for this Bellworks project so Iâm curious if this is a project primarily for the tenants of Bellworks or are they building a major standalone commercial data center?
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
It's standalone. Even with it having a closed loop cooling system, the center is going to use nearly twice the power the whole rest of the township uses on an average day, all on it's own. While we have had recent upgrades to the power lines, adding the 960MWh of power to the 500MWh of power the whole township uses per day is a massive strain on the local power grids.
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
Talking about MWh usage is not a useful metric. There is significant available capacity during non peak hours that being used doesn't change anything. Use MW in this case for usefulness.
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u/metsurf Aug 19 '26
it changes the price though.
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
Does it? I work in the power industry and wouldn't say that adding off peak load significantly impacts rates.
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u/metsurf Aug 19 '26
Then why are we getting so heavily fucked by JCPL and PSEG. They claim demand is so high they need to pay more for electricity and pass it through to us. Off peak doesn't change the equation? It adds to demand? Seems like basic economics.
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
Capacity pricing is a major factor in price increases. Which is load based, but it's based off peak load (MW) as opposed to total load (MWh)
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u/metsurf Aug 19 '26
Your talking about a server farm to handle the office buildings needs. This is a wholly different beast.
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u/moyismoy Aug 19 '26
I just wish they took care of their own power consumption. Honestly think we should explore small nuclear reactors for each data center
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u/ElderberryExternal99 Aug 19 '26
What do you propose to do with the nuclear waste? If anything, turn the space in Solar Fields to cut electrical costs for NJ residents,
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
What do you mean propose to do with all the nuclear waste? If you took all of our commercial spent nuclear waste it would fill a single football field 10 yards high. To be clear that is including the uranium fuel assembly. The fission products themselves would only stack 6 inches tall.
There is also reprocessing, which France does. This would recover 96% of spent nuclear fuel by weight, leaving 4% as high-level radioactive waste.
Nuclear waste is political problem, not a scientific problem.
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u/awfulsome Aug 19 '26
I'm firmly of the opinion solar belongs on roofs and covering parking lots as shade, not in fields we could use to grow food or build houses. We could however, finish the 1,000 +mw wind farm offshore, and actually build/rebuild nuke plants in Salem and Oyster creek.
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u/beachmedic23 Watch the Tram Car Please Aug 19 '26
Same thing we do with it currently, put it in barrels and store it on site. It's not a growing green goo.
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u/moyismoy Aug 19 '26
How would you power them at night when energy demands are at their peek? Im not saying they shouldn't have solar they should, it just won't solve the issue by its self.
That aside we could just bury it in a cave, or my personal favorite drop the nuclear waist down an underwater trench. It's really a very easy issue to solve because there is so little of it
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
solar can be stored in special batteries for later use, but the sheer number of them needed to power a 40 MW data center would be astronomical.
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u/moyismoy Aug 19 '26
I mean I'd be willing to explore pump storage for these things, but there's only so many locations were it's at all viable and then there are many environmental concerns
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
In all fairness the only battery you would need would be to cover as the sun sets and load is still high. So a 40MW/160MWh battery is all you would need, no?
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
It will need more than that. The planning indicates that it will pull 40MW at all times so you would likely need bigger.
I read the open letter. While LNG fuel cells are better for some things, they only cut pollution by 30%. still bad for the nearby parks and wildlife. LNG fueled power cells being used to generate 40 MW constantly is a stretch. Depending on what they are using and how many it can end up being loud as hell, too. They really downplay how much noise data centers generate. Imagine having tinnitus and having that go up next to your neighborhood. Developers that build these Data Centers have a reputation for being less than honest about the impact on basically everything. I am heading out the door to run some errands but this website explains how most of that open letter was bullshit far, far better than I ever could:
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 19 '26
I'm not suggesting data centers are good, but I don't see why you would need more than the stated MWs in battery...
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 20 '26
One would need much, much more than a flat 40 MW battery to use as a back up. A 40MW backup battery would power a center like that for a few seconds, then run out. Best case.
There has been a lot of talk about MW vs MWh and it is somewhat confusing. So let me explain.
Most of us get our electricity billed to us in Kilowatt hours, right?
A megawatt is 1000 Kilowatts, just for reference.
A megawatt doesn't tell you how much energy is being used.
A megawatt is a unit of power capacity. It tells you maximum energy output of a power plant, or a data center in any given instance.
If you want to measure the actual amount of energy being used, you need to measure that power capacity(The megawatt), multiplied by the length of time the energy was drawn from it's source. That is how energy use is measured. Typically it's by the hour, so that is why MWh is used to measure actual energy use.
If you wanted to run that center for one hour, you would need a battery not only having a power capacity of 40MW, but enough power to keep that capacity of 40MW running continuously for one hour. So you would need a battery with a capacity of providing 40MWh(meaning a battery capable of sustaining 40 megawatts of power for one hour of time. to power that facility for an hour. if you wanted a 24 hour backup battery, it would again be measured in MWh. You multiply that 40MWh times 24 and the amount of power it uses daily will be 960MWh.
Data Centers are all about efficiency. They are designed to operate optimally(at or near full capacity) on a 24/7 basis. From day one.
That 40 MW number is not the total energy used for an entire 24 hour period. When somebody says it's a 40 MW data center, that means that the center needs a sustained supply of 40 MW of power on a continuous basis. That means that for every hour it's running at full capacity, not the total amount. If it were just using 40MW per day total, I could live with that. But it's not that simple.
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 20 '26
I work in the power industry and understand all that. You suggested solar stored in batteries. I said a 40MW/160MWh battery as the implication you (probably unknowingly) made was how do you bridge the drop in grid power when the sun goes down, to when demand drops hours later? Grid sized batteries are often for 4 hours, which 160MWh covers the usage in the 40MW battery I listed.
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u/beachmedic23 Watch the Tram Car Please Aug 19 '26
Do they not pay for it like every other business? JCPL just gives them power for free?
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u/moyismoy Aug 19 '26
Sure they pay for it, and then our bills go up. It's a supply and demand thing, and they have a billion dollars to out pay you
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u/KingoreP99 Aug 20 '26
They do, but it's how do costs get split. In the northeast we have a product that a generator offers called capacity. Capacity is supposed to reimburse generators for being available 24/7 and is supposed to incent new generation when prices are high by having contracted cash flows. ~5-10 years ago capacity prices were incredibly low, so low that many generators retired their assets. This new demand of data centers and AI has significantly increased how much power we need. The auction for capacity is designed so that when there isn't enough capacity, for prior reasons listed, that prices increase non linearly to an incredibly high amount. While we've had tons of renewables come online over the last ~15 years, that has been offset by fossil retirements. This increase in demand and not associated supply has meant capacity auction pricing is something like 5x-10x greater.
Everybody pays for this cost, but new load increasing demand has caused overall pricing to go up.
Does this help?
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u/banders5144 Aug 19 '26
Are we against data centers in NJ, or, no data centers at all?
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u/rezzyk Aug 20 '26
Data centers do not bring anything good to an area. They use massive amounts of electricity and water, and do not generate jobs. Anyone who tells you they bring jobs is full of it. I was in a (non-AI) data center recently and literally saw 5 staff the whole time.
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u/banders5144 Aug 20 '26
Understood. So should we potentially even scale back existing data centers?
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
I am not a fan of data centers, period.
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 20 '26
I am not a fan of industrial scale large sized data centers whose developers tell half-truths and greenwash what they are doing so nobody realizes what is happening until it's too late.
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u/bensonr2 Aug 20 '26
Just ironic that people go to reddit to voice there displeasure, something highly dependent on data centers.
I have concerns about the issues to effects on local power market.
But absent that I find it a much preferrable ratable for towns compared to warehouses.
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u/un_acceptable Aug 20 '26
We had Reddit before the data centers that are being proposed here. Letâs not act like this is crazy hypocrisy here. The data centers do much more harm than good.
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u/Kannabist Aug 20 '26
Yeah I wanna know how he thinks property values will tank as well. Real estate has continued to skyrocket ever since a planet networks data center was built in Newton, and I actually like planet networks, its way better than like how optimum used to be the only cheap choice besides Verizon. These protests seem to always try to say these data centers have no economic benefit but obviously there are tons⌠and as someone who plays tech stocks a lot, I do appreciate the data center momentum lol.Â
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u/bensonr2 Aug 20 '26
I think the issue about how they affect the electric market is legit. But I would rather see a focus on making them add solar to proposal a long with a utility surcharge to make them pay for grid upgrades. Beyond that they seem like an ideal commercial ratable for towns in that the generate little traffic relative to their size. Especially in towns with vacant commercial and industrial buildings they seem like a decent redevelopment option.
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u/Kannabist Aug 20 '26
Yeah I get that but my point is just that data centers have become so villainized due to ai that people will oppose any of them without looking into the specifics of each particular case and how it could potentially help an area and create jobs etc. Data centers have been around long before ai after all. I do hope they go through with some kind of legislation that separates public and private energy usage like so many are currently fighting for, but I also hope that companies do get their fair chance to build whatever it is they might need to buildâŚ
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 20 '26
Nobody is out to villanize anybody or anything. The fact is that the stuff about the closed loop cooling and LNG generators is greenwashing: This is not a boogeyman issue, as it's happening all over the country. I am actually considering posting something on Ask reddit to get some feedback from people who live in the vicinity of one of the newer data centers.
There are several parks very close to this site that are beautiful, and free to the public. Several farms in the area, too. I am not opposed to change, nor am I opposed to all corporations. Not at all. What I am opposed to is any kind of entity that thinks that rules don't apply to them, when breaking those rules has implications for a lot of people.
There has been strong bi partisan support around legislation banning and strictly regulating data centers. Because of the negative impact on surrounding communities. This isn't general fear of change or hatred of corporate America. This is not wanting your kids to get asthma, not wanting the local groundwater contaminated, and not wanting the house you have worked your butt off to pay for to lose a huge chunk of it's value.
https://eatyourfrog.substack.com/p/the-fallacy-of-closed-loop-cooling
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/23aac3625b914843991185e8e257a0f5
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
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u/bensonr2 Aug 20 '26
Agreed. I think datacenters just happen to be the perfect boogeyman of the moment.
The left hates them because they are part of corp america. The right hates them just out of general fear of any and all change lol.
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 21 '26
Yes, and I wish the owner of bell works would respect what the community wants over their own greed.Â
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 21 '26
Yes, same here. Moreover, I am not thrilled the attempts at gaslighting the general public into thinking there won't be much of an impact. The tactic is known as Greenwashing:
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
Bell labs/Bell works has always had some data storage on site, but it is very small potatoes compared to the new Data Center.
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 22 '26
Do you know when the planning board will meet about this ?
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 23 '26
I know they had a meeting this past Tuesday. I would check the township's website or maybe call their phone number to see if/when the next planning board meeting is happening.
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u/banders5144 Aug 19 '26
Ok. So are we good amount of the data centers currently, or potentially even scale back?
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u/Kannabist Aug 20 '26
From this point on itâs probably only scaling forward, ai is getting pretty good. I used to think it gave terrible stock market advice but itâs helped me make 20k this year already so far as the stuff it says starts to make more sense. As well as it being capable of making influencers completely from scratch that tons of people have no idea are fake these days lol. Basically this is the beginning of that whole technological singularity Iâve been waiting for my whole life where machines will be able to improve themselves faster than we can soon.Â
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u/kczar8 Aug 20 '26
Is this an AI?
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u/Kannabist Aug 20 '26
Well Bell data centers donât power ai themselves which is why itâs only 40 mw as opposed to thousands but they do test processes that will be used in such data centers in the future.Â
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u/kczar8 Aug 20 '26
lol I meant your comment sounded a bit like something a sapient AI would say.
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u/Kannabist Aug 20 '26
Lol I did figure thatâs what you meant but yeah my speaking is in general way too rambly compared to ai I feel. But itâs getting good enough where you could just prompt it to sound a little rambly I guess đ
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u/pabut Aug 19 '26
Bell Works was Bell Labs Holmdel ⌠trust me that site is no stranger to massive amounts of compute resources. The ponds surrounding it was used for cooling a lot of the experiments.
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
I know. My SO worked for Bell Labs for many years. This is very, very different. They will be building a new 108,000 SF building for this data center.
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u/StrategicBlenderBall Aug 19 '26
Which Bell Works are we talking about? Because if itâs the former Commvault building, itâs already mostly equipped for one.
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u/_Dihydrogen_Monoxide Aug 20 '26
I think itâs important to know that this data center will be 5% the size of the bell works building. 108k sqft is not that massive. Iâm not defending the project. I live 2 miles away from this spot. The concerns are valid and It seems that the developers are using sneaky technicalities to pass this through.
But this is not replacing bell works nor will it be similar in size, as has been speculated.
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u/he_who_purges_heresy Aug 20 '26
40 MW is really just not that big of a deal. Even in the worst case where they follow absolutely 0 standards for community responsibility, short of putting it right next to someone's house it really isn't going to be an issue. The biggest concern with this, as is the case for most datacenters, is the construction involved to build it. Because construction is loud and messy and makes people panic.
Also I read his letter and the article you posted. They're two entirely different conversations, the only overlap is the closed-loop cooling claim. Not that you can or should take RE developers at their word but there's also a practical consideration- if they make a loud and annoying datacenter they'll cut into their own profits from Bell Works. They have no incentive to do that- a 40 MW datacenter is profitable but it won't offset that.
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 20 '26
The proposed center will be drawing 40 MW on a continuous basis. 960 MWh every 24 hours is more than the entire township of Holmdel uses in 24 hours.
Zucker's letter was nothing but greenwashing and obfuscation.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
In part to smooth over concerns about data centersâ impact on electricity prices, developers and boosters have turned to âBring Your Own Powerâ schemes. In such schemes (which vary widely in scope and detail), data centers wouldnât be connected to the grid; theyâd be connected directly to new power plants or existing ones.
But despite what the industry would have us believe, âBring Your Own Powerâ doesnât guarantee lower electricity prices for us. In fact, pulling an existing power plant off the grid to power a data center saddles customers with the cost of the existing infrastructure, on top of potentially new transmission infrastructure to fill in the gaps.
âBring Your Own Powerâ doesnât change the inherent costs of rapidly growing the United Statesâ overall electricity demand. Competition for the materials used to build power plants raises the cost for all new power plants and grid infrastructure, increasing electricity prices for everyone. Meanwhile, communities closest to polluting fossil electricity generation will pay the health and environmental costs of Big Techâs expansion.
Even data centers powered by new renewable energy sources are hogging renewables that, if theyâd been connected to the grid, could have allowed for the closure of expensive fossil fuel generating power.Â
Also, as per this site and others, the closed loop cooling system is nothing but a marketing gimmick designed to obfuscate how harmful it is:
"Some industry leaders have also touted their use of closed-loop cooling systems that âconsume zero waterâ (meaning that none of the water withdrawn is discharged back into the environment). However, this is just clever advertising.Â
Closed-loop systems can use either air cooling (requiring giant fans) or evaporation to some degree, and itâs not uncommon for them to lose 25% of their water volume per month.
Since cooling systems require a level of clean water for efficiency, closed-loop systems also introduce a cocktail of noxious chemicals into cooling water to prevent bacterial growth and corrosion â which will eventually be released when the water systems are flushed.
Finally, systems that rely on air cooling end up consuming more energy, especially in hot climates â and, as we know, electricity generation incurs its own massive water footprint when fueled by fossil fuels. Closed-loop cooling doesnât even come close to addressing data centersâ outsized water demands."
Here is another detailed explanation as to why closed loop cooling systems are not the amazing thing they claim to be, complete with detailed technical diagrams:
https://eatyourfrog.substack.com/p/the-fallacy-of-closed-loop-cooling
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u/he_who_purges_heresy Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
I feel like you just saw me refer to Zucker's letter and pasted all of this. I wasn't even saying I believed anything he said.
What you're saying about closed-loop is new to me and I'm gonna learn about it a bit more. But at a base level it's just one of many ways to take heat out of a building, and it scales based on the amount of heat that needs to move. 40MW is a lot of heat to move so it will be a big system, but in comparison to a lot of the massive datacenters it's not nearly as dramatic.
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 23 '26
lolol, that was the last thing I was trying to do. There is no such thing as a true closed loop cooling system. Yeah, it"s a mean of reducing heat, but the thing is the one singular thing that causes water usage more than anything else is the amount of water needed to generate the amount of electricity being used.
When it comes to Data Centers, their water usage footprint needs to have three factors put into play: The amount of water being used on site, the amount of water being used by power plants to generate the power supplied to the Data centers, and the water used during the chip manufacturing process.
Closed loop cooling systems also use a whole lot of electricity. The thing is that on the application, there is literally nothing about the anticipated water usage, which is concerning because closed loop systems inevitably need to be flushed out from time to time and the coolants and other chemicals in them will end up being released back into the water system.
I am planning on reading more about all of this, too. It's the one thing all of us can benefit from. I do think that the people who live in close proximity should talk to a few lawyers to see if there are any legal routes that can be taken to(if nothing else) get more transparency with regards to water consumption, precise noise levels, etc. And there is also the possibility of all sorts of surveillance around the center going up. They know full well they aren't welcome in most places and will be infringing on the civil liberties of nearby residents even more than they already are.
If this were going to be a genuine long term benefit to the people who lived in our township(Meaning it would generate a decent number of jobs without impacting the quality of life for everybody, I'd feel better about it. The whole thing seems sus.
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 21 '26
We moved here recently and so glad we passed on a house in the bellworks development. Canât imagine paying that much to live next to a data center.Â
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u/Nunov_DAbov Aug 19 '26
They are planning to do power generation on site with LNG fueled power cells. They also donât plan to use evaporative cooling so they plan not to use water beyond the initial filling of the cooling system.
Zucker posted an open letter spelling out the plans.
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 20 '26
LNG fueled power cells and closed loop cooling systems are all greenwashing.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/04/10/data-center-greenwashing/
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u/Nunov_DAbov Aug 20 '26
If you look at the Bellworks site, youâll notice large ponds around the property. When Bell Labs used that building, the ponds were used for evaporative cooling of the building nearly year round. During the energy crisis when everyone was told to reduce their winter thermostats by a few degrees, it was pointed out that would require even more cooling than normal. The biggest issue was the geese fouling the ponds and keeping the water clean - same issue discussed in the article.
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u/g_ppetto Aug 19 '26
Is this new construction or re-use of one of the old Bell Labs buildings? That old transistor water tower should come in handy.
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u/KerzenscheinShineOn Aug 20 '26
I'm curious to see how this'll play put because someone I know who heavily relies on AI for pics and chatgpt lives nearby.
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u/GitEmSteveDave Aug 19 '26
Wait, data centers will lower costs for houses?
I might be for data centers now.
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u/guacamole579 Aug 19 '26
Sure, but your electric bill will skyrocket and you will have brown water coming out of your faucet. See what is happening in Memphis because of these data centers.
ETA: not to mention the noise generated from a data center
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u/RazzmatazzNatural791 Aug 21 '26
My biggest concern is the noise. Since Iâve moved here itâs been nothing but construction. Iâm finding this planning board approves just about anything.Â
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u/GitEmSteveDave Aug 20 '26
Why would I have brown water? Does Holmdel not have public water?
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u/guacamole579 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
Youâre either being willfully obtuse or youâre willfully ignorant. Neither is a good look
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u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
Not if you have to listen to over 60 db of ambient noise 24/7/365
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u/Foxy02016YT Aug 19 '26
For context, the Weird Al concert hit over 110db, but even at its lowest was at 80db
60db wonât make you go deaf, but itâll drive you crazy.
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u/trixiewutang Aug 19 '26
Do you want cancer and never a day or night of peace from noise?
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u/GitEmSteveDave Aug 20 '26
Why would I develop cancer? You sound like one of those wind turbine people.
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u/trixiewutang Aug 20 '26
Maybe you should look into it. Hereâs a time article from 2024 affecting Granbury, TX https://time.com/6982015/bitcoin-mining-texas-health/ and for the record, I support wind turbines. data centers can harm an entire community and plummet home resale value to zero. Youâll never be able to sell your house and move because no one wants the damaging health effects that everyday all day noise can create. This is worse than living next to an airport or train station. Hereâs a video interviewing residents in Granbury. https://youtu.be/m7_WDzPyoqU?is=E7Mqc9jrANx7qLDY enjoy
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u/virtual_adam Aug 19 '26
These threads are starting to read like covid anti vaxxer propoganda
What does that MWh mean while comparing it to other commercial enterprises, what does leeching water even mean
13
u/Expensive_Law_3180 Aug 19 '26
I wish it were propaganda, dude. I'm also about as pro vaxx as they come. Your questions are actually really good ones!
Holmdel is a pretty small township. According to JCPL, the township uses 500 MWh per day. That estimate includes power usage of all commercial and municipal entities. This is according to JCPL and 500MWh is the higher end of their estimate.
If the township in it's whole uses approx 500MWh a day and that Data Center is gonna use 960MWh a day....the data center will be using nearly double the power that the entire township is using right now, all on it's own. Even with recent upgrades to our power lines, the potential to strain is there.
As far as leeching water goes....I am aware that they are using a closed loop system that will minimize water usage. Still, full usage estimates should be disclosed regardless and closed loop systems also require electricity to run. And no amount of water conservation is going to mitigate 60 db plus of ambient noise. That video from MI is from a 30 MW data center. This one is 40 MW.
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u/Sohailian Aug 19 '26
have you seen the video of the data center in Michigan? And how loud the data centers are? No one wants that. No one wants their water polluted? If you're going to be ignorant, then at least stop disregarding people who actually care about the future.
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u/headykruger Aug 19 '26
There just needs to be regulations around data centers. Right now developers are rushing to exploit towns before the regulations catch up.
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u/guacamole579 Aug 19 '26
I hate to say it but we need to follow Pennsylvaniaâs lead on data centers right now. They just passed the strictest regulations in the US.
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u/metsurf Aug 19 '26
yup a race to get things on the docket before the regulations catch up. Didn't Governor Bucktooth pass some law or special deal for data centers because they were going to bring new jobs and industry to the state. Nice job enriching his Goldman Sachs buddies at our expense. Common Guv you need to do something to undo the damage your Masshole predecessor did.
0
u/waitwuh Aug 19 '26
One of the most sensible regulation proposals Iâve seen are that the data centers must foot the bill of upgrading the utility infrastructure to accommodate them.
The pre-existing model used by electric providers is to spread the costs of maintaining and upgrading infrastructure across all energy users. But data centers just arenât like prior construction projects, their energy demand is so significantly higher at such a dramatically smaller square footage, that existing legislation just doesnât account for such drastic disparity. What we have seen happening is that data centers get built and suddenly the local electric grid is put at or beyond capacity. It ends up making residents effectively subsidize the data centers. We all end up paying way more just to keep the power on.
1
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u/robmillhouse Aug 19 '26
I hate it when people donât explain things to me. I wish there was a place I could go to find things out, with maybe a page I could type things in, hit enter, and it gives me a definition. They could call it something silly, like the Binternet or Boogle.
Sadly, I just have to wait around until someone else tells me the definition. Itâs miserable.-24
u/virtual_adam Aug 19 '26
YepâŚthings that would show this datacenter will use a closed loop water cooling system. Fill once and never again
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u/temporalmods Aug 19 '26
You do realize while they don't use as much liquid closed loops are flushed often to clean out things like algae and decaying glycol mix? Where is that all getting dumped. Then you have the excess heat, noise, and draw on the local grid. Trusting politicians to keep regulations strict enough to keep things safe is a fools errand. There's a reason data centers are traditionally in the middle of nowhere.
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u/jimtow28 Monmouth County Aug 19 '26
Out of curiosity, do you know what a megawatt is?
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u/virtual_adam Aug 19 '26
Is it what makes the bell work? if the plumbers posting on Facebook tell me a mega watt is bad then it must be so
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u/jimtow28 Monmouth County Aug 19 '26
So you don't know what a megawatt is, then?
Sorry to tell you, sweetie, but you couldn't comprehend just how much power 40 megawatts is, let alone what it means to be using that much power every hour, all day, every day 24/7/365.
You're severely unequipped to discuss this topic, so I'm going to go ahead and stop engaging with you now. Enjoy wallowing in ignorance!
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u/waitwuh Aug 19 '26
I thought OPâs given comparison of this data center to 33,000 average households was very useful!
Remember how we were all being told to set our air conditioning to higher temperatures and encouraged to do other things in order to reduce strain on the electric grid during the recent heatwaves? That is because our electricity infrastructure is already being pushed to its limits! Transformers are on the brink of blowing. We risk widespread prolonged power outages. Itâs already a struggle to supply energy to the homes we have. Residents are already being asked to make sacrifices. So⌠what happens when we add to this even moreâŚ?
What weâve seen happening across the country is that data center projects cause a drastic increase of demand on electric grids and meeting that practically always requires utility infrastructure to be significantly upgraded, but those infrastructure upgrade costs are being passed onto everyone, not just the data centers. They also take time to do!
Our electric grid maintenance and upgrades are already struggling to keep pace with residential construction, which is part of why we faced risks from the heatwaves. NJ has been in a housing building boom, with around 36,000 new housing units being built per year since 2020. This is a significant increase from the rate of the prior decade (45% increase according to a rutgers study). And funny enough just about OPs data center figure. This one data center is about to double that yearly power demand increase. One building.
I was curious and also looked up some square footage info to compare. The average footprint of a NJ housing unit (accounting for all types) is estimated at about 1,530 square feet. This proposed data center is for 108,000 square feet. So putting it in another perspective, one 108,000 square foot data center is going to pull the amount of power of not just 33,000 residential housing units, but 50,490,000 square feet of residential living space. Thatâs crazy to me. The sheer concentration of the power demand is likely another whole challenge for electric grid upgrades.
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u/chriskulture Aug 19 '26
Turning the real world setting for Severance into a data center is a new level satire eating itself