r/SouthJersey • u/m0x1eracerx • Nov 10 '25
Cumberland County Come out to voice opposition to gigantic AI Data Center in Vineland
Vineland City Council Meeting Monday, November 10 @ 5:30 pm
It is vital that residents show up to voice opposition to the massive data center planned for Vineland. 1. The immense amount of water needed will further deplete the aquifer already stressed by drought. 2. The reasonable electric prices we enjoy from our Municipal Nonprofit Electric Company - the only one in the state - will be jeopardized as the proposed data center will hoover up double the capacity our electric utility produces. This will force us into the for-profit market for our electricity needs. 3. On a broader scale, this data center won't provide any local jobs, but will contribute to the trend of AI taking jobs away from working folks. 4. So who will profit? Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and any company looking to cut labor costs in order to line the pockets of corporate CEOs.
Vineland residents have much to lose in this bargain. Please show up at City Hall and be heard.
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u/KeyBreadfruit2517 Nov 10 '25
Not in Vineland, but support you guys 100%.
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u/PineSand Nov 10 '25
I don’t want any data centers in NJ. I don’t want them subsidized. They should have to pay for their infrastructure and their power.
With LED builds and more efficient appliances, most people (and small businesses) are consuming less power now than they did 10 years ago. Data centers should not cause my electric bill to go up. They should have to pay for their own power and the government shouldn’t be giving them tax credits.
If they want to build here, they should contribute, not be a parasitic drain on the citizens.
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u/GoldenPresidio Nov 10 '25 edited Apr 16 '26
Protecting my online privacy by running Redact regularly to batch delete old content. It handles Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, data brokers and a whole lot more.
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u/PineSand Nov 10 '25
You’re right. I just googled it. I went by old data. From 2010-2020 electrical use was flat or declining. Per Google home sizes have increased and the amount of electronic devices people use has increased so it has gradually been increasing again.
It was going down, and I assumed it still was.
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u/surfnsound CamCo Nov 10 '25
Per Google home sizes have increased and the amount of electronic devices people use has increased so it has gradually been increasing again.
I think part of this is definitely WFH related as well. It's more efficient to light and heat/cool one building containing many people than a home containing one or two. Also lines up with the larger home thing. Homes have been getting bigger for decades, but suddenly many more people needed a home office.
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u/Grouchy_Following_10 Nov 10 '25
What makes you think they don’t pay for power? They pay the same as you do, the difference is they’re huge consumers which increases demand. The real problem is that we do nothing to increase supply
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u/PineSand Nov 10 '25
They will need more power generation capacity, they’ll need substations, transformers and other upgrades. I believe these costs are spread among all grid customers. In the case of Vineland, they have their own municipal power plant, so I’m not sure how this will work for them, but they’ll probably spread the costs around the same way. A law was passed to study this (A5466 / S4318), but I’m pretty sure they’ll find that common citizens are subsiding the power needs of data centers.
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u/New_Camel9327 Nov 10 '25
Yes! Get out there people! I'm not in Vineland, but we have to fight these senseless data centers that are jacking up electricity rates and uses so much water!
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Nov 10 '25 edited Feb 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
We don't need it.
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u/Grouchy_Following_10 Nov 10 '25
You don’t need it? Cancel your Netflix. Never use google or ChatGPT again. Drop your Reddit account. No more email. Where do you think these things operate?
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
Data centers support OpenAI which needs massive computational power to sorta work. It's rise is funded by venture capitalists who bank on replacing the workforce with bots.
It's not an internet hub.
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u/Grouchy_Following_10 Nov 10 '25
I build data centers ( not for open ai but the principle remains. ) for a living. I’ve forgotten more about how these things work than most people know. Unless you know the specific tenant AND their specific workloads you can’t make any of those generalizations. All of the things I mentioned run in aws and Microsoft data centers
Don’t want it in your town? I get it. I don’t either. But don’t act like we don’t need them at all. That’s incredibly myopic
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u/trythinkingbatder Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Stipulations should be
1) supply power through the purchase and installation of companies own renewable energy sources 2) closed loop cooling system 3) battery backup in case of power disruptions
If they can’t meet that, they aren’t welcome.
Stipulations.
Installations of Power supplied through renewables must double the amount of estimated usage for each month. If it is not met and drains power from local sources, the data center must fund the residents power supply for every month the data center can’t generate enough renewables
If any local water is taken or tampered with, Vineland’s residence water bills are to be payed for each month the data center isn’t a closed loop.
Data centers must do no harm to the surrounding people & their livelihoods, they should only have no effect in any measurable way or a positive effect that is measurable direct savings in Vineland citizens livelihood.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
I love this. But, there is no way they can generate what they need onsite. Vineland has 4 solar fields, but they generate less than 10MW.
I don't know if the water they or the golf course next door use comes from hookup to city water, or if they plan on plunging directly into the aquifer. Many in Vineland still maintain their own wells, for home and irrigation. The water level has been steadily dropping, it can't handle industrial pull without draining our wells.
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u/trythinkingbatder Nov 10 '25
If they can’t generate what they need onsite, they need to purchase property to offset with solar offsite
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u/Boo-erman Nov 10 '25
This article gave me a surprising amount of hope. I live in farmland PA and I'm hoping/pipe-dreaming we'll be able to consider this as part of a broader symbiotic system for the center that's moving forward regardless of what we do or say. Should be a gift link: Alaska Solar Farms Help Nearby Crops Grow
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u/Boo-erman Nov 10 '25
My understanding is the closed-loop cooling systems have a lot of problems as well, including rather frequent parts replacement due to challenges of being in locations that freeze. I'm still learning myself, but was told at a community meeting the tubes have to be replaces roughly every two years. Not saying it isn't a better option, but it's not a great option.
The issue we're having locally is this is all being approved in dark private spaces rather than out in the open. Our "community benefits agreement" is, so far, nothing more than vague promises for harm reduction. Not one actual benefit has been provided. It's all so gross.
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u/trythinkingbatder Nov 10 '25
I think they can very well budget replacing coolant every 2-5 years instead of destroying an entire counties water table Irreparably.
Locally, can any laws be passed/made to set requirements by data centers?
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u/Boo-erman Nov 10 '25
Oh totally agree they can afford it, the key is making sure there isn’t a ton of additional waste at the community’s expense.
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u/Target2019-20 Nov 10 '25
Major revenue coming from Microsoft.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
From Microsoft straight to the Netherlands.
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u/Target2019-20 Nov 10 '25
I've been following cloud and data centers for investment purposes. It surprised me that Nebius and associated businesses have gotten this far without being front page news.
I'm assuming Vineland is Republican-controlled. Am I right?
You have a tough road ahead protesting this.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
Hard to say. They don't use the phrase Democrat or Republican. We are a nonpartisan community.
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u/Target2019-20 Nov 10 '25
I researched to see how your gov't leans. The elected officials are definitely partisan, but the planning board does not use party affiliation. However, I think most of the board was appointed by the mayor (who also sits on the planning board).
Found tonight's city council agenda here: https://vinelandnj.portal.civicclerk.com/
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 11 '25
So, it's been a long time since I went to a City Council meeting. I was running late but after reading the agenda, I figured I'd arrive in plenty of time for public comment. Wrong. Missed it, so went to Vineland Environmental Commission (VEC) meeting instead. They review plans and make recommendations (nonbinding) to the planning board. I learned that the Data Center plans were super vague about what cooling system they would employ. They were given the go ahead to start Phase One. Since then, VEC has seen no updated plans, the build out has progressed to Phase 3 out of 5, and no one in town seems to know if the center is opening their own well, hooking up to municipal water, or air-cooling. I get the impression the data center folks are just rushing to get everything built, even if inoperable, to beat the clock on the State finalizing its findings on the harm of the sudden rush to build these data centers. The State is also in charge of new well permits.
I believe we have to take the fight to the State.
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u/Academic_Owl6134 Nov 13 '25
When I was dissatisfied with the response from city council, I looked into the VEC. I was discouraged from reaching out to them, told they do more parks and recs work, but I wanted to write them a letter or attend a meeting as the description of their work on the website, definitely seems aligned with assessing things like this data center.
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u/Target2019-20 Nov 11 '25
This article has interesting details about the history of the companies which are involved.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/dataone-to-build-nebius-data-center-in-new-jersey/
This facility has been discussed here in the past. I recall something about the cooling being shown as a closed system, and not using water. That is repeated in some articles.
I also see reference to a 'Behind-the-meter" energy source. I think I recall that being a gas-fed generator. That is implying that energy will be provided through natural gas hookup.
The building plans are filed, but not available online, AI tells me.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 11 '25
Don't use AI, lol Thanks for the reading material. The generator will only produce about 3 MW. It's probably redundant to ensure cooling stays running in case of emergency. Don't want those hard drives to fry.
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u/Target2019-20 Nov 11 '25
The AI research LLM I use shows all sources. Without it I would not be able to truly fact-check what is said on social media. I follow up on everything.
So that everyone can begin to understand the components here is a brief summary:
The behind-the-meter power generation is made up of combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT) and supplies the primary power. It uses natural gas as a source. The system captures waste heat and generates more electric power through a steam turbine.
If we could see the plans, they probably show diesel generator backup so that the uptime promised is maintained at a very high ratio.
I'm just at the beginning of understanding this BTW.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 11 '25
Okay, I'll give you this, just don't start using it for video 😉
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u/Little-Resolution-82 Nov 10 '25
Vineland already has one currently being built probably no stopping that one
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u/TypistInTheWild Nov 10 '25
Pretty sure that’s the one OP is talking about and unfortunately the time to protest it was months ago, not while it’s being built.
That being said I want to meet the genius who approved building a data center surrounded by farmland and next door to what is supposed to be a world class golf course.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
It being built in phases. It can definitely be cut back with community action.
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u/Academic_Owl6134 Nov 13 '25
This. The original 1 building (which I’ll admit was only mildly transparently discussed and I wasn’t a good enough citizen doing my civic duty when the window was open to fight that) is nearing completion. But now with even less transparency they’re expanding to another 4-5 buildings or something for a 5 or 6 building mega campus. There is definitely time to fight the expansion.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
It is being built in phases. Can definitely stop it with community feedback.
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u/Alternative-Maize752 Nov 10 '25
They just built one near the Clayton substation on south Lincoln ave.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 10 '25
That's the one. Being phased in over time. We're going to be facing the same crazy rate hikes faced by the rest of Jersey if we don't stop it at Phase 1.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad9523 Nov 10 '25
You all voted republican..live with it. The democrats of other states voted with Trump in the Senate. Grandma will no longer have enough insurance or anything so you care for her too as children die and husband's die across the country because they don't have Healthcare but the Senators have it for the whole family for Free. Compare that to rising electric costs. Time to get busy on all fronts
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u/No-Delay1603 Nov 11 '25
You may want to add the health impact on the communities that will live in proximity to the proposed center to your bullet point list. My understanding and what I've read about them is that they output quite a bit of pollution and typically having to live next door to these things can have serious health ramifications.
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u/m0x1eracerx Nov 12 '25
I'd like to read up on that. This center sits adjacent to the new private golf course, Trout National, with basic membership starting at $250,000. Another shitty use of land, tbh.
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u/Academic_Owl6134 Nov 13 '25
Polluted water run off from the golf courses is a major concern. Flank that with a data center mega site and an existing golf course like 3-4 miles away - community safety is def not a concern here
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u/KimiiKhaoss Nov 10 '25
I’m sure people have seen me around this sub lately and i work in energy efficiency in NJ…. You are absolutely correct in your post. (I have pros and cons about Vineland Electric but you are correct they are cheaper than the Joint Utilities.)
Regardless, yes. They directly relate to the electrical hike increase throughout the state and surrounding areas (among other things I’m willing to discuss and have on this sub before). I would definitely urged any rate payer to attend that meeting.
On the flip though, if you guys have SJG, they did open the RNG farm with ACUA recently so hopefully you’ll see some decrease in therm costs.
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u/ToddWilliams5289 Nov 11 '25
Where in Vineland is this data center (or where are they planning on putting it)?
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u/Brad-Erickson-2402 Nov 21 '25
Is it confirmed this was originally Trout’s golf course he sold for this?
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u/ComprehensiveSir2388 Nov 10 '25
It’s already been approved and being built, I don’t see how protesting it would do much good to be honest with you. I’d love to tell you a small group of Vineland locals will stop a multi billion dollar operation but you and I both know that is just a waste of time.
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u/ElAngloParade Nov 10 '25
This is the shit yous SHOULD be protesting. I Guarantee barely anyone shows up to this but keep waving your signs because the internet tells you too
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u/Neither_Astronaut632 Nov 10 '25
Can confirm, Vineland residents did not show up when I was a part of a public meeting at city hall to raise emissions at Unit 11 in 2022.
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u/ElAngloParade Nov 11 '25
It kills me how people think they're doing their civic duty by hopping on a trend instead of focusing all of their bored suburban energy on shit that actually means something. Thank you for validating and keep fighting for real issues
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u/RangerExpensive6519 Nov 10 '25
But we will just keep voting for the political party that have already killed our generation plants in this state.
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u/AggravatingMuffin132 Nov 10 '25
Sad but true.
I wish the new governor well but freezing lriced without new supply will do nothing.
We must be creating much more electricity that we make now, from all sources. Cant wait 15 years for shit to get done. We need it, now.
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u/Shawnski13 Nov 10 '25
I don't think enough folks understand, that these data centers are why everyone's electric bills have increased so much