Former Engineer, Agronomist Address Data Center

Sedgwick County residents Micahel Betzen and John Hecht spoke to Barber County commissioners for more than 40 minutes Tuesday morning outlining concerns they have with proposed hyper-scale data centers that are being proposed in both Sedgwick and Barber counties.

Betzen said he spend his career as a DuPont engineer that worked with “high, high hazards operations” eventually becoming a plant manager that dealt with solar panels and supply of material for the electronics industry. Hecht spent nearly 50 years as an agronomist, most recently working with Crop Quest.

The former engineer said the types of data centers being proposed now, especially in Barber County are much different than the country has seen before. Betzen said they have been following the situation in Sedgwick County, where he said officials “would admit they are over their head” when it comes to trying to traverse this new path.

“They’re on their third pause,” he said regarding a Sedgwick County moratorium. “Because they can see the magnitude and the issues they have to deal with.”

Betzen did recognize there are differing circumstances that the commissioners in each county must work through regarding these proposed projects. But, he said the concerns with water, power and noise are the same in both instances.

A gigawatt of power consumption from the proposed Project Helium data center was not out of the question, according to Betzen.

“These are massive facilities,” he said. “This is why it’s different than anything you’ve ever seen before.”

Betzen told commissioners they have got to “understand the facts.” One fact is he told commissioners they need to be looking at power consumption and cooling needs during peak operation, not just rolling averages that can tell any story the data providers wants to sell.

Betzen said when he looked at the Project Helium site plan the first thing that jumped out to him was the size of the pads intended for generators.

“It got my attention because I know what it takes to run a generator,” he said. “I know emergency generators – I’ve been through hurricane recoveries.

“When I see two generator pads almost a half a mile long, I start thinking that’s a lot of generators.”

According to Betzen, emergency generators are not required by EPA to follow the same “stringent abatement” facilities.

“Emergency generators are for firefighting, water supply, life support – that kind of stuff,” he said.

Data centers could use their generators for “peak shading, maybe export,” Betzen told commissioners.

He said running that number of generators in a “normal checkout” every month could dump “32 tons of particulate matter” into the air among other concerns.

“You’ve got to require Tier 4 abatement,” he said.

Betzen said commissioners need to understand whether or not these hyper-scale data centers are going to be seen by the government, which will determine whether or not energy use is guaranteed for local residents or whether the data center gets priority, as well as whether or not the generators will be used as “emergency” or simply “backup.”

He also talked about commissioners needing to know about expansion plans before even allowing the initial construction to begin.

“You’ve got to have the thought process, because every manufacture likes to have creep or major expansion,” Betzen said. “So, if you give them approval, do they have the right to double? Do they have the right to grow 15 percent? What does that mean?”

Betzen said expansion taps back into water needs, potential noise and light pollution.

Another piece of the puzzle was what happens if the hyper-scale data center push is actually a short-term bubble, which is already starting to show signs of popping, according to some experts.

“What are you going to do with that infrastructure?” he asked. “And that could be in 10 years or less. Quantum computing is just around the corner.”

Finally, Betzen discussed cooling. He said these facilities must deal with heat and Kansas can get awfully hot in the summer. He told commissioners a study just came out that found a 168-megawatt facility produced air temperatures that were 4-5 degrees warmer a half mile to a mile downstream of the facility.

“You have to understand when are they going to have peak water (usage),” he said. 

The former engineer said Google has talked about a new air-cooled technology, which the tech giant has said they haven’t built yet, according to Betzen, but he said that is at the “chip” level.

“You still got to get that heat from the chip to the air,” he said.

According to Betzen, he does not believe Google’s air-cooled technology will be able to keep up with demands during the peak summer season in Kansas.

“They will inject water in through a mesh and they’ll pull the air through it to cool it down,” he said.

Betzen said commissioners simply can not rely on Google alone for information.

“You’re going to have to try to get people to help,” he said.

Hecht spoke on the cooling factor as well, and he said even with an air-cooled system there is a trade off with less water use, but the system will also require more energy consumption.

The retired agronomist said in the state of Kansas the “people do not own the water, the state does.” Any water usage will have to be approved in Topeka.

“There’s not a certainty that the state’s going to allow more wells to be drilled,” Hecht said of a potential supply of water from the city of Medicine Lodge.

He said the state is continually trying to stave off decline in local aquifers. He said Google’s new tech cooling system is being sold as “using little to no water.”

“But in fact, they require a fair amount during the flushing and commissioning,” Hecht said.

A typical 180-megawatt data center will need in the neighborhood of 22 million gallons of water just to get the center online. He agreed more water will be needed in the peak summer season.

Another area of concern for Hecht was water and soil erosion.

“If you have a 20-acre roof on a data center building in a two-inch rain, you’re going to have over 1 million gallons of water that’s not hitting the soil,” he said. “It’s flowing downstream.

“Plus the fact that we get to look at the proposed data center (it) is sitting on a significant floodplain,” Hecht said.

The former agronomist said he understands Google has plans to address water and soil erosion concerns after the project is complete, but he asked about a plan during the construction phase, which could take several years.

“Ninety percent of your soil’s nutrients are the top foot of soil,” he said. “If you catch a hard rain, it moves soil. You start moving that top three, four, five, six inches, you’ve affected production for years,” Hecht said.

He said there is also a good chance there will be terrace blowouts downstream of the construction site.

Hecht also addressed downstream concerns for the cities of Sharon, Kiowa and Hazelton.

“It only takes once. You get any kind of contamination and you pollute that ground water. You’re not going to fix it,” he said.

Betzen also addressed the same concerns expressed during the Save the Heartland symposium last week in Goddard – tonal noise.

He said the commissioners are going to have to require that type of study, because those aren’t the type of noise studies that are being conducted by data center developers currently.

“The companies are not going to tell you, first of all, they’re not measuring it,” Betzen said. “You don’t know what you have if you don’t measure it.”

He then touched briefly on
potential light pollution and how light can impact different aspects of life for both humans and animals.

Betzen said Barber County’s first responders were not prepared for what could potentially happen with a data center. He told commissioners they don’t have the proper training, nor do they have the proper equipment. He did not see how a “volunteer group” could meet the potential needs.

Ultimately, Betzen said the commissioners have been put in a difficult situation, but the request was for the board to “take your time” and “study the issue.”

“We’re just saying you are (up) against some really big people and you’re outgunned,” he said. “So be careful.

“You hold the cards. You’ve got the value.”

Betzen said it is not the county’s responsibility to make sure the project makes money for Google. The commissioners need to “make sure they run properly (and) safely in your community.”