Sidebar: The data center gold rush

A legal-affairs podcast episode visits the Paluxy River Valley in rural Texas, where residents are pushing back against hyperscale data centers built to feed the AI boom. Tech companies pitch the facilities as investment and job creation, while the centers themselves are documented to consume large amounts of electricity, water, and land, plus generate noise and light pollution.

The episode frames Texas as a new frontier for an industry expanding faster than communities can weigh in on it, with no resolution offered — just the standing tension between promised growth and the people living next to the substations.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.