In central Ohio, a surge of data centers grows at the expense of farmers and rural landowners, transparent business negotiations, natural resources, and environmental integrity. In a reported dispatch from her home state, Mya Frazier follows the lines of power, both literal and figurative, shaping the future of American industry as they spread across an imperiled landscape and its people.
All told, the power needs of Ohio’s data centers are already staggering, but the near future is hard to even imagine. By 2030, in Central Ohio alone, demand will skyrocket to more than 5,000 megawatts—roughly equivalent to the power consumption of all of New York City. That power must be delivered to those facilities somehow. And so along with the data centers, miles and miles of new high-voltage transmission lines are needed in the state. American Electric Power has chosen distressed farms and politically weak rural communities as sites to clear paths for more transmission lines, and for good reason: these communities have the least influence to resist such encroachment.
