Delaware County Commissioner supports local data centers and drone development
A Delaware County commissioner says he believes the county and Indiana’s future involves embracing data centers. As IPR’s Thomas Ouellette reports, he’s courting business from many interested companies.
Data centers store and process large amounts of digital information and are on the rise because of the use of artificial intelligence.
In a speech to the community about the current state of Delaware County, Commissioner Stephen Brand says he’s already spoken with seven data center companies interested in local land. Brand says he gave them a list of “non-negotiable” terms and they agreed to all of them.
“Anything that these companies want to do, they have to fund it all,” said Brand. “We won’t support anything that takes a dime off the taxpayers’ back.”
Read More: At a pivotal moment for data centers, Indiana lawmakers take little action
But Brand also says he doesn’t believe the larger concerns about data center energy and water usage.
“You know, there are a lot of myths out there about how it violates our water, how it contaminates our soil, how it causes our utility prices to go up. None of that’s true,” Brand said.
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports a large data center can go though as much as five million gallons per day.
Indiana Michigan Power forecasts that just a few AI data centers coming to northern Indiana will use more electricity by 2030 than all 6-point-8 million Hoosiers use currently.
Henry County recently approved a data center near Knightstown. According to a report from Citizen Action Coalition, Indiana has nearly 30 data centers either proposed or under construction.
Brand says Delaware County has a unique upper hand over other places that have been negatively impacted by data centers.
“We have an advantage coming later than counties that went earlier than us and made mistakes,” he said. “We have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.”
Drones in Delaware County?
During his speech, Brand also spoke about the opportunity to bring drone testing and manufacturing to Delaware County. In January, the Trump administration designated Indiana and Oklahoma as national drone testing sites.
Brand says drones have the capacity to streamline multiple different industries, including agriculture.
“Drones are into everything. Our farmers spray their fields with drones now. Now, you don’t have a heavy truck driving down the road with chemicals, tearing up our roads,” he said. “And you don’t have those heavy vehicles out in the field compacting the soil. The drones can do it.”
The Muncie Police Department was in front of the Muncie City Council this week, asking to put a drone charging base on the Main St. County Building for its drone operations. Chief Nathan Sloan says the department has used drones for years, mainly in locating missing children and older adults. After a bevy of comments from the public wary of how drones will be used for surveillance in the future and the lack of a solid cost estimate, the council tabled the resolution.
Thomas Ouellette is our reporter and producer. Contact him at thomas.ouellette@bsu.edu. Stephanie Wiechmann is our Managing Editor and “All Things Considered” Host. Contact her at slwiechmann@bsu.edu.
