What data center host communities can learn from former nuclear hubs

In a piece for The Daily Yonder, Jim Hamilton of the The Nuclear Decommissioning Collaborative explains how communities considering hosting data centers can learn from the experience of those that have had nuclear facilities nearby.

According to Hamilton, "While data centers differ significantly from nuclear power plants in workforce intensity and operational footprint, they share key structural characteristics: They are large, capital-intensive, tax-generating, place-based assets, and they eventually close." 

When facilities close, they take their job and tax contributions with them. If a community is too dependent on this one source of income, a closure can have devastating effects on the local economy. Decommissioning a nuclear plant — or a data — is also a complex and expensive process, and practically no significant redevelopment has occurred at former nuclear sites.

The lesson, for Hamilton, is "not to avoid development, but to plan deliberately for its full lifecycle—before the first shovel hits the ground." Hamilton suggests that local officials understand the potential speed of closure decisions, plan for eliminated tax payments, and define facility decommissioning in regulatory agreements. "Lifecycle thinking should be embedded into every data center agreement, investment, and plan. And communities should continue to diversify the local economy during the operational phase, so that no single facility—no matter how attractive—defines the community’s fiscal future."