Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Closed-Loop Cooling Wins Red Oak While Somervell Calls for a Statewide Pause

North Texas split Monday: Compass cleared Red Oak by bringing closed-loop cooling to the hearing, while Somervell County asked Austin to hit pause. Developers who show up with metered water offsets and pre-built power answers are winning permits the rest are losing.

Today's Lead

Texas's data center pipeline is colliding with the institutional plumbing that decides who actually gets built. Two North Texas votes on the same Monday told the story plainly: Somervell County commissioners voted unanimously to oppose all new data center projects pending state action, while Red Oak's council approved Compass Datacenters' sixth campus 4-1 after the developer committed to closed-loop cooling, setbacks, and noise restrictions.

The split isn't ideological. It's about which developers showed up with water offsets, cooling specifics, and benefit-sharing already in hand.

[1]·[2]

Power

The grid is full, and the rules for who pays haven't caught up.

The Dispatch nails the actual constraint: utilities have to forecast uncertain hyperscale demand, build substations and transmission years ahead, and decide who eats the cost if a project slips or evaporates. Pennsylvania's pipeline now sits at 28.3 GW with PJM still finalizing reform strategy. Georgia Power is using eminent domain across 330+ Coweta County properties to deliver the 10 GW it's already approved to build, while the SELC, Sierra Club, and Georgia Interfaith Power & Light sue the PSC over need-demonstration and cost allocation.

The risk: Texas developers who treat ERCOT interconnection and PUCT cost-recovery rules as background noise will lose to those engaging early. Smart developers will help write the rules for who insures speculative demand. The ones who don't will discover ratepayers won't keep doing it for them.

[3]·[4]·[5]

Power

Behind-the-meter and nuclear are the bypass lanes.

TerraVolt locked in 55,000 MMBtu/day of firm gas supply for its 200-240 MW first phase in Southeast Idaho, sitting directly on the Northwest Natural Gas Pipeline. CEO Joel Stone pitched it as ratepayer-neutral and aligned with the March 2026 Ratepayer Protection Pledge. On the nuclear side, NEI's Maria Korsnick says eight reactors are under construction and 90 more in development across North America, with Texas having seeded a nuclear coordination office that prompted eight other states to follow. The Army's Fort Bliss deal hands Carlyle a 3 GW campus under a 50-year Enhanced Use Lease, with the Army taking compute capacity instead of cash rent.

The risk: behind-the-meter gas, dedicated nuclear, and military-land hyperscale all sidestep the interconnection queue, but each carries different exposure. TerraVolt tenants inherit gas price risk. Fort Bliss developers still need to clarify water sourcing and ERCOT interconnection before exclusive negotiations close. Bypass isn't free; it just relocates the constraint.

[6]·[7]·[8]

Water

Metering is the new permitting battlefield.

A Fayette County, Georgia utility recently disclosed that two of its own hookups had run unmetered to the QTS campus for roughly 15 months. That was a metering and billing failure on the utility's side, not a developer water grab. The county reconciled with $147,474 in back charges, declined to fine, and publicly called QTS a partner. UCLA's Gregory Pierce flagged the structural pattern this surfaces: utilities dependent on a single hyperscale customer face misaligned enforcement incentives.

The risk: every county council in Texas just got a talking point, even where the underlying facts don't carry it. Somervell's letter to the legislature lands in that climate. Developers who anticipate tighter meter audits, closed-loop cooling requirements, and verified offset language in conditional-use permits will keep moving. The ones who don't will hand opposition groups their next Public Information Request.

[9]·[1]

Sources we cited

9 articles across 9 publishers · 317 reviewed today

[1]KERA News
Oppose? Expand? Votes in 2 North Texas communities highlight a divide over data center growth
May 12, 2026·Leaders in two North Texas communities took sharply different approaches this week to the rapid expansion of Al-driven data centers, highlig…
[2]Audacy/KRLD
Mind-Blowing Growth: Is Texas Set to Become the AI Data Center Capital of the World? | NewsRadio 1080 KRLD
May 12, 2026·Artificial intelligence is fueling a record surge in data center construction across Texas and the United States as tech companies race to e…
[3]The Dispatch
You Can’t Just Plug in a Data Center
May 13, 2026·Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening. Members can share articles with friends & family to bypass the paywall. W…
[4]PA Environment Digest
Tuesday PA Environment & Energy Articles - NewsClips: 5.12.26
May 12, 2026·-- Article I, Section 27 Pennsylvania Constitution [It’s Not A Suggestion] June 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,…
[5]Energy News Beat
What is Going On with Georgia Power and Data Centers?
May 11, 2026·A viral X post from @WallStreetApes on May 11, 2026, has spotlighted a growing tension in rural Georgia: the use of eminent domain by Georgi…
[6]Data Center Dynamics
TerraVolt inks natural gas supply deal for onsite power plant at planned data center campus in Idaho
May 12, 2026·Will support a campus of between 200 to 240MW Powered land and data center infrastructure developer TerraVolt Infrastructure has signed a f…
[7]POWER Magazine
State of the Nuclear Industry 2026: Korsnick Says the Real Test Is Now Scale
May 12, 2026·Within a single week last month, Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 reactor in Tennessee, and days later TerraPower and Bechtel began…
[8]Truthout
Wall Street Is Pairing Up With the Army to Build Data Centers
May 11, 2026·The Army data center buildout comes as the Pentagon increases its use of AI in military operations. Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Plea…
[9]WinBuzzer
Georgia Data Center Hidden Pipes Drew 29 Million Gallons, and the County Will Not Fine It
May 12, 2026·Quality Technology Services owed Fayette County $147,474 after two unmetered hookups at its Georgia data-center campus moved over 29 million…

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