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Margaret Cook is a Texas-based energy and infrastructure policy expert who has worked on datacenter power consumption issues and grid reliability in the state.
March 17, 2026
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Virginia Led. Now New Jersey and Illinois Want Hyperscalers to Pay the Grid Bill.
HARC researcher Margaret Cook noted concentrated demand in small communities can overwhelm local water infrastructure even when statewide aggregates look modest.
March 9, 2026
Texas's Next Gigawatt Cluster Depends on Fights No Developer ControlsThe PUCT plans to launch a survey this spring to collect actual datacenter water usage data, a move HARC's Margaret Cook called essential for informed planning.
March 3, 2026
Gigawatt Ambitions, County-Level Resistance: Who Blinks First?Margaret Cook, HARC's VP for water and community resilience, put it plainly: communities investing in new pipelines and wells for these facilities risk absorbing costs operators should bear.
February 19, 2026
Water, Not Power, Will Decide Who Wins the Texas Data Center RaceMargaret Cook, VP of Water and Community Resilience at Houston Advanced Research Center, warned that communities permitting datacenters are "gambling against being able to get new water from future State Water Plans."
February 13, 2026
Capital Keeps Pouring In. Communities Are Closing the Gate.But HARC's Margaret Cook flagged a critical gap: the survey covers existing operations and doesn't require projections from the massive pipeline of facilities under construction.
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