21st Century NIMBY ~ ALL THINGS DATA CENTER

Not in My Back Yard

This library is intended to support fact-based discussions about the data center and hyperscaler market. In lay terms, it includes examples from communities around the world on what is possible with respect to design and architecture, technologies for powering and cooling, mitigation of unwanted byproducts, protecting human+environmental health, and ways communities and landowners, state agencies and legislative bodies can establish regional policies that protect the interests of all stakeholders.

Some of it is specifically focuses on Central Texas, a region challenged by an acute water crisis and rapid growth requiring power grid planning that need not include managing overwhelming data center demands.

That doesn't mean it's only for a CTX audience.

It means that a global audience considering CTX locations for their enterprises need to check their financial privilege at the door and make sure their bid to join the community serves the current and future wellbeing of its residents.

Arithmetic of the Bubble

FACTS FOR DUMB DATA CENTER INVESTORS & WHY YOU SHOULD THANK THE RESISTANCE & CURSE YOUR CLUELESS CHAMPIONS

I.e., YOU'RE WELCOME

The stock market prices data centers on demand projections for AI services that don't yet generate revenue commensurate with the infrastructure cost.

A "market watcher" challenged me on the bubble thesis based on these geniuses and how bullish they have been. Guess who's paying them. The stock market is a casino, not reality. We've seen it over and over and still people give this nonsense credence.

So the lemmings prevail over there until reality catches up with them.

The credit analysts, construction trackers, and grid operators are looking at the physical reality.

Here is what the physical reality says:

$400 billion in data center capital expenditure in 2025 alone (Praetorian Capital, cited by Deutsche Bank, Aug–Oct 2025).

Those facilities depreciate approximately $40 billion per year — because GPUs become obsolete in 3–5 years and building systems last perhaps 10 (Praetorian Capital; corroborated by Nvidia's 18-month chip cycle per Cbus Super / Investment Magazine, Nov 2025).

Current annual AI revenue from these facilities: approximately $15–20 billion (Praetorian Capital; Deutsche Bank via Fortune, Sep 2025). Depreciation is twice revenue. To merely break even on 2025 spend at a 25% gross margin, the industry would need $320–480 billion in revenue — 16 to 24 times what it currently earns (Praetorian Capital, Oct 2025).

Add 2026's projected spend and you need approximately $1 trillion in cumulative revenue just to reach breakeven (Praetorian Capital, Oct 2025) — a figure exceeding the combined annual revenue of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's cloud divisions.

Meanwhile, $870 billion in new debt financing is needed to support the buildout through 2030 (JLL, Jan 2026).

Wall Street is packaging this debt into asset-backed securities at $30–40 billion per year — 7–10% of the entire U.S. securitization market (JPMorgan, Feb 2026).

CoreWeave, the sector's poster child, carries $14 billion in debt at 9–15% interest against operating margins of 1.6% (CoreWeave SEC filings; Fortune, Nov 2025). Its GPU collateral has lost 50–70% of market rental value (Level-Headed Investing, Oct 2025).

Deutsche Bank — which has lent billions to the sector — is simultaneously exploring hedges against its own data center exposure, including shorting AI stocks and buying credit default swaps (Financial Times, Nov 2025). When the lender hedges against its own loans, that is a fire alarm.

Goldman Sachs projects occupancy will peak above 95% in late 2026, then moderate starting 2027 as supply catches up (Goldman Sachs Research, Feb 2025).

Moody's warns that technological advances are "so swift that they threaten obsolescence of existing projects and properties" (Moody's Investors Service, Jan 2026).

Fitch rates AI training data centers less favorably than cloud computing facilities (Fitch Ratings, Jul 2025).

CBRE Investment Management warns that older data centers face "obsolescence and a shrinking pool of would-be buyers at exit" (CBRE IM, 2025).

And the technology itself is migrating:

JLL projects inference will overtake training by 2027, moving workloads away from massive centralized facilities toward distributed edge computing (JLL, Jan 2026; IDC, Dec 2025; Cisco, Jan 2026).

A Catastrophically Dumb "Investment" -- FOR EVERYONE

Beauty and Nature ARE the Bottom Line

Well-informed economists worldwide, credentialed, studious, impartial industry analysts -- including those specializing in AI infrastructure --

are predicting a tidal wave of failed data centers starting within the next 18 months.

They would leave behind enormous monuments to stupidity and avarice while taxpayers who fought against it will be left "tax revenue"-less and emotionally tormented by urban blight and lowered property values for generations - how's that for "tax smart"?

A PLACE'S BEAUTY AND NATURE, ITS DESIGNATION AS A "HEALTHY PLACE"

... ARE AN ***ESSENTIAL SOURCE OF COMMUNITY ECONOMIC PROSPERITY*****.

IT IS WHAT HAS MADE THIS REGION SPECIAL AND DESIRABLE, RAISING ITS VALUE AND DEVELOPMENT ***OPTIONS***.

Nature and beauty and wonderful, happy communities are self-reinforcing. Why?

We in beautiful Central Texas can afford to **be picky about how we develop** BECAUSE we are protecting our BEAUTY ecosystem.

It is epically dumb FAKEONOMICS to get wide-eyed at the first con man who shakes a fat wad of money in your face (a rounding error in the world of real corporate economic development partners) and convinces you "all of this can be yours!"... if you give up all your principles and decency.

When industrialization takes over a physical area - it entirely devalues it as a place anyone wants to live, employers leave because of that, and those left have few job options so they leave...

It is criminal (soon, hopefully) that while having MANY OTHER CHOICES, some Central Texas elected officials still FAVOR REPLACING BEAUTY and SHARED NATURAL RESOURCES with UGLY.

... that's economic destruction, not economic development.

21st Century NIMBY ~ ALL THINGS DATA CENTER

Not in My Back Yard

Arithmetic of the Bubble

PDF Viewer

FOR STATE, COUNTY, and MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

EDITORIAL & INFORMATIONAL ARTICLES - NOT ADVICE

Data Centers ~ A Reference Library for All

White Paper - Options for Mitigating Data Center Challenges

A Catastrophically Dumb "Investment" -- FOR EVERYONE

Beauty and Nature ARE the Bottom Line

21st Century NIMBY ~ ALL THINGS DATA CENTER

Not in My Back Yard

Arithmetic of the Bubble

PDF Viewer

FOR STATE, COUNTY, and MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

EDITORIAL & INFORMATIONAL ARTICLES - NOT ADVICE

Data Centers ~ A Reference Library for All

White Paper - Options for Mitigating Data Center Challenges

A Catastrophically Dumb "Investment" -- FOR EVERYONE

Beauty and Nature ARE the Bottom Line

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