When they’re completed in fall 2026, Denton’s Core Scientific and QumulusAI data centers will contract enough wattage from the ERCOT grid that “could power 8.5 DFW International Airports, 495 H-E-Bs and 82,000 homes in Denton (at this time there are only 57,000 households within city limits),” DSA Denton, the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, says in a Facebook post about an upcoming AI data center town hall.
DSA Denton and Revolutionary Front, another socialist organization, are hosting the town hall at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, at Emily Fowler Central Library to discuss the effects of data centers and a possible moratorium or ban.
The town hall comes at a time when there are plans for 86 data centers in North Texas, 56 in Central Texas and 45 in West Texas, according to a June 26 report by The Texas Tribune.
In a joint statement from the local organizations, Laura Coate, co-chair of DSA Denton, said the town hall “is intended to bring Denton residents together to organize against AI data centers and an AI drone factory in our community.”
The organizations want to empower attendees, share how data centers impact lives and collectively determine their next steps as they “work to drive AI out of our community.”
“Data centers are taking over Texas,” Coate told the Denton Record-Chronicle on Thursday. “There are so many that have sprung up the last couple of years and very recently.”
Last month, Mayor Pro Tem Nick Stevens pitched the idea for the Denton City Council to discuss implementing a moratorium on data centers. It was an idea that newly elected Mayor Chris Watts also mentioned on the campaign trail this year.
Stevens, who was elected in May, stressed that he was asking “to have a discussion so that we can all form an opinion,” which he said in June was the “only way we can do this, moving forward — is have all of the data, all of the details provided to us, to see what, if anything, there is we can do.”
“It’s clearly very important to the community, and so that’s why I brought that up because I think discussions are good,” Stevens told council members who agreed to have the discussion.
The City Council will be discussing a proposed AI data center moratorium sometime in August, Stevens said Wednesday in a comment to DSA Denton’s Facebook post about the town hall.
Coate said she was excited to see the idea from local elected officials.
“It’s what we as a community want,” Coate said.
While the City Council has already approved two AI data centers, Riley Quinn from Revolutionary Front and DSA Denton said a moratorium is important since there would be more proposals for data centers in the future.
Coate and Quinn said their organizations have a working group to address the explosion of AI data centers in Texas with other local organizations, such as Cooperation Denton, a social ecology organization, and the Denton County Green Party, which is part of the Green Party of Texas, a grassroots consensus-driven political party.
“All of these other organizations have put in countless amount of hours doing meetings and research,” Quinn said.
Besides the power usage, DSA Denton has highlighted impacts from data centers, including noise pollution from diesel generators, ventilation and air chillers/cooling fan systems; the millions of gallons in fresh water needed to fill massive cooling systems; and the “copious amounts of CO2” released that “nullify Denton’s sustainability efforts.”
With 335 existing data centers and 248 planned in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbot is beginning to take notice after initially embracing data centers.
Abbott, who’s seeking his fourth term in office this November, called for a statewide ban in June on data center development in rural parts of the state, during a campaign stop in East Texas.
A few weeks earlier, Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas “to take immediate steps to protect residential ratepayers from the costs of data center expansion,” according to a June 10 news release.
In a June 10 letter to ERCOT, Abbott said those immediate steps are needed due to the rapid scale of data center development and “to guarantee any data center development does not come at the cost of Texans and our local economies.”
Those immediate steps require the PUC to ensure that data centers’ interconnections result in reduced residential bills and require data centers to pay for all of their electric infrastructure costs.
The PUC and ERCOT also must review their existing authorities “to identify necessary actions that can be taken under those authorities to safeguard Texans, their property and resources.”
Abbott also directed PUC to reduce residential ratepayer transmission costs by July 31.
In his June 10 letter, Abbott said he plans to work with the Legislature next session on issues such as requiring data centers to pay for their own electric infrastructure, repealing sales tax exemptions and “other outdated or unnecessary incentives for data centers,” and ensuring that data centers add to Texas’ electric capacity, “not just its electric demand.”
“Data centers must operate in ways that reduce costs for residential electricity customers, do not drain water needed for our communities and take into consideration the needs of our neighborhoods,” Abbott said in the news release.
CHRISTIAN McPHATE can be reached at 940-220-4299 and cmcphate@dentonrc.com.
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