Bioenergy facilities and data centers and go on list
Gilmer County commissioners are looking to keep two more things out of the county — data centers and bioenergy facilities.
Data centers are large facilities being built across the nation to house servers to manage, store and process data. There has been a large uptick in construction.
Along with their construction comes an increased use of energy and water to cool the servers.
A public comment was held by Gilmer County commissioners prior to their regular meeting Nov. 13. Attendees who spoke overwhelmingly supported banning data center construction in Gilmer County.
Several members also spoke about banning bioenergy facilities as well.
Bioenergy facilities use a process to extract methane gas from organic plant or waste material. Currently, there is a proposal for a plant to be constructed in Murray County.
“We do not want this,” said Cindy Roberson, who spoke against both types of facilities.
Gilmer commissioners passed the first reading adding data centers to a crypto mining ordinance. The ordinance bans crypto mining and data centers. It also contains language to place severe limits on either if the state should supersede the ban.
In a separate vote commissioners placed a six month moratorium on bioenergy facilities in Gilmer County. During this time they will begin working on an ordinance to ban the facilities.