Come on down to the game and get the message out to UD Parents: No Power Plant!
The Blue Hens take on William and Mary today. Can football get any more exciting than last week's come-from-behind-win over Towson on a two point conversion? Go Hens!!!!
Update: GREAT post by Kavips on the lying liars behind the power plant ~ Penning At Will
Meanwhile, correcting the record:
The save-the-farmland argument in two letters to the editor today (below) is a red herring. It's the same tired old argument land developers use as a rationale to attack and get around restrictions in the NCC Unified Development Land Use Code.
Also, the drop in market value for homes near power plants runs between 10 and 15 percent.
And yes, there are sites in NCC suitable for the TDC power plant - on idle industrial parcels along Route 9 for instance.
But I'll wager that TDC doesn't want to locate in unincorporated New Castle County. TDC wants to situate in the City of Newark on UD property because the municipal location offers a harbor from Public Service Commission oversight. The DEDO grant application revealed that TDC's plan is that their self-described, independent-from-the-data-center power plant intends to sell more than half of the electricity generated to PJM and DEMAC.
The misinformation continues.......
Better to build on brown field than on farmland
The proposed data center is being hotly contested by “the Newark residents against the power plant.”
Here is a prime example of someone not having all the information or simply ignoring the truth.
This facility is not a power plant. It is a data center, used for storing information.
There is a power-producing element to the facility albeit a very small one.
The purpose it serves is to remove reliance on the local grid, and the benefits are two-fold. First, the high strain on the local grid will be gone which is especially important in the hot summer months and in the storm seasons. Second, the charge for power will not go up due to increased consumption.
Let’s now talk about construction in Newark in general. After years of the University of Delaware building whatever they want, using out-of-state contractors, sending our tax dollars out of state, now some special interest groups are taking issue with them because property values might be lowered by 3 to 7 percent.
The opposition comes off as a “not in my backyard” type of argument, and while many people out there can relate to that, simply and bluntly put, there is more at stake than that. Our economy is in bad shape. People are losing their homes and jobs every day for most even the prospect of a job is all that they have.
I have no better ideas about what else could be built on that property, but I haven’t heard any ideas from the residents against the power plant, either.
It is after all a “brown field,” a piece of land that was home to an industrial site already.
If someone is going to build something like this, shouldn’t it be on the ground that has already been home to industry and not on some farmer’s field?
James Ascione
Bear
Jim is Hiring Hall Agent for IUOE Local 542Update II: Comment rescue ~
Whoa…for someone who starts off telling folks they need facts, the writer here kind of misses the mark on several issues. This is no “very small” power plant. 250 megawatts equates to 335 MILLION horsepower. To put that into perspective, each engine on a Boeing 747 generates 125,000 horsepower. So the power plant will be spinning gas-turbine generators with the force of 660 747’s! That’s not ‘very small’ by any stretch.
The writer correctly states the need for such facilities to have back-up power generation but then contradicts his own assertion of the need being “very small” by talking about how it will spare the local grid the load of the data center and avoid rate increases caused by increased demand. Last I checked DP&L was not having any load demand issues on their grid and the only scenario where increased load would drive prices up is if there was a need for them to purchase outside power.
The writer is obviously upset with purchasing practices at U of D but how does that justify retribution against “some special interest groups are taking issue with them because property values might be lowered by 3 to 7 percent.” Those “special interest groups” are homeowners like the rest of us who have seen their property values plummet, who are trying to get their kids through college and whom may be seriously affected by “3 to 7 percent.”
And while it would generally be good to see the site back in use, let’s get sober about the true “jobs” picture for a server farm. Yes there may be several hundred jobs for a year or two during construction, but once fully operational..a server farm..even a big one..is a lonely place to work! If you understand the industry you know that the people who will be programming those servers and managing the actual traffic on them will be spread around the globe from India to Ireland to Indianapolis.
NIMBY? Well, how about we park 660 running 747’s down there in Bear so someone 11,000 miles away has a job?
Data center is type of project Delaware needs
We should be thanking The Data Center for wanting to come to Delaware and for planning to build a data center with its own energy source to the highest standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council. Not only does it redevelop a brown field (the former Chrysler plant site) – something that many people in the environmental community constantly call for – it will be using the latest technology to minimize its environmental footprint. We need these types of projects to come to Delaware.
Nick Farmer
Newark
And this Delaware Sierra Club statement is making the rounds about the letter submitted by the Teamsters Union local Vice President ~ Handful of people oppose data center and jobs
Delaware Sierra Club writes ~
In addition to the many other lies being spread by The Data Centers LLC and those acting on their behalf--on jobs numbers, environmental impacts etc-- they have repeatedly said or implied that the Sierra Club has met with them, supports their technology because it includes CHP (combined heat and power), supports their data center and now a flat out lie that we have "endorsed the project". We feel its time to set the record straight.Plus.......having some fun with the 'opposition' ~
The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter met with 2 representatives of The Data Centers LLC on June 6th 2013 at the request of Michael Bednar, who emailed our staff about setting up a meeting about what was then a completely unknown project to build a data center. At the meeting they told us their plan to self power the data center with a 248MW gas power plant (the real number has since been found to 279MW). They also showed us the proposed location on a map and apparently did not know until we told them about the oil tankers directly next to the site until we told them.
Once we realized the nature of the plan, We told them that we would not possibly "endorse"a power plant and immediately let neighbors in Newark know of the plan and our Conservation Chair shared the info with the News Journal and Newark City Council. At that point no Newark Councilpersons or residents (outside City Staff) had any idea of the proposed plant even though DNREC, DEDO, City staff and UD had been meeting with TDC in secret since 2011.
We have been and will continue to be actively working to support Newark residents as well as UD students, parents and alumni in opposing this toxic project which would: further decrease air quality, put thousands of residents and school children within 1 mile of the STAR Campus directly at risk to both acute and long-term health impacts, further promote the use of fracked natural gas and dump massive amounts climate disrupting Co2 into our atmosphere.
To get involved with our work on this and other issues contact Stephanie.herron@sierraclub.org. For the real facts on the TDC proposed power plant in Newark, obtained through countless hours of research & FOIA requests by residents, visit NoNewarkPowerPlant.org.
Delaware Jobs Now is now LIVE and active! We thank you for following us on Facebook and Twitter. Please look around our webpage (DelawareJobsNow.org), sign our petition for the Newark Data Center, and join us for updates and events.
- My response "Manpower:Although data centers are required to deliver more services, staffing requirements do not necessarily increase. In fact, advances in both server and server management technologies, known as autonomics, have yielded server capabilities including predictive health monitoring and self healing of the server environment. This technology actually allows more systems to be managed by smaller staff. "
The following was printed in the Nov-Dec’06 issue of DCM Magazine, penned by Gene Kern, who is Executive Vice President and a founding partner at WAKE
- Delaware Jobs Now It is true that conventional server-based data centers do use less staff than the older tape-based data centers. However, in the case of the Newark Data Center, the large facility size and server density make this project a great economic and employment stimulus to the Newark area.- Delaware Jobs Now Ms. Willing, while this is a public board, we do ask that you post comments to us in the future directly to our wall or under related postings. We will be happy to respond to comments as best we can but ask to help keep our forum organized. Thanks in advance for helping us in this effort- This is an interesting response from the moderator here. The JPMorgan Chase data center in Bear is not a tremendous economic engine here where I live. The notion that there are going to be a ton of jobs associated with a data center is just wrong. To embellish his jobs numbers, Kern makes the argument that they will bring the company infrastructure jobs to the new facility..that is, accounting, finance, marketing, sales etc. Otherwise the headcount drops. Otherwise, his data center job numbers are much lower as they are at typical data centers. I also think that for every jobs argument there is a counter argument. For those of us that study economics, what we should talk about is replacement economics. That is, the economics of new facilities like this in terms of what they are offering and what they may be replacing. Consider this argument. Companies that have jobs paying for on site data storage at their facilities are looking for ways to cut costs and reduce headcount to run their businesses. Companies like Kerns's provide an outlet for that. They offer a low cost alternative to onsite storage for these companies. Which means they are replacing, you guessed it, jobs. So net-net for the broader economy, some job losses will occur at those corporations that outsource (and not all of Kerns's clients are outsourcing, some are just growing capacity) part of their IT departments to this company.http://www.datacenterjournal.com/.../
www.datacenterjournal.com
Mega Data Centers Mega data centers sprawl over hundreds of thousands of square feet and can exceed 10 megawatts of powerhttp://www.datacenterjournal.com/.../
www.datacenterjournal.com
With IT services becoming increasingly important, data center construction and expansion is a regular fixture in the news headlines.- Delaware Jobs Now Delaware Jobs Now is a coalition of labor and business partners. We apologize for not disclosing our moderators names (yes, we have more than one) but can state they represent the organization fairly to the mission statement. This advocacy organization is not directly associated with TDC or any one business, but represent what we feel is best for Delaware. Please bear with us while we constantly update our webpage to reflect our efforts. This data center is the first of its kind with the power attachment. It is a new concept, but will be constructed under all local, state, and federal laws. Let's not block this opportunity just because it's the first of its kind.~*~
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