Piketon

Um, but my work has been revolving around collaborating and connecting with health departments to better understand these potential health impacts of data centers.

My name is, uh, Vina Colley, and I am a former whistleblower from the Portsmouth Gas Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio.

For 70 years now, they have been polluting us, and we're fighting the largest data center in the world at Piketon, along with the, the largest gas facility in the power plant in Piketon, and I live 10 miles, air miles from the facility.

Uh, my name is Drew Castle.

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, so I'm an academic researcher in the mechanical engineering department.

Yeah.

Thank you for that, Stewart.

And Vina, I wanna bring you into this because, like you said, um, you live near Piketon, and Piketon has been known as the site that, you know, in the '50s, built this massive uranium enrichment facility, and now it may be on the verge, or it is on the verge of building one of the world's largest data centers.

There are many studies, including from Harvard, that people close to nuclear plants are more likely to die.

Piketon, Ohio, has near, uh, near nuclear power plants, has the highest cancer rates of anywhere in the state, and there are millions of tons of nuclear waste that would kill you if you tried to wake up, walk up to it and would, uh, you know, will last for millions of years.

And more every day-

Yes

You just beat Jackson, you know what I mean? So, and then as time went on, then they lose to Waverley.

They, they struggle a little bit in, in, on and off in certain areas, and then they lose to Piketon, blowing a 14-nothing lead.

And they come in, and you could tell they played, I thought, the other night with far more urgency.

We'll get to the game in a second.

But I'm just saying in terms of what the history-

Mm-hmm

... has taught us, you know, we've watched in the last 25 years a, you know, a Piketon team come on.

We've watched a Southeastern team come on.

Now, all of a sudden, we're seeing an influx.

I mean, you've got two coming to this area in Ohio, including what they're calling the world's largest data center in Piketon, Ohio, along with a natural gas plant with a huge investment from NASA.

Japanese developers.

And then you've got Tara Wolf bringing a data center here in Northeastern Kentucky, close to Ashland, and talks about another one coming to an abandoned steel site.

But first, data centers are becoming a real pressure point ahead of midterms, as many Americans resist the noise, infrastructure, and energy demands the centers bring to their communities.

In southern Ohio, environmentalists are worried about plans to build the world's largest data center in a town called Piketon.

It's shaping up to be a major political fight that could have big consequences for the state's toss-up Senate race.

Scott Tong spoke with Karen Kasler, Ohio Statehouse bureau chief for Ohio Public Media, to get some answers on how data centers are scrambling politics across the state.

So let's move on to maybe the game that I, I was asked about the most, um, maybe 'cause went to Union, Ohio, but it was just, I think it wa- it was a big time surprise.

Piketon 22, Union, Ohio 21 in overtime, a huge win for the Red Streaks.

And I mean, obviously when you hear Union, Ohio with the 21, you like, "Oh, wonder kind of what happened?" The Piketon defense is what happened.

They were phenomenal.

They got stuck in a bad situation to start.

Uh, Levi Beam returned the opening kickoff 65 yards to the 10, and then Piketon gets a stop on fourth and goal from the one.

The one stand, yeah.

Three plays later, Jenna Renner causes a fumble.

SB Energy has committed to investing thirty-three billion dollars to build more than nine gigawatts of natural gas generation capacity and more than four billion dollars on transmission lines.

The deal: OpenAI leases about eight gigawatts of SB Energy's proposed ten-gigawatt campus on a twenty-year lease at the former uranium enrichment site south of Piketon.

SB Energy builds, owns, and operates.

NVIDIA invests one point five billion in SB Energy and provides credit support for land, power, and build-out.