Recently, the New York State Legislature passed a one-year moratorium on building new data centers. That tends to be the way in New York. If it is controversial, let’s punt the issue down the road and deal with it later.

Of course, no one voting for the proposal agreed to give up their cell phones or other devices. Everybody wants those. That’s where we get our news, weather, messages and virtually everything these days–navigating your car, streaming football games, asking “Siri” who was President 50 years ago. We can get it all–welcome to the world of data!

Admittedly, no one may want to live next to a data center–they are energy hogs and can make humming noises. No one, also, wants to live near a power generating station or a high voltage transmission line. “Let’s just ban them all and the problems will go away.”

That is why I take issue with the one-year moratorium. We all know that it could likely end up being a 10-year moratorium. Yet, New Yorkers will still demand instant gratification on their cell phones, computers and television sets. Some other states will likely need to step up and provide the energy and data centers to feed the internet and cell phone demands of New York.

The data center issue reminded me a bit of New York’s policy of not allowing for the exploration and development of natural gas in the state. Though about 50% of our electricity comes from that source, we are above it all. “No, you can’t produce natural gas here, but please send us enough from somewhere else so that our power grid doesn’t go down.”

It is an energy policy that doesn’t square with reality. Here we go again with data centers. Maybe we need fewer, but none?

It made me also think a bit about the struggles in Dunkirk to try to repower the old electric generating station there. Could it be that a data center combined with some type of natural gas generation to back up the electric grid could work there? I am sure the residents of Dunkirk would support such a revival in a facility that is right in their own backyard.

But,”No,” New York State seems poised to take a least one option off the table – data centers.

Mind you, I am not a big supporter of all of this new-fangled way of doing things where we are all tied to our cell phones and other devices. Yet, I see no change in the trend. Now, we don’t just take photos with our phones–we take videos, initiate internet searches, and even talk to our phones–all of which require more data computer centers.

People don’t think about the data they use…they just want more of it. Amazon cloud services alone is growing at a rate of about 25% a year, and AI (Artificial Intelligence,) which is going to need oversight and regulation, is still in its infancy.

I am probably “beating a dead horse” on all of this, since my pedestrian, mid-western views don’t square with the public energy policies being decided in Albany or in places like upscale restaurants on the Upper East Side of New York.

Nevertheless, as with Don Quixote, I will continue to “flail against the wind” hoping to inject at least some common sense into issues like energy and data demand which now, and for the foreseeable future, will dominate our lives.

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident.