For a town board, county committee, or anyone at the public meeting. These are questions, not accusations — a well-run project will have answers. The context under each comes from sourced figures on the BRAIAIN board; none of it describes any specific project.
Why ask: requests are not commitments. In Texas, data centers make up more than 70% of 233+ GW of large-load requests — about 31 times what is actually under construction there (ERCOT, year-end 2025). A request tells you the ambition; a signed interconnection agreement tells you the project.
Why ask: grid upgrades are often recovered through utility rates unless an agreement assigns them to the customer that caused them. Ask for it in writing.
Why ask: in the Potomac basin, data centers already use about 4 million gallons a day — roughly 9% of the region's consumptive water use (ICPRB). Average use and peak-summer use are different numbers; ask for both.
Why ask: the four largest builders reported $513.8 billion of capital spending in the year to June 2026 (their own filings). A request for abatement is a negotiation, and the county is allowed to see the numbers behind it.
Why ask: construction crews are large and temporary; operating staff are much smaller. Only jobs written into the agreement are enforceable.
Why ask: in PJM — the grid serving more than 67 million people across 13 states and D.C. — the capacity price rose 9.3x in a single auction, and estimates for the first repriced year ran around 1.5–5% on household bills (PJM figures, via WHYY). How much of that rise is due to data centers can't be isolated from the price series. Much of the Midwest, including Wisconsin, is on a different grid (MISO), which runs its own capacity auction — ask your utility which market you are in.
Sources and formulas for every figure: braiain.com/methodology.html. Data-center locations near you: the US map (OpenStreetMap features — not a complete census). Free to copy, print and hand out (CC BY 4.0 — credit "BRAIAIN, braiain.com").