The budget committee of Delaware's Democratic-controlled
General Assembly "voted Thursday to withhold $3 million from the
University of Delaware in an attempt to force the university's hand on a
controversial plan to build a power plant and data center on the former
Chrysler site in Newark," reports the Wilmington News Journal here.
"The money, earmarked for UD operations, was suddenly
removed and parked in a contingency fund at the end of budget hearings on
Thursday. Lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously in favor
of the move. 'When people get bogged down in the mud, sometimes you need to get
a mule to pull them out," JFC co-chair Sen. Harris McDowell, D-Wilmington,
told the paper. 'We want them to get off the dime and decide what they want to
do. What we want is to see that Delaware has a chance at 5,000 construction jobs
and 900 very high paying jobs.'"
900 jobs, really? Delaware Gov. Jack Markell's office was
saying 300 jobs (plus maybe 1,000 short-term construction jobs, not
"5,000"), just last winter. I sent Sen. McDowell a note asking him to
tell where he's getting these job numbers. So far, zero reply. More on data
center employment, from opponents, at the bottom of this item.
Back in 2011, the administration of University of Delaware
President Patrick Harker approved the data center proposal. But opposition has
grown, and there's now what looks like a full-fledged faculty rebellion --
unusual in a place like UD where a vocal minority, at least, of engineering and
business profs can usually be counted on to support the state's key industries.
From a Chronicle of Higher Education report on May 12:
"After residents in the college town of Newark, Del.,
learned last year that the facility would come with its own 279-megawatt
natural-gas power plant, the $1.1-billion project began drawing opposition.
Professors at Delaware formally joined the battle last week when the Faculty
Senate voted 43 to 0 to recommend against building the data center if it is
accompanied by a fossil-fuel power plant of any size...
"A 75-year lease that university leaders have signed
with the Data Centers could make the power plant the proverbial done deal...
Administrators find themselves in the middle of a standoff between
economic-development goals and a faculty that sees the deal as a
betrayal... The university's wholly
owned subsidiary 1743 Holdings LLC, which oversees the STAR Campus, signed the
ground-lease agreement in December 2012 with the company, known as TDC, for a
43-acre plot on which to build a 900,000-square-foot high-density data
center."
In the faculty vote, there were 8 abstentions, the Chronicle
reported, including Charles G. Riordan, "vice provost for research and
chairman of a working group that university administrators appointed last fall
to review the data-center project in the wake of the public criticism. The working
group plans to complete its review in less than a month (and make) a
recommendation to Delaware's provost, Domenico Grasso, and its executive vice
president, Scott R. Douglass," boss of 1743 Holdings.
The working group remains "very enthusiastic about a data
center on the STAR Campus because that is consistent with our vision for that
campus," Mr. Riordan told the Chronicle. Riordan and Prof. Michael Chajes,
the ex-engineering school dean who wrote the faculty's resolution against the
data center, added that they "would not mind seeing the data center
proceed without the cogeneration plant."
But that sounds like wishful thinking: "The Data
Center's Mr. Kern rejected that proposal outright... Mr. Kern said TDC's lease
with 1743 Holdings does not allow officials to block construction of the power
plant. Assuming his company gets its air-quality permit from the Delaware
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, he said, it plans to
proceed... 'I have invested millions'," he told the Chronicle. "If
they're willing to repay my money, then sure, I'd move on if they wanted me
to." He wouldn't say how many millions.
More on how-many-jobs: Kathryn Gifford, one of the Newark
locals who have mobilized against the project, tells me Sen. McDowell's job
projections for the proposed 279 MW natural gas power plant and data center are
"phenomenally inflated" compared to these other data centers:
Google - 110 at their 84MW Lenoir site:
https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/lenoir/index.html
Google - 130 jobs at their 110 MW Council Bluffs site:
https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/council-bluffs/index.html
Apple ~35 full time jobs and 500 construction jobs for their
270-acre Reno site:
https://gigaom.com/2013/12/17/apple-makes-progress-on-its-solar-powered-data-center-in-reno-but-of-course-its-controversial/
Gifford and other data center opponents say state and local
approval of the proposed center's gas-fired power plants are the investors'
real objective. She notes those power plants aren't necessarily large employers
either:
Calpine, in Dover
Delaware, 309 MW power plant, "250 construction jobs and 16 permanent
operating positions at the site"
http://delaware.newszap.com/centraldelaware/123537-70/calpine-breaks-ground-eyes-efficient-energy-future
But Data Center supporters insist the project will be less
disruptive than the former Chrysler car assembly plant that filled the
surrounding site from around 1948-2010.
Source: Philly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment