Data Centers Along The River - Laura Beth Austin

What happens when the infrastructure powering the artificial-intelligence revolution arrives in America’s rural communities?

Data Centers Along the River takes readers beyond the headlines and behind the walls of one of the fastest-growing forms of industrial development in the United States.

Written for everyday people-not engineers or industry insiders-Laura Beth Austin explains what data centers are, why AI is driving enormous new demand for them, and what these facilities can mean for electricity, water, farmland, rivers, utility infrastructure, taxpayers, and the communities asked to host them.

With special attention to Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and the Ohio River corridor, Austin examines the questions residents and local officials should be asking before major projects are approved. Drawing from government records, environmental agencies, utility regulators, legislation, scientific research, and real-world examples from communities already confronting large-scale data-center development, the book separates documented facts from projections and promises.

Readers will learn about electricity demand measured in megawatts, transmission lines and substations, cooling and water consumption, backup generators and air emissions, tax incentives, ratepayer protections, Kentucky farmland, proposed legislation, and the growing use of temporary data-center moratoriums while communities develop appropriate regulations.

The book also looks closely at Carroll County, Kentucky, while placing its experience within a much larger national story.

This is not a book arguing that technology has no place in America’s future. It is a book arguing that communities deserve enough information to make informed decisions about that future.

Because once farmland is developed, infrastructure is built, incentives are granted, and billion-dollar projects move forward, some decisions may be difficult-or impossible-to undo.

Data Centers Along the River is a fact-first guide for residents, farmers, property owners, public officials, journalists, and anyone who wants to understand what the data-center boom could mean for the places they call home.

People. Power. Water. Farms. Our Future.