@lake 's idea of a microcomputer…
Just poking some fun at our ages… 
Just to give the lie a face, here is what NJ found - a Microsoft-run datacenter with 62 natural gas-fired generators, not a one of them with a permit.
(NYT - “Data Center Is Fined $1.1 Million for Operating 62 Power Generators” 2026/09/23
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/nyregion/data-center-pollution-new-jersey.html
So I have to read more into this… but there is a southern nj data center that is “off grid” and generates its own power via a 36" gas line. I thought this was the same location but im starting to think not.
It may be, I read that the plan was to have fuel cells, and the generators were a temporary thing that the developer slid in in dead of night to cover up a delay in fuel cell delivery or installation.
I only know what I read in the papers, but these datacenters are a little silly at this point.
NY Times is now so paywalled I can’t even read the caption of the first image, but if it’s the “DataOne Vineland” location, despite being located next to a substation, I think it’s primary source was pitched as gas turbines only.
It’s also a butt ugly building, bulldozed a public ball field and other issues, but I don’t live there so, what ever they want!
Full text below
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/nyregion/data-center-pollution-new-jersey.html
New Jersey officials said that the natural gas-powered generators, each the size of a tractor-trailer, were operating without permits.
By
Adeel Hassan
Sept. 23, 2026
When state inspectors visited a dusty construction site amid the farmland of southern New Jersey in late July, it was impossible to miss the 62 tractor-trailer-size generators powering one of the largest planned data centers on the Eastern Seaboard.
None of the 2,000-kilowatt natural-gas-powered generators had the required permits to be installed or to operate at the site. On Tuesday, New Jersey fined the data center’s operator, DataOne, $1.07 million for violating the state’s Air Pollution Control Act. The fine is the largest ever issued to the operator of a data center in New Jersey, state officials said.
Hyperscale data centers, like the one in Vineland, are built to serve the needs of global technology companies. These data centers are racing to find power faster than utility companies can build grid capacity. As a result, some data center developers are installing off-grid power sources, drawing more backlash from the public.
“This is not a free ride for anyone,” Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey said at a Climate Week discussion hosted by
Heatmap News
in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. “If they want to engage in building this out, it has to be a benefit to our communities in New Jersey.”
Data Center Is Fined $1.1 Million for Operating 62Power Generators
The data center campus in Vineland, slated for completion at the end of the year, will be a 2.6million-square-foot complex requiring 350 megawatts of power, enough to power a medium-size city. Some of the complex is already in use, and it has been a magnet for complaints, beginning with the zoning process.
A group of homeowners has filed a federal lawsuit against DataOne citing
persistent noise
from the site. The Cumberland County Health Department has issued violation orders to DataOne for excessive noise.
DataOne said that it disagreed with the state’s decision. “We will apply for the air permits forthe temporary generators,” a spokesman said in a statement, adding that the company was transitioning to low-emission, quiet fuel cells.
State officials on Tuesday ordered DataOne to immediately apply for the required permits and to stop using the generators if the permits are not approved within 45 days. Permits are required for any generator with 37-kilowatt capacity or higher, state officials said. The capacity of the generators at the Vineland site was about 50 times greater than that.
Natural-gas generators emit carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and other combustion-related pollutants. The complex is near farmland, homes and two schools.
Zac Landicini, a lifelong Vineland resident and the founder of Sustain SJ, an environmental advocacy group, said on Wednesday that he raised the question of unapproved generators at a public town hall meeting in February after a farmer first spotted “some type of unit” ons atellite imagery of the site.
It’s unclear why nearly six months elapsed between that meeting and the inspection visit onJuly 29 that led to the $1.07 million fine announced Tuesday. The generators had not been seen during the previous site inspection in December, officials said.
In late August,
an investigation
by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom focused on environmental reporting, and The Guardian found that at least 45 of the 62 generators were running.
“It’s a ‘don’t ask for permission, just ask for forgiveness later’ kind of deal,” Steve Brown, a long time Vineland resident, said in describing how he believed the data center operated.
He said Wednesday that he did not think a fine, even a record fine, would serve as much of a deterrent. “It’s still kind of a drop in the bucket for a company that has several billion dollars of capital,” he said.
Tiffany Leone-Vespa, a mother of two teenagers who has lived in the neighborhood for 18years, said she was concerned about air quality.
“What have we been breathing in since they’ve been running these generators without permits?” she said on Wednesday, after picking up her children from school. “What emissions were released? What’s the air quality surrounding this neighborhood? Has it ever been measured?”
She was critical of the state’s penalty.
“What’s $1.07 million?” she said. “They should have done it for each generator they were running, illegally. They’re billionaires. It’s like pocket change.”
Last year, Virginia fined Microsoft
nearly $2.5 million
for operating 62 “emergency engines” for a week at a data center in Leesburg, Va., after an electrical substation failed. Virginia officials found that the data center exceeded its permitted emissions limits for pollutants. The fine was the state’s largest civil penalty against a data center.
Leesburg is in Loudon County, which says it has the
world’s largest concentration
of datacenters,
with more than 250
. At least two dozen more are in the pipeline there.
The data center in Vineland, about 40 miles southeast of Philadelphia, has an agreement to provide artificial intelligence computing power to Microsoft.
Governor Sherrill said on Wednesday that data centers need to invest in the state’s power grid, report their water and energy usage and bring benefits to communities. She said that data center operators had been “horrible” at engaging with communities during the building process.
“That’s why I think you see so many people not trusting innovation right now, or where it’s going,” she said. “Because government needs to protect people from these downside risks. And right now, I would say, the federal government is not going to do it, which is why, as a state, we are engaging so aggressively.”
Adeel Hassan
, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
Yup, that’s the one. I’m going to assume the fuel cells are natural gas powered so that’s how they are getting away with saying it’s “off grid”.
Also, $1.2m is nothing to a data center developer. they will pay it and not even blink
I’ve just started reading the article in the October Scientific American about Musk’s data center, but it likewise has dozens of gas powered generators (I think these are gas turbines), more than double what the site was permitted for.
And to make it worse, the generators are in Mississippi, to feed his data center in Tennessee. So sounds like the people in Mississippi have to put up with the noise, and not even get whatever tax benefits there might be from the data center (assuming, of course, that the facility is paying taxes).
When I finish the article, I’ll comment more on it.
Right? Why can’t we move into a community and force our neighbors to pay for our water and power? What do they do for any neighborhood but take up space and use up resources and pollute our land? They don’t even create jobs enough to make up for their presence.
We need a data center Mello-Roos kind of system. We make new homes pay to add to the burden put on school districts, parks, roads, etc.
Need more power and water? Great! You can have a 40 year bond to pay for the dam, and nuclear plant needed for your project. Let us know when you need the permits.
This isn’t even new. It is, however, still infuriating.
But why would they stop paying after 40 years? Do we get to stop paying for water, electricity, etc. after 40 years? After 40 years, our tax dollars still go towards park maintenance, just not extra for the establishment of those parks.
They should always pay for their use, and they need to pay extra for the land they take and the destruction of the environment. It should be as expensive for them as it is for us.
The 40 years is not a limit on paying for the product; it’s to pay for the infrastructure to make and deliver the product (electricity, water, etc.)
It’s similar (although on a different scale) of rural customers who have had to pay to have a power line run to their property; even after they finish paying for the line, they still pay for the power.
Or on a more relatable example, it’s like when you get a new phone, and they add $20 to your bill until you pay it off. Once you pay it off, you still pay for service.
That said, I’ve read more of the article on this (I read it at breakfast, so takes several days). So far, very disturbing, on multiple fronts.
It’s going to sit there mostly empty, drawing power, and polluting the environment. Meanwhile, they get paid big bucks AND we pay their power and water costs for the privilege of them to be in our backyard. No thanks!
Why is everything about race nowadays? 
Uh, it was a reference to terms of the bonds similar to school and parks districts when a new development comes to a community. They should be funding their own infrastructure for their data center, not putting the burden on the older existing communities that will not use it. We save that level of grift for professional sports teams and their publicly funded arenas with no formal commitment to the community that funded it. (Except you Green Bay, stay classy)
Mello Roos are not permanent. Once the park/school/water treatment plant facilities are paid for the services are included in the fees associated with its operation. The arguement is that if the developer did not build a community, there would be no need for an additional school, road, water treatment, fire station, etc. and the current residents should not front the bill for that capital expansion, but after time the property taxes, school district, water district fees/taxes/whatever would cover operations/MX.
When you moved into a new community, most likely the developer had to pay for a new fire station or school and either you paid for that capital outlay in your home price or pay mello roos for a few decades till that bond expires. That does not mean you don’t have a water bill or property taxes afterward.
I know all that. I’m just saying the data centers aren’t paying for their presence right now, and just a Mello Roos type tax is not enough. They need to pay afterwards to keep operating, too.
Okay… Whatever. Do you still pay for your water bill despite the water treatment plant being paid off 20 years ago??? The point of the MR tax is to make them pay for what they need built. I can’t figure out how you say “you know” but then say the opposite of exactly what the purpose of the tax is.