Comment Re:Makes no sense (Score 1) 72
You are correct, but that costs extra. In the land grab/rush, data centers are bypassing that to speed construction. Often signing sweet heart deals with local politicians and functionally bribing them to let them in. Or worse, just building and daring people to sue after the fact. The issue is that if companies move fast enough, and stall long enough, it becomes fait accompli because blocking something is often legal, but taking away the fruits of a rammed through, legally stalling based construction, is more or less illegal by the US constitution (takings clause, due process, etc). So you want to go as fast as you can, skip every step you can, and get it done before the locals can organize and push back.
Which you can say "That's shortsighted" and you would be correct, a number of places are now rezoning to prevent exactly this, and either banning datacenters, or demanding exactly what you said, closed loop, all utilities/substation/power generation paid for UP front, out of pocket. Which currently just kills them, they can't operate that way, so of course they are quickly running out places to build them at all.