Letter to the Editor

Published in the Early County News on Feb. 3, 2026.

My name is Scott Cochran, and I live in Early County. I have been in the critical power business for 33 years. I support and pray for the data center project to come to our wonderful county. This is an opportunity of a lifetime for our community, and I hope we do all we can to support our elected and appointed leaders as they negotiate the project. I pray for them each and every day.

Why do I support this project, you may ask? It comes down to my grandchildren, both in elementary school. The data center and the local support it requires will provide opportunities for them in this area for the next 30 years. It’s as simple as that.

Over my 30-plus years of working in and around data centers all over the world, I have never witnessed one being replaced or removed for being a bad neighbor in the community where it is located. I have witnessed community involvement, job creation, area growth, and—most of all—job opportunities.

Technology that makes life better requires data centers. All business transactions eventually flow through a data center, yes, even cash transactions. When you pay cash to a store, that store works with a bank, and I can assure you that process flows through a data center.

If you have a cell phone and want to use any function of it, that activity runs through a data center.

If you have a car equipped with emergency services like OnStar, those services run through a data center.

If you ever need to use the internet to research a subject, do your taxes, donate to a school function, receive medical attention at a clinic or hospital, buy gas, or buy food; those transactions flow through a data center. I didn’t even mention all the government functions at the local, state, and federal levels; well, I guess I just did.

To understand data centers, you must understand their main points of operation, in my opinion: safety and efficiency. The two work hand-in-hand.

Safety:

Building a data center requires thousands of people working in and around very large equipment. Data center construction goes beyond local, state, and federal requirements. Field workers are trained, briefed daily on any safety changes, and each individual worker has the authority to call a “work stop” if any safety violation is witnessed. Safety continues as a priority after construction is complete and into daily operations. When a company puts safety first, I call that being a good neighbor.

Efficiency:

It starts with safety. Someone getting hurt is not efficient. That may sound a bit cold, but it takes multiple people to assist the injured person, causing production to slow or stop. Sending everyone home injury free to their families is efficient.

Groundwater usage:

Georgia-Pacific was a great partner for the county, but it required a large amount of water to make paper. Data centers don’t require large amounts of water to operate.

They use a closed-loop system because it is efficient. Pumping high volumes of after through a sensitive system like a data center would require pumps, filters, and towers. That is a system of the past because it was not efficient.

Electrical usage:

The data center or even ten data centers, will have no impact on your residential power bill. Anyone telling you otherwise is simply feeding fear into the equation.

Georgia has a Public Service Commission that regulates and monitors electrical rates. Two major drivers of electrical bill increases are fuel costs and base power availability. We are very fortunate to have a company like Southern Company (Georgia Power) providing base power at a great value. The QR code below offers comments that many will find interesting and reassuring. Data center electrical usage is the definition of efficiency. Requirements set forth in building specifications ensure energy waste is minimized.

CLICK HERE.

Noise:

I don’t mind the noise from the cotton gin or the peanut processing plant in Blakely. I view those facilities as opportunities for our community to have and develop jobs. A data center is designed to meet local and state noise codes, which will be known before construction. To be honest, I have never arrived at a data center and thought about how noisy it was—inside or outside.

I hope this helps. Remember, our elected and appointed officials live here. They want nothing but the best for Early County. Pray for them.

Best Regards,

Scott Cochran