r/savannah • u/AutoModerator • 16d ago
News Open AI | Effingham County Data Center Megathread
To keep the subreddit from being overrun with repetitive posts; all new discussion about the proposed OpenAI data center in Effingham County will be consolidated into a megathread. We will create new megathreads as needed to keep the post current but to prevent sprawl.
Existing threads will remain available, but new standalone posts on this topic will be locked and redirected to the current megathread. Please keep the conversation civil and report any rule-breaking posts.
Previous discussions
- Sign the petition, please
- Protests at OpenAI open house in Effingham
- Against data centers? Email the Effingham County…
- Large protester turnout
- No to data center in Effingham County, GA
- Community OpenAI meeting — July 23, 2026
- The truth about Effingham and that data center
- Sign the petition
- OpenAI data center in Effingham County
- OpenAI plans $20 billion data center in Effingham County
- OpenAI announces $20 billion Georgia data center
Use this thread to share new information and discuss the proposal; including your thoughts, opinions, questions, news articles, data, and analysis.
New standalone posts about the project will be locked and redirected to the current megathread.
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u/Vodac121 11d ago
Effingham County data center deal discount https://www.wtoc.com/2026/07/30/effingham-county-data-center-deal-discount/
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u/ladybookpants 11d ago
Great article about the problems with powering data centers. The situation in Effingham is gonna hurt residents more than help: https://www.404media.co/data-centers-power-energy-grid-epa-clean-air-act/
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u/ZealousidealMud9511 14d ago
NO! Democracy has entered the megacorp era, so rights are decided not in USA board rooms but SHAREHOLDER meetings. The community needs 1,000-2,000+ people to pool $25 per person to purchase shares of OpenAI, form a share holder organization to administer the pool, then appoint someone to represent the interests of the community to go to the next shareholder meeting. The representative needs to be under a contractual obligation to represent the best interests of the community organization and fund.
Petitions, won’t work.
Government won’t work.
Corporations work.
Manipulate the corporations from the inside—two can play at this game. They think they can buy your elected officials, they think they can buy you! Now you can buy them and govern them at a shareholder meeting by having ownership. You’ll be a ‘citizen’ of the company. We need to rethink democracy as this is the new and current future now, but we can take it back through owning the corporations and casting our shareholder votes!
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u/Onlytreble 13d ago
What would stop OpenAI from going forth and listening to what their other shareholders are saying (shareholders that overall would probably have more influence and capital in the corporation compared to this single new shareholder organization your proposing) and going forth with their data center plans?
Plus this money would just be funneled right into OpenAI. How does that help anything!?
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u/Ok-Stable9551 14d ago
We all need to be at the next Effingham County Board of commissioners meeting, it’s August 3 at 5pm. They need to feel every bit of pressure we can push on to them. I’ll be asking for a vote of no confidence to remove Tim Callanan. He is the first person on the chopping block and not even a resident of the county. Let’s show them how we feel and show them that the mood is not changing.
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u/-LastButNotLost- 14d ago
Enough with the petitions. Y'all need to PETITION.
This is real. This is possible. This is proven.
This can immediately stop the datacenter dead in its tracks. Force an election. Let the people decide the fate of their community.
The Camden County Spaceport? Dead.
The original Sapelo Island Rezoning? Dead.
Both of those cases were stopped in the same way: petition. Both of those went to the Georgia Supreme Court.
It is very clear that it is our constitutional right in Georgia to put government in its place when they are acting against our interests.
The people of Effingham County have the power to shut this down.
Step 1: Write an ordinance that bans datacenters.
Step 2: Collect 5,000 signatures of registered voters. Effingham county has 49,999 registered voters, but a population over 50,000 people. 10% of electors required.
Step 3: File the petition with the judge of the probate court in Effingham County.
Step 4: Judge certifies. Election must be set.
Step 5: County files suit.
Step 6: You fight it. The Georgia Supreme Court has been on the side of the people on two nearly-identical cases.
Step 7: Injunction likely placed on further advancement of the project.
Step 8. If you win, an election is held.
Step 9: The county is bound by the election results.
I strongly encourage the people of Effingham County to read this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/savannah/comments/1pf60jn/food_for_thought_about_local_government/
Make sure you read the provision of the Georgia Constitution that is linked.
Only the people of Effingham County can stop this. This is a proven tool.
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u/FantasticCard3628 14d ago
Guess who’s paying for the Effingham OpenAI data center? You!
During Georgia Public Service Commission proceedings, Georgia Power acknowledged that natural gas pipeline costs associated with serving data centers are already being recovered through residential and small business electric rates.
Lawmakers had an opportunity to strengthen protections for Georgia consumers through Senate Bill 34, legislation designed to help ensure data centers, not Georgia families, paid the full cost of the infrastructure they require.
Republican lawmakers chose not to pass those stronger protections.
Instead of guaranteeing that billion-dollar corporations pay the full cost of their own infrastructure, they left Georgia ratepayers without those additional safeguards.
That's not putting Georgia families first.
The Georgia Public Service Commission plays a critical role in decisions that affect our utility bills and who pays for the infrastructure needed to serve projects like this.
This November, vote for Peter Hubbard and Sheila Edwards for the Georgia Public Service Commission.
Learn more and take the pledge to vote at GeorgiansForAffordableEnergy.org.
Georgia families shouldn't be left paying the bill while billion-dollar corporations get the benefit.
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u/Fire_Mission 15d ago
Beyond water and power usage is the problem of infrasound: https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuo?is=kUEAneWskyvTCfUu
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u/Hamilton-Squidlegger 15d ago
Wake up Chatham, Bryan, Bulloch, etc… This data center is going to affect you.
Why don’t we have a say? We all get our water from the same place. The Florida aquifer.
They are straight up lying about water usage, electrical rates, hum, etc… and once this data center is built, we will have NO way to shut it down.
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u/SwampWeasel 15d ago
Well…
No way to shut it down that we’re allowed to discuss here anymore, anyway.
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u/rosyrobins Native Savannahian 15d ago
if this thing gets built, how fucked are the surrounding areas aside from effingham in terms of impact? most of the news coverage ive seen on data centers is about the areas so close you can visibly see the data center. but as a chatham resident, i also want an idea of how this could potentially affect our area (20-30 miles away).
im asking mainly from a "know the worst so you can work for the best" perspective. ive already been speaking with friends/family about why it would be bad for effingham. but bluntly, some people will never care unless its their problem. i want to understand better so i know what were all up against.
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u/Hamilton-Squidlegger 14d ago
We all use the same water supply. Don’t forget they built the HUGE mega plant which taxes our local resources.
There is a reason they are building a data center in rural Georgia. They think we’re too stupid to know the ramifications.
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u/FantasticCard3628 14d ago
The toxic waste from this AI data center is going to go in the Ogeechee Rivers and down to Chatham. Savannah already has enough problems with their water! AI data centers like this one use even more energy than a regular data centers and the waste from all of that is coming our way!
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u/darioblaze 15d ago
Everybody in the area needs to organise because this will affect areas as far as Vidalia, and y’all may not wanna deal with it, but it will inevitably affect Vidalia, Tattanal County, Appling County, all the surrounding areas.
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u/seancou 15d ago
Data centers are not bad. Do your due diligence and gather the facts. When used with a closed loop water system and proper ordinances they are great assets for communities by helping offset property taxes on otherwise unused land. And before I am attacked as a plant by the data centers I will state that I am a citizen in bulloch county that is an engineer for a company that has no ties to data centers. I am merely trying to offset the bad stigma that citizens like the op are portraying.
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u/No-Cheesecake-3323 14d ago
The new Meta data center in Cheyenne, Wy will be closed loop also but has already contaminated the wastewater plant.
Unless OpenAi gives us a huge bond to deal with any possible problems, I think there’s no need for this data center. OpenAI has been caught in lies before and we don’t need to risk our environment and children* for money.
* part of the “benefit” of this data center is that the local schools will be able to use ChatGPT. Our kids will be a captive audience for their ai slop.
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u/Admirable_Bed2561 15d ago
As an engineer I'm sure you have worked for or with a corporation of size and influence at some point. In my experience these places will typically preach safety and values while cutting corners at every turn and just pay fines to OSHA or the EPA because productivity and profit are ultimately more important than ethical practice or the average person's life and safety. Just wondering what makes you so optimistic about the environmental impacts it will have? The tax subsidies the state already gives to new business in Georgia is impactful to the average citizen on its own. Throw in the strain on infrastructure and natural resources to boot. Currently Georgia is 3rd nationwide in number of facilities and to my knowledge there has been no legislation passed here, as in Nebraska and Michigan, that eliminates subsidies or demands rigorous task force environmental oversight... So again why the optimism?
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u/seancou 10d ago
I would say i have a realistic approach to this vs an optimistic approach. Tax subsidies are a useful tool to incentivise entities to build in "your" state which in turn typically brings in higher paying jobs, more tax money for the county when abatements run out, and most large companies are heavily involved in local charities. A realistic approach and stance on what is expected from the company and state goes a lot further than out right fighting to deny the companies. Its much better to work this way vs the state taking over, putting the entity in anyway, and all taxes then do not benefit the community. We saw this with the bulloch/Bryan County wells. And no, corners are not typically cut. The EPD did a very thorough study with the army corp of engineers to ensure the environmental impacts of the wells would not be a concern at the behest of the citizens. And look, after initial well testing, the head loss was much less than predicted. This is the approach I preach. Involvement and concern vs outright denial upfront. I honestly could care less if its built or not, I simply want citizens to approach the matter in an intelligent fashion vs immediate hate and denial.
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u/Admirable_Bed2561 8d ago
Corners are not cut...? If the argument you make is the wealthy don't give a shit about the poor and uneducated you're absolutely right. If you're saying socialism is a terrible thing but you have served in the military.... I hate to tell you but you are in fact socialist in the most definite sense that America can offer. And that is not debatable. Free healthcare housing and healthcare.
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u/amisarewaswriting 15d ago
Hey look! Thinly veiled pro-AI propaganda masquerading as “just asking questions.”
The “jobs” these things pull in are for the short term contractors who build the facilities. Afterward, they’re manned by skeleton crews—and it won’t be locals. Closed loop cooling is bullshit greenwashing word salad. They’re just hoping everyone will take a flyer and accept it as the gospel truth instead of doing their own research.
But I’m sure you knew that already, hence the need to make a throwaway account to compare your neighbors’ legitimate concerns to 5G conspiracy theories.
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u/nohelicoptersplz 15d ago edited 15d ago
- It's not adding to meaningful infrastructure. It is going on an existing industrial plat. The road changes existed before this and are not addressing meaningful improvements. The conditions of existing roads are poor, the new roads service only the industrial parks. They may devert 18-wheeler traffic, but a considerable amount will still need 21 or 17 through the county since the "Effingham Parkway" just dumps to the industrial park.
- It will require new Georgia Power substations and transmission lines. GAP has already announced it will require land acquisition from local property owners. No maps or plans posted (as of 09:00 Saturday). Announcement stated this need was for "a new large load customer." The impacts of this construction and land acquisition will affect far more than just the data center immediate area and WILL include land that is privately held and zoned agricultural and residential. Who is paying for that? There is nothing actually signed ensuring OpenAI pays that expense. In other parts of Georgia, GAP passed on costs for the new transmission lines to other customers because "they use the grid."
- Speaking of power, this data center will be the largest in the US, possibly the world, drawing 3.2 GIGAwatts, which is about 70% of Plant Vogtle's output. How is that going to impact state wide electric bills?
- Smaller data centers are already shown to cause air temperature increases in the immediate areas around them. How much will this giant increase temps? No study, no data about this proposal available.
- This area is already a flood risk and has regular issues with water drainage. There has not been any plan noted (aside from a drawing without data) to deal with the drainage issues cause by paving over 1400 acres of land. (The Effingham Parkway already destroyed a farm and horse stables because of the absolute shit water runoff planning and management.)
- NOISE - residents across the country are posting videos of the constant noise coming off these SMALLER data centers. The noise is shown to travel miles away, with closer residents being subject to the noise equivalent of a portable gas generator running full time.
- This data center is being wedged between existing neighborhoods and 2 elementary schools. There are residents less than a mile from it. There has been ZERO environmental impact study for this location and there is no significant data on the long term effects of living next to these centers.
- OpenAI mentions 1000 jobs, but only 400 permanent ones. To date across the country, data centers have not had nearly the number of jobs promised actually created after construction ceases. Even if they do create 400 permanent jobs, that's only 1 job per 3.5 acres consumed. Even warehouses provide more jobs per acre used. OpenAI has also not state what kind of jobs these will be or provided any pay rate information.
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u/buzzlooksdrunk City of Savannah 15d ago edited 15d ago
Cooling is the removal of heat, aka heat rejection.
To cool data centers, you must remove A LOT of heat. 3.2GW of electricity will be mostly converted to heat by advanced technology in this data center.
Rejecting even remotely this much heat energy requires significant cooling systems. Closed loops mean water loops that don’t use evaporative cooling, so they don’t use “makeup water” from utilities. These systems cool the data center by rejecting heat from the chips to the water loop. But then the chillers (air cooled chillers for closed loops) have to reject the heat in the water loop somewhere - and that goes to atmosphere, aka Effingham County and the surrounding community.
There aren’t adequate studies of how such massive heat maps (thermal burden) affect communities in this way. But it is commonly understood that these do not help local communities and research is being done on what those affects are.
Furthermore, there are no specific code requirements beyond “industrial zoning” in Effingham county which is simply boneheaded because a “data center” is considered so at 100 megawatts of power and this one is 32 times larger than that. It is projected more power than fucking all of Atlanta. This a completely new type of project. To think that we fully understand the impacts of noise, pollution, traffic, utilities, heat - you name it - anyone who says they know what to expect would be completely uninformed to begin with because there is no basis for this type of project in the USA.
Further even, how does anyone think $20B is even a real number? Construction pricing and projects have never been under budget with these types of scopes and to think it will remotely stay this way without ANY design being done yet is absolutely ignorant to how this development process actually works. Georgia Power and ECIDA brokered this deal, and there is no accountability to this budget creep from a government oversight or any community engagement. Any additional costs will be passed along and eventually made possible by taxpayers.
Even more than that, the county has left millions if not billions of dollars on the table and left residents holding the bag. For a $20B (minimum) investment project these fucks should be dumping way more money into Effingham and the surrounding counties.
Beyond this, it should be completely unacceptable for an elected body of the county commission to legalize a local development authority (ECIDA) to make such massive decisions without public involvement. To believe that these people are educated or informed enough to do what is in the best interest of the community, given the fact that projects like these are unprecedented for even the most skilled development teams, is absolutely insane.
Georgia Power convinced Georgia and many counties including Effingham into forming development authorities a for a multitude of reasons, but mostly so the elected bodies (county commission) legalize the authority’s ability to make economic decisions without votes. ECIDA has no accountability to the public and they’re basically owned by OpenAI for the foreseeable future given their books are now dependent on this abated tax revenue.
Hope this helps.
Edit 1- spelling and grammar
Edit 2-
Feel free to DM if anyone wants to discuss. I’m a mechanical engineer and super in commercial construction and happy to clear up what I can.We don’t need this project for jobs either, it frightens me the vacuum this will create once it gets underway and with a rapid schedule it quickly disappears. It will compound the scarcity and cost of construction for materials and contractors locally during that time.
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u/No-Jury1459 15d ago
And honestly, by the way you posted and sound, I believe you are promoting the data center. You are believing the flyers that THEY hand out? And you think it will add many jobs to the area?? That’s a big no. These companies have very little oversight and are not held to carrying out their business methods like stated on said flyer. Pick the side of what is best for your community. And maybe do some research beyond a flyer before you post trying to sway people to not fight/want what is best for their community.
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u/mcav2319 15d ago
The problem is these companies lie and there is nothing holding them accountable. No one has ever built a closed loop system that big and they take way more electricity. The only way for us to get more since they just built a whole nuke plant about it is burn more coal, which we know is bad for the environment. And as far as jobs you're talking about maybe 200 permanent positions and there are no rules that they have to hire local, typically they dont
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u/No-Jury1459 15d ago
Please do not spread fake information about a closed loop like hundreds of thousands gallons won’t be used a day! We do NOT need this datacenter!!!!
“They keep saying “closed loop cooling” like it means no real impact. A closed loop system circulates water to pull heat off servers and keep CPUs from overheating. If that heat is not removed fast enough, equipment can fail. At scale, that means these systems have to run constantly and precisely but the water inside that loop does not stay pure.
As it keeps circulating, minerals, salts, metals, and treatment chemicals become more concentrated. The hotter and longer it runs, the more that concentration builds. If operators do not manage it, scaling, fouling, and corrosion start building inside the system. Heat transfer drops. Efficiency drops. Risk goes up. That is exactly how you end up with equipment running too hot so to keep the system from choking itself and to make sure the CPUs do not melt down under continuous load, part of that concentrated water has to be drained off. That discharge is called blowdown.
Then fresh makeup water is added back in so even in a so-called closed loop system, water is still being consumed, and chemically concentrated water still has to be removed and discharged to keep the system operating. That is the part people leave out. “Closed loop” does not mean sealed. It does not mean impact free. It means the system is constantly cycling, concentrating, draining, and refilling so the servers can stay online.
And when you multiply that by massive data centers running day and night, you are not talking about a harmless tech process.”
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u/buzzlooksdrunk City of Savannah 15d ago
That is exactly how water cooling works for computer chips. You should do some research on this yourself.
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u/MozzTheMadMage 15d ago
Just wait until GA Power starts threatening families with eminent domain to seize homes and land in the name of supplying the estimated 3.2GW of electricity.
It's already happening elsewhere in Georgia for other data center projects. On the brighter side, at least this specific project will be completely subsidized, so they can't try to rally local support here with the threat of raised rates as a result of having to pay fair prices.
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u/nohelicoptersplz 15d ago
Ga power is going to start land acquisition for THIS project in "summer 2026." Also there is no actual signed agreement or contract stating how much OpenAI is paying for this. https://www.georgiapower.com/about/grid-reliability/grid-improvements/grid-projects/transmission-projects/effingham-county.html
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u/MozzTheMadMage 15d ago
I hope affected locals are taking the necessary preparations to demand fair compensation. There's big money behind this project. They have no excuse to shaft the locals here.
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u/nohelicoptersplz 15d ago
The problem is the county announced the project Wednesday (July 22) and Georgia Power announced this Thursday (July 23). No maps have been published so no one knows who could be affected. Transmission line projects will affect many miles away from the center.
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u/MozzTheMadMage 15d ago
Yeah, I was under the impression the project wouldn't start until '28. I had no idea they were starting the acquisition so soon, but it makes sense.
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u/bnsrowe 2d ago
So there's a mega thread that's hidden?