By Stephen Smoot
Last week, the Seneca Rocks Regional Development Authority convened in Franklin to hear presentations and discuss the status of projects. They also added a new board member.
Sherry Mongold, SRRDA administrator, introduced Jena Miller, saying she was “originally from Elkins . . . moved to Pendleton County in 2010 . . . and now she works for SKSRT.”
Miller serves as executive director for the telecommunications company and has steered the organization toward expanding service through grant funding. Mongold touched on this, saying, “She has a lot of knowledge to bring to the board.”
Monty Castle then rose to speak on behalf of Continent 8, a company developing the capabilities of the data center near Petersburg. Castle described the company’s work in elevating the facility to tier three status. Charleston hosts another tier three center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fairmont facility have these capabilities, but no one else.
Attaining tier three status, which Castle said should happen in the first quarter of next year, will remove a major impediment to obtaining federal contracts to use it. Raising the power capacity, among other upgrades, will elevate its status. Proximity to Washington, DC, and location outside of the “blast zone” around the nation’s capital make the data center near Petersburg potentially attractive.
Sarah Moomau, board member, asked what help the board could provide, to which Castle said “just approve.”
Moomau said “I think it’s very exciting.”
Mark Bayliss, a member of the Federal Communications Commission advisory council and president of the West Virginia Broadband co-op shared serious concerns about the future of digital technology in the United States and how it is tied to Red China’s push for global dominance.
Bayliss described a growing problem coming in the future as the United States strays farther and father from an energy policy designed to generate sufficient power for the needs of the public, government, and business.
He explained that the growth of artificial intelligence and other digital capabilities will take a monumental amount of power generation. Currently, 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic runs through centers in Ashburn, Virginia, many near Dulles International Airport.
The dynamic of the global internet economy is complex. The United States has three percent of the world’s active internet users, a level described by Bayliss as “insignificant.”. A much higher percentage of people in more populated east and central Asian countries use the internet more often. Companies that run the undersea cables that contain the fiber optic used by the internet make more money the longer the distance signals have to travel.
One of the only nations in the world that generates enough power to run the data centers and other digital infrastructure is the United States. Companies make money by putting the infrastructure in the United States where there is less use and transmitting signals to East Asia, which has areas of much more intensive use.
Bayliss told the attendees that “keeping the United States ahead in data center operations is absolutely critical.” As long as the United States can keep generating enough energy to stay ahead of data center and other needs, it can remain comfortably ahead of Red China’s own efforts.
Since 2004 an energy production trend has developed. Bayliss shared that Red China embarked on an ambitious plan to become the top power producer in the world. At the time, they trailed far behind the United States, producing on the same level as Great Britain. Over two decades, Red China expanded its power production in the most efficient areas, mostly coal and natural gas.
That is where West Virginia coal enters the equation. Coal mined in the Mountain State helps to power Red China’s rapidly expanding coal power production capacity.
Western scientists a generation ago started ringing the tocsin on the issue of what they called global warming. Western governments have pushed for various levels of “climate change” policies to restrict energy and other product development. This has created havoc in both politics and the economy while hamstringing energy production to the levels of two decades ago.
Bayliss explained how as the power needs of the digital economy continue to explode, Western governments have chosen to expand the burdens on the grid with electric vehicle mandates just as they have also moved against coal and natural gas in favor of wind and solar. Neither of the latter set have even close to the capability to handle the demands expected of them in the next few decades.
As the West has slowed down its development, Red China has accelerated theirs. They have surpassed the United States in production of energy by building tremendous numbers of plants. By 2023, China had more than 1,140 coal fired power plants, the most in the world.
This led to the point of Bayliss’s talk. He represents plans to establish, with the blessing of state government, a microgrid at the Mount Storm power plant run by Dominion Resources. The microgrid would expand power production capacity while creatively recycling the added emissions. The plant would pump excess carbon dioxide into large greenhouses built in partnership with West Virginia University. The extra CO2 enables 200 percent faster growth with 60 percent less water.
The combined operation is expected to create 100 agricultural jobs.
Finally, SRRDA heard from Jamie Grove. He currently owns a company called Mini Museum that responsibly and ethically obtains, packages, and ships small pieces of priceless artifacts around the world. They had relied on DCGOne’s operation in Pendleton County to help them package their goods, but that operation may soon cease.
Grove described his intention to take over the operation as his own business and work over the next four years to not only bring in enough business to meet capacity, but to expand that as well.
