Shalersville Town Hall housed a more than standing-room-only crowd June 16 as area residents fired questions at Geis Companies and Bitdeer Technologies Group brass and sometimes lobbed accusations at the township trustees.
At issue is a not-yet-officially proposed data center campus Bitdeer wants to build on just over 150 acres Geis now owns at its Turnpike Commerce Center, located near...
Read moreThe township trustee stated “we are bound by the laws of the state of Ohio”. That is exactly what I’m worried about. We know that the current state administration is only worried about how much money they can put in their own pockets and not about protecting the residents or the environment. Think about the First Energy issue that we are still paying for!
outright ban would not survive court scrutiny, Kotkowski told the crowd
Maybe not, but maybe so. Stranger things have happened.
Why not an indefinite moratorium? (they do exist) If an additional moratorium cannot be put into place before the current one’s termination, an outright ban may serve to at least postpone, or perhaps consider trying a 5-year ban to allow for additional study, legislative discussion, and (blah blah blah). Politicians (and corporations) come up with things like this all the time, so there certainly have to be other options.
Perhaps the thing to do is to get the state legislators in on this, and with the current state of things, a call, e-mail, or good old letter to one’s Republican official stating “no ban? no vote for you”. More than a few states are considering outright bans. After all, People should have the choice to say that some new technology – which is all A.I. is (if not essentially a con) – is not wanted. The many negative effects of A.I., intentional or not, may constitute very good reasons to ban A.I. production overall (if possible).
It seems far too early for throwing up one’s hands and saying there is nothing one can do. A.I. itself is new. No one can say he/she/they know what the future impact of A.I. on the country, much less individuals may be. That in itself should be good enough reason to ban A.I. data center for a reasonable period of time for further debate and study.
When people do lose the right to determine the course of their own towns and counties, and even states, then perhaps it is time for some rather drastic changes. Voting can work, but we have to demand politicians who will stand up for their people, regardless of party. Put them on defense. Demand action. And tell them you’ll vote for their opponent no matter what if he/she doesn’t ban data centers from your area.
See who is on your side, and who is on the side of a corporation/business having more rights than you, because this is what this is about: money versus the People.
The billionaires will win this one.
Operational Growth and AI Pivot
As of June 2026, Bitdeer has positioned itself as a “Trump-themed” investment narrative by transitioning from pure mining to AI infrastructure.
Mining Leadership: Bitdeer remains the industry’s hashrate leader, reporting 87.4 EH/s under management. The company’s profitability is sensitive to Trump’s foreign policy, such as recent peace deals impacting global inflation and energy costs.
AI Transition: The company launched a $300 million offering to fund high-performance computing (HPC) data centers. This move coincided with an executive order from the President establishing voluntary oversight for AI, favoring a light-touch regulatory approach.
Recent Infrastructure: Bitdeer recently broke ground on a new 100MW facility in Alberta, Canada, even as it faces legal proceedings involving energy availability at its Ohio site.
Great reporting as always! Whether this does or does not happen I’d like to note three things:
The noise concern. While the data center’s sounds may not damage hearing based on db levels, the concern with the noise emanating from the data center is the low level noises that we can’t hear. Data center’s low level noise has been the subject of study to potentially have an impact on emotion, decision making and quality of life. Benn Jordan on YouTube made a video titled Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons that was very interesting.
There is a petition currently that would put a data center ban on the ballot in November. So the people could have a say and not the in place government (that’s currently being bought by the big data center companies).
We have an election in November. This is our chance to change out the political monopoly we’ve had and show elected officials that they represent us and if they ignore us we’ll move on from them.
Things can change. We should all realize this by now. We just have to ensure the changes are positive, are For the People. Billionaires can be taxed, can be capped, can be held to law, regulation, and restrictions, just like anyone and everyone else.