Dr. Randi Pokladnik: "Will Resource-Hungry Data Centers Devour Ohio?"

By Ron Prosek

May 22, 2026

On May 23, Dr. Pokladnik attracted our largest Distinguished Speaker audience of the year so far. Interest in data centers and their impacts is growing day by day as the public is becoming increasingly aware of the impacts of these massive installations.  Just to convey to one the scale of energy use in these centers, Dr. Pokladnik reported that a single bitcoin transaction and verification = approximately 1449 kWh, which is equivalent to about 50 days of power usage for the average American household!Ohio has some 217 data centers, the fourth highest number among all 50 states. Many of these are hyperscale (enormous in size).

What's to be done?

Something is being done by a group called Conserve Ohio.  This group is circulating petitions to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.  If the voters approve, new data centers in the state will not be allowed to be of a size that consumes more than 25 megawatts of electric power.  This would preclude new hyperscale data centers from being built in the state.Perhaps you would like to help circulate petitions.  To find out more, please visit the Conserve Ohio website at: https://conserveohio.com/