Political Blowback Kills a Major Virginia Data Center Project

Current conditions: The Gulf Coast states are bracing for a series of midweek thunderstorms • Temperatures are rocketing up near 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Lahore, Pakistan • San Juan, Puerto Rico, is facing days of severe thunderstorms.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Brookfield abandons data center complex in Virginia amid opposition

Compass Datacenters is quitting a yearslong bid to build a key part of a 2,100-acre data center corridor in northern Virginia amid mounting pushback from neighbors, marking one of the highest profile examples yet of political opposition killing off a major server farm. The company, backed by the private equity giant Brookfield Asset Management, has gunned for Prince William County’s approval to turn more than 800 acres into a portion of the data center buildout. But after spending tens of millions of dollars on the effort, the firm decided that political resistance to providing tax breaks had created what Bloomberg described Wednesday as “too many roadblocks,” prompting a withdrawal.

The data center backlash, as Heatmap’s Jael Holzman wrote in the fall, is “swallowing American politics.” Polling from Heatmap Pro has shown that public resentment toward server farms they perceive as driving up electricity bills, sucking up too much water, or supporting software that threatens human jobs is rapidly growing. Data centers, as Jael wrote last week, are now more controversial than wind farms.

2. Exclusive: At least 4 U.S. reactor startups have hit a critical milestone

Nuclear startups taking part in the Department of Energy’s reactor pilot program are approaching the agency’s July 4 deadline to split their first atoms, and companies are making deals left and right for new projects. But just four firms have so far secured commercial offtakers, announced project-specific financing, and locked down contracts with suppliers and construction partners. That’s according to new data from a report by the policy advocate Third Way, shared exclusively with me for this newsletter. TerraPower’s nuclear project in Kemmerer, Wyoming, which broke ground this month, is in the lead, with the most advanced application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Amazon-backed X-energy has two projects that have achieved all three preliminary milestones. Holtec International’s small modular reactor project in Michigan and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s debut unit at the Tennessee Valley Authority — each of which recently received $400 million in federal funding, as I previously reported — are close behind.

Among the report’s other takeaways: Federal policy is “too often rewarding hype instead of commercialization readiness,” and the U.S. needs to winnow down the technologies on offer.

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3. FEMA’s disaster fund is running low before hurricane season even starts

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has officially entered what CBS News called “a financial danger zone” that threatens to limit spending to only the most urgent life-saving needs. The status, called Imminent Needs Funding, is triggered when FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund drops below $3 billion. The depletion is a symptom of the partial government shutdown of FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding has become hotly political over the hardline actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But the timing couldn’t be worse: Hurricane season is about a month away. “Disasters are unpredictable. They’re very costly. We don’t know what could happen between now and June 1,” FEMA Associate Administrator Victoria Barton told the network.

This was all predictable. Back in February, Heatmap’s Jeva Lange warned that the DHS shutdown would “starve local disaster response.”

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4. Uranium mining begins at a new project in Wyoming

The U.S. is racing to get new nuclear projects off the ground. But it’s not yet clear where all the new reactor fuel is going to come from, especially once federal law fully bans all imports of Russian uranium in 2028. A new uranium mining project has started up operations this week in Wyoming’s Shirley Basin. The reactivated mine was previously considered the birthplace of in-situ recovery mining, a more eco-friendly method of extraction that involves injecting a solution into rock that dissolves minerals, then pumping that fluid to the surface for collection. The developer, Ur-Energy, said it’s returning to operations to power at least the next nine years of uranium demand in the U.S.

The milestone at the uranium mine comes as global mining deals reached a new high in the first three months of this year. Global law firm White & Case LLP recorded 121 mergers and acquisitions in the sector in the first quarter, up from 117 a year earlier and 102 in 2024, according to Mining.com. It’s the strongest first quarter since 2023. “The math is unforgiving,” the Breakthrough Institute’s Seaver Wang and Peter Cook wrote in an Ideas essay for Heatmap this week. “We need more minerals, and we need them soon.”

5. China starts up a new reactor

The containment dome hoisted over Unit 1 in 2022. VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Another week, another new full-scale nuclear reactor has come online in China. On Wednesday, World Nuclear News reported that Unit 1 of the San’ao nuclear station in eastern Zhejiang province has entered commercial operation. The reactor is the first of six Hualong One reactors planned for the site. The Hualong One is China’s leading indigenous reactor design, borrowing heavily from the Chinese version of the Westinghouse AP1000, America’s leading reactor.

South Africa, meanwhile, is making a bid to lure engineers working abroad to come home to help the country build up its own nuclear sector once again. The plan, detailed by Semafor, “aims to attract skilled migrants and South African expatriates, especially those working in the United Arab Emirates,” which hired large numbers of local engineers during the buildout of the Gulf nation’s debut Barakah nuclear plant over the past decade.

THE KICKER

Even before China made a big gamble in recent months on green hydrogen to ease the effects of the Iran War’s hydrocarbon shock, the country’s electrolyzer manufacturers were already starting to dominate the industry. Now the first Chinese electrolyzer manufactured in Europe is due to be assembled in the coming weeks. RCT GH Hydrogen, a joint venture between the Jiangsu-based electrolyzer maker Guofu and the German technology company RCT Group, is on track to roll out its first unit in June, Hydrogen Insight reported Wednesday.