Why Towns Are Saying No to AI Data Centers

One building can ask for the power of a city. A data centre drawn to the size of Meta's planned campus in Louisiana would want 5,000 megawatts, and towns across the US have started voting to pause new ones. This film follows one watt backwards, from the chip to the substation, the transformer you wait years for, the grid's queue and the auction that puts it on a power bill, to the companies now building their own power behind the fence. Chapters: 00:00 One building, the power of a city 00:28 Why towns are voting no 01:01 What is in the box 01:23 One gigawatt in homes 01:36 Follow the watt backwards 01:48 The part you wait for: a transformer 02:20 262 tons by boat, rail and truck 02:47 Texas: 474 gigawatts in the queue 03:09 The bill lands in a kitchen 03:25 The capacity auction 04:09 What it adds to a bill 04:39 Who should pay 04:58 The towns say no 05:32 Memphis: power behind the fence 06:21 Three Mile Island 06:31 Louisiana: ten gas plants 07:03 Back to the town Notes: Homes: we use one rule all the way through, the US government's average home (EIA: 10,791 kWh a year, about 1.23 kW on average), so one gigawatt is about 810,000 homes. Other sources use other conversions. The town and the box are drawn. The box is drawn to the planned size of Meta's Hyperion campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana (5 GW at full build-out). The transformer "ordered" in the film is a drawing. 128 weeks is Wood Mackenzie's survey average for a large power transformer (2025). The capacity market (PJM) is simplified. The $6.5 billion is the Independent Market Monitor's estimate of what data-centre demand added to other customers' costs in the 2027/28 auction (December 2025), not a forecast. The bill figures are PECO's estimate for a typical Philadelphia bill (about $4.94 a month) and IEEFA's estimate of the capacity-price effect in western Maryland (about $18 a month); neither is data centres alone. The turbine counts in Memphis are the Southern Environmental Law Center's, which opposes the plant. xAI says ratepayers will not pay extra. Memphis City Council held its data-centre pause over to 20 Oct 2026; it had not voted when this film was made. Clips and pages shown for commentary: County Council Meeting, October 5th, 2026, Arundel TV (YouTube):    • County Council Meeting | October 5th, 2026   Massive Transformer Arrives at Crane Clean Energy Center, Constellation (YouTube):    • Massive Transformer Arrives at Crane Clean...   Memphis City Council: October 6, 2026, Memphis City Council (YouTube):    • Memphis City Council: October 6, 2026   Senate Report Challenges Big Tech's Case for AI Data Centers, TIME: https://time.com/article/2026/10/08/s... Clips are short excerpts shown for commentary and explanation (fair use / quotation), muted, credited on screen and listed here; all rights stay with their owners. Animations are our own and simplified. Music: Below The Cloud score. Sound effects: Mixkit and CC0 Freesound. Fonts: Geist and Geist Mono (OFL).