A leading developer of data centers pushed back on Republican efforts to sideline renewables, arguing that powering energy-hungry artificial intelligence requires all the sources it can get.
At a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Tench, executive vice president of North America and Asia Pacific Vantage Data Centers, said that his company is broadly against policies that would reduce any kind of energy generation.
When asked what he thought about a recent Interior memo requiring Secretary Doug Burgum to personally approve any new wind and solar projects on federal lands, Tench said, “our observation and our requirement is for more electrons, and Vantage is relatively agnostic as to the source of those electrons.”
He added, “In the case of rule-making or regulatory action that slows down the process of approving new generation or new transmission, that would definitely be a negative for our business.”
