Methodology

A publicly reported event involving an AI data center: announcements, power and water demand, emissions, grid interconnection, outages, community opposition, permits, and regulatory decisions. The database documents events and their public record — it is not a news outlet and does not report on events first.

Every incident must point to at least one public source. Acceptable sources include news articles, utility filings, permit and agency records, meeting minutes, court documents, and official company or government statements. Each record page lists its source links so you can read the original material yourself.

Sources must be reachable at a working web address. Personal accounts, anonymous claims, and social media posts without a corroborating document are not accepted on their own.

1. Anyone may suggest an incident through the submission form, with a source link.
2. Submissions are stored privately as pending and are never shown publicly on submission.
3. An administrator checks the submission against its cited source — the date, the location, the description, and whether the source actually supports the claims — before deciding to approve or reject it.
4. Approved records are created as private drafts and edited to a standardized form: a neutral title, a concise description, a date, a location, and a category.
5. A draft is published only when an administrator explicitly publishes it with a valid source.

Only published records are visible to the public. Drafts, archived records, and pending submissions stay private.

Each record is assigned exactly one category from a fixed list: Power & grid, Water use, Emissions & air quality, Land use & zoning, Community & health, Permits & regulation, and Outages & operational incidents. The category list is kept deliberately small so browsing stays useful.

When a submission could fit more than one category, the administrator chooses the one that best describes the incident's main impact, not the one that describes the facility. Category names and definitions are reviewed as the database grows.

You can browse by category on the Categories page and filter by category on any records page.

Mistakes are fixed, not hidden. If you find an error in a record — a wrong date, a missing location, a mischaracterized description, or a broken source — report it through the submission form and include a link to a source that supports the correction.

Corrections are reviewed the same way as new submissions. A corrected record is updated in place; the original source links stay on the record so the change can be checked against what the sources actually say.

The database records what public sources say. It does not verify events independently, and a record is only as complete as the reporting behind it. Absence from the database is not evidence that an incident did not occur.

Records are presented neutrally: the database does not take positions on whether a project should be built, permitted, or opposed.