Fundamentally, the developer is siting a load that will in some way increase the cost of power. If you want to kill the project, it should be easy to, and others in your community might be on track to do so with advocacy groups. If you want the project, you should ask very direct questions about how their power contract with the utility will be structured to ensure they are taking on the full cost burden of their load demand (versus distribution to the ratepayer population). Ask for any studies performed that provide strong evidence power costs won't go up in the area driven by this project, and what contractural guarantees they are willing to make to ensure this. No studies and/or no guarantees would not be a great indicator.
As you mention, in the scope of this project, noise and water consumption are likely of minimal concern (but I would also suggest asking questions about how noise and water consumption will be independently monitored and reported on to a public agency or government body; that data ideally ends up somewhere default public or can be obtained using a FOIA request).
I would also ask what the operating procedure is if the local nuclear generator trips; do they shed the datacenter load? Or does it pull power over transmission infra? That has been an important consideration for projects who argue they are consuming local nuclear generation, avoiding the question of "How are you backing the generation if your datacenter load continues to operate and they trip?" This impacts capacity auction pricing in the balancing area/ISO/TSO, which further contributes to ratepayer increases (observed and stated by PJM).
I would also ask what the operating procedure is if the local nuclear generator trips; do they shed the datacenter load? Or does it pull power over transmission infra? That has been an important consideration for projects who argue they are consuming local nuclear generation, avoiding the question of "How are you backing the generation if your datacenter load continues to operate and they trip?" This impacts capacity auction pricing in the balancing area/ISO/TSO, which further contributes to ratepayer increases (observed and stated by PJM).
Resources:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/utilities/north-carolin...
https://www.wral.com/news/local/data-center-power-grid-tarbo...
https://ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/Senate/PDF/S266v0.pdf
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/data-centers-pjm-capacity-a...
https://www.datacenterwatch.org/report
The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938909 - November 2025
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783874 (citations on power cost increases)