Retired engineer sounds alarm over Google’s San Jose research facility

By John Ramos

A new project is under construction in San Jose that has all the characteristics of a massive new data center, but Google and the city insist that it is something else. 

On Disk Drive in San Jose, Google is creating a huge new research facility called Meadow Point.  Construction has already begun on one large building that Google insists is not a data center. But that’s not what it looks like to Kelly Abreu.

“When I looked at the city documents, they did not list it as a data center. They listed it as a ‘large energy user,'” he said. “This is a big project. And this part of the project is a data center.”

Abreu is a retired engineer in Fremont and co-founder of a conservation group called Mission Peak Conservancy.  He was intrigued by reports of Google’s project and began looking deeper into it. But when he saw the plans, he was confused because the two buildings on Disk Drive were listed as a “Research and Development” facility.

“And I said, no, this is a data center,” said Abreu, “because when you look at the drawings, you see the building is full of server racks. And 250 megawatts, 500,000 square feet, almost.  That’s about 500 watts per square foot.  Once you put that much energy into a building, you can’t put people in there. There’s no room for people. That much energy has to only go into equipment and then cooling.”

The plans contained on the city’s website show the two buildings filled with uniform columns of equipment and large cooling towers.  

But to Abreu, the real tipoff was the proposed power sub-station for the site: 250 Megawatts, more than two and a half times bigger than any data center proposal currently on the books with the city of San Jose.  

CBS News Bay Area did not get a response for comment from Google on Sunday, but in a published report, a company spokesperson said the facility is not a data center, as evidenced by the fact that it will not have the same backup power capabilities required for use with external customers. 

 As a result, they said, “We are pursuing a site development permit for R&D use with the city, rather than a special use permit which would be required for a data center.” 

It’s no secret the city is enthusiastic about data centers, despite much of the state and nation have growing concerns about their demands for power and water.  

“They have said that San Jose wants to be the data center capital of Silicon Valley, of the Bay Area, of the State, really,” Abreu said.

San Jose has roughly 20 data centers already operating, with six under construction and five more awaiting city approval.  Abreu said he thinks that by not using the words “data center,” the city may be purposely looking the other way when it comes to its own regulations.

“I think that they’re trying to bypass the rest of the environmental review. So, they don’t have to go through looking at energy use, water consumption, noise, and other environmental impacts,” he said.

The very term “data center” has become politically charged, but Abreu wonders why there would be such concern now about following the rules surrounding them.

“That hasn’t been a problem for all the other data centers,” he said. “You know, California is building a lot of data centers.  And you don’t need to hide them.”