Dec. 11—Adamstown residents have concerns about the energy use and possible noise associated with a data center complex set to be located in the area, and some are frustrated by what they see as a lack of information about the project provided by the county.
The chief technical officer of Quantum Loophole, a company looking to build a campus of data centers on the 2,200-acre former site of the Alcoa Eastalco smelting facility, met with members of the community Saturday in Adamstown.
Data centers are high-security warehouses that organizations and companies use to store and process massive amounts of data.
Quantum Loophole is looking to learn from the last 25 years of data center construction and apply the new information to the next 25 years, Scott Noteboom said.
Noteboom answered more than two hours of questions from often skeptical locals concerned about issues including the complex's use of energy.
Quantum Loophole aims to create a series of environmentally-friendly data centers designed with a plan for sustainable power and water use, aesthetically designed to protect existing views and reduce visibility from public roads in the facility near Adamstown.
But one woman asked how the company could consider itself "green" given the amount of fossil fuels that would be burned to create the electricity to power the site.
The company is making an investment in using renewable energy through power purchase agreements, Noteboom said.
They would encourage the use of solar energy on the roofs of buildings in the complex, although they couldn't require it, he said.
However, Frederick County could look at requiring solar energy on the buildings if it wants to, he said.
Customers won't want to build on the Quantum campus unless there's a robust infrastructure for renewable energy and water and sewer use, Noteboom said.
Several speakers complained about little notification for meetings such as Saturday's, whether from the company or through Frederick County government. Signs on nearby roads had been put up but then apparently knocked over or removed, several residents said.
People who have lived in the community for a long time saw the pollution the Eastalco site caused, which is why so many are suspicious of Quantum, said resident Anne Garnett.
The sprawling property on Manor Woods Road near Adamstown once contained an aluminum smelting plant that put out 174,000 metric tons of aluminum and employed more than 800 people as recently as the late 1990s.
The smelter took up 340 acres of the property, with much of the rest leased to a local farmer.