Latest / The Dry Line Podcast / OKC Gets Its First Data Center, Plus Jason Momoa’s the Coolest Human Alive, Noah Kahan Bombs OU Finals Week, and Paycom’s Allergy to Employee Health

Transcript

OKC Gets Its First Data Center, Plus Jason Momoa’s the Coolest Human Alive, Noah Kahan Bombs OU Finals Week, and Paycom’s Allergy to Employee Health · The Dry Line Podcast

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Dry Line Podcast,
0:07
SPEAKER_00: where each week we discuss Oklahoma's strangely endearing culture,
0:12
SPEAKER_00: its unbelievable weather,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: sacred sports, nefarious politics, burgeoning food scene, and damn fine people.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: According to Gallup,
0:23
SPEAKER_00: the construction of artificial intelligence training data centers is
0:28
SPEAKER_00: the ninth most important subject to voters in the midterm elections.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Which, if you haven't heard yet, the midterm elections are next Tuesday.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't heard yet,
0:39
SPEAKER_00: which I think is actually impossible by this point because I feel like this is in
0:43
SPEAKER_00: the news and in our faces all the time,
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma's voter turnout is historically atrocious.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: How atrocious, you ask?
0:53
SPEAKER_00: In the 2024 presidential election, we ranked 49th in voter turnout.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: At 53% of eligible voters voting in the election, only trailing Hawaii at 50%.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Hawaii, though, is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: It feels natural and right to drink a Mai Tai in the middle of the afternoon in Hawaii.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: They've got excuses.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: We have Lake Draper and Lake Thunderbird.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: It often feels natural to me in the middle of the afternoon to have a bush light.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We have no excuse not to vote more than we do here in Oklahoma.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's a joke about the beer.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Our beer is awesome.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Had an insane double IPA a couple of weeks back at the Big Friendly.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: It was so good.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: But back to the data centers and away from beer,
1:40
SPEAKER_00: which at some point we are going to do a comprehensive ranking beer by beer for,
1:46
SPEAKER_00: like a power rankings of individual beers in Oklahoma City.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do that at some point.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm tabulating and doing all the trial and error research right now that's necessary
1:55
SPEAKER_00: to do something like that, but we're gonna get to that.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay, back to data centers.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: So I was surprised.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: The data centers were only ninth on the Gallup list
2:07
SPEAKER_00: because you can't read anything these days without reading
2:10
SPEAKER_00: about how badly people despise data centers.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So I wrote about data centers this week on drylineokc.com
2:18
SPEAKER_00: where I was extremely fortunate to be able to get an interview With
2:22
SPEAKER_00: the first data center whistleblower at Powerhouse over happy hour
2:28
SPEAKER_00: on Monday afternoon this week.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: It was a revealing and disturbing and also entirely fictitious discussion.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to make the conversation about data centers a little more entertaining
2:40
SPEAKER_00: and not so eye-gougingly tedious as it usually is when you read about data centers.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: And I did learn a few things in writing that article and the analysis on that.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Some things I want to break down today in the first part of our show before we get
2:54
SPEAKER_00: into another jam-packed Oklahoma News roundup.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Probably the most news of any week that I can remember
3:01
SPEAKER_00: since we started doing this back over the summer.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I've organized our discussion today about data centers as an FAQ consisting of
3:11
SPEAKER_00: the seven burning questions I had about data centers going into writing
3:15
SPEAKER_00: that article this week.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And off the top, I will say this.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Data centers are a really hard thing to wrap your head around
3:26
SPEAKER_00: or wrap your feelings around as a human being.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I think because they're warehouses that do not produce anything physical
3:34
SPEAKER_00: while offering up a lot of these negative environmental costs and aesthetic costs
3:40
SPEAKER_00: and pollution, all kinds of stuff.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: So I think we are okay.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: With producing things,
3:48
SPEAKER_00: manufacturing things,
3:49
SPEAKER_00: in factories,
3:50
SPEAKER_00: having some emissions and some pollution,
3:53
SPEAKER_00: if that thing that it's producing is providing something beneficial to us or
3:59
SPEAKER_00: the earth or anything.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: I think the fact that we just can't see what data centers provide,
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I think that's messing with our brains.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Here a bit.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the disconnect.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know when that's going to stop.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'll get to my take about data centers whenever we get to the end of this.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: But first, okay.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into these seven burning questions about data centers in Oklahoma.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Question one.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: What the hell is a data center?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And what does it do?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So...
4:35
SPEAKER_00: A data center is a warehouse collection of servers which house computing units.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: If you ever worked in an office where there was a server room
4:46
SPEAKER_00: with all those blue ethernet cords and mainframes and all that stuff,
4:51
SPEAKER_00: a data center is just that, just way bigger.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: In some cases, thousands of acres of servers in one place.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And they're being built at breakneck pace because at present, We,
5:06
SPEAKER_00: the United States,
5:07
SPEAKER_00: the world,
5:08
SPEAKER_00: do not have the computing power to be able to service all the questions and tasks
5:13
SPEAKER_00: that are being asked of artificial intelligence.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: So every time somebody asks Google Gemini,
5:18
SPEAKER_00: ChatGPT,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: or Claude a question about anything that we used to Google,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: now thousands upon millions of decisions are triggered by
5:29
SPEAKER_00: that question inside those servers as they comb through all the data That lives
5:34
SPEAKER_00: on all those servers which are linked to all these other servers across the globe.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: And each time that process unfolds, artificial intelligence is getting, quote, trained.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: These are all repetitions.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And to get good at anything, as they say, you need reps, right?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So building all these data centers is
5:54
SPEAKER_00: about giving these artificial intelligence agents repetitions.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: They get better with the more The more data that they have access to and
6:03
SPEAKER_00: the more times they get trained and they need more servers
6:07
SPEAKER_00: because they're being asked to do more and more things.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And this is not slowing down.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I saw something the other day that in 2023...
6:19
SPEAKER_00: 30% of the population had used an artificial intelligence agent in the last year.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: This was in the New York Times this week.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And then I think just two years later,
6:29
SPEAKER_00: the 2025 data showed that 70% of people are now using artificial intelligence
6:34
SPEAKER_00: in their work actively.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So this is increasing.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And all of it generates heat.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: You know how your iPhone will heat up sometimes if you have too many apps open or
6:46
SPEAKER_00: if you have like a really busy app that's doing a bunch of stuff?
6:51
SPEAKER_00: That is the little computer inside the iPhone overheating.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Data centers heat up because they're computing.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Again, like answering millions and millions of questions and running algorithms and
7:02
SPEAKER_00: upon algorithms over millions and millions of words and all kinds of things that are
7:06
SPEAKER_00: in those servers.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: So you have to cool them down and that needs water.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And to be able to move all that water through the computers to cool them, that requires power.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And power, typically, unless it's regenerative power, causes pollution.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And that is what this whole debate is about, along with the noise.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Cooling these data centers causes a ton of noise.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: For example,
7:32
SPEAKER_00: 65 decibels worth of noise if you're standing on the outside of a property of
7:36
SPEAKER_00: a data center a lot of times.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: 65 decibels is a hair dryer, okay?
7:42
SPEAKER_00: A hair dryer is how much noise is coming out of a lot of these things.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: So, it's a lot of noise.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but in short,
7:50
SPEAKER_00: these data centers are helping these artificial intelligence companies make smarter
7:55
SPEAKER_00: AI agents so that these AI agents can do more and more things.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, hey, don't shoot the messenger here.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: I am not a proponent of artificial intelligence.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm just throwing it all out there, okay?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So at the cost of being a hideous building to look at and at the cost of all
8:13
SPEAKER_00: that water and electricity and at the cost of emissions,
8:18
SPEAKER_00: A ton of pollution and smog that's getting pumped into the community.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: This technology in these buildings are doing something that the majority of
8:25
SPEAKER_00: the population still doesn't want because everyone knows it's going
8:29
SPEAKER_00: to eventually take their job.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: You can call that an opinion, but a lot of that is just facts.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Question two.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Why is everyone worried about the water use with these data centers?
8:46
SPEAKER_00: This is the biggest,
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I think,
8:47
SPEAKER_00: public discussion point and the biggest thing that's in
8:49
SPEAKER_00: the news is how much water these things are using.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: This tends to get triggered whenever we're in a drought or an area's in a drought
8:58
SPEAKER_00: or like in the case of like a Bitcoin mine or a data center that springs a leak
9:03
SPEAKER_00: or something and they end up wasting a bunch of water, it gets in the news.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: For example, Pryor's Google data center, the one that's in Pryor up in Northeast Oklahoma,
9:16
SPEAKER_00: In a year, uses 1.3 billion gallons of water to cool its computers off.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: All right.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know how many gallons, 1.3 billion.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: What does that even look like?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that like a lake?
9:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: If somebody knows the answer to that,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: please drop that in the comments somewhere where this gets linked.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: But like 1.3 billion gallons get washed over the top of their machines
9:49
SPEAKER_00: and 300 million of those gallons make it back into the water circulation.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: This water is not getting polluted.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: The water is not getting polluted in this process.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: The water is typically just running over stuff.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not washing things.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: I think that gets confused here.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: The water is going back cleaner, although warmer, back into the main water supply.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: In Pryor's case,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: because this data center was built a couple of years ago,
10:17
SPEAKER_00: as far as I know, they don't use a closed loop cooling system.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: They use an evaporative cooling system.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: So they are evaporating 1 billion gallons of water into the atmosphere every year.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: That is an astounding amount of water.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And that's why people care about this is because depending on where you live, drought is a risk.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: And so they're building a lot of these things in the desert,
10:38
SPEAKER_00: like a ton of these are popping up in El Paso.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: In West Texas, and where's all that water coming from?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Most of these new data centers are moving to a closed loop cooling system though,
10:47
SPEAKER_00: which massively improves the waste of the water.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: It does not eliminate the waste.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: We're still talking about thousands and thousands of gallons of water every day.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Only until recent,
10:57
SPEAKER_00: like just recently here in the state of Oklahoma,
10:59
SPEAKER_00: under mounting pressure from like the midterm electorate
11:02
SPEAKER_00: and how both political parties are under pressure to come up with some answers for
11:06
SPEAKER_00: the data center issue.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Our elected officials in Oklahoma are beginning to ask for detailed accounting
11:12
SPEAKER_00: of how much water is actually being used by these facilities.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So something to watch there.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Question three,
11:18
SPEAKER_00: are data centers actually driving up the cost of electricity for people
11:22
SPEAKER_00: who live near the data center?
11:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the other thing that comes up all the time when you hear about data centers.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And yes,
11:27
SPEAKER_00: they have,
11:29
SPEAKER_00: especially the ones who draw upon rural areas power supplies,
11:33
SPEAKER_00: and they actually link into those same power supplies.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And they cause those rural power companies to have to invest in new infrastructure.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Because like,
11:41
SPEAKER_00: for example,
11:42
SPEAKER_00: some of these data centers are pulling like 300,000 households worth of power into
11:49
SPEAKER_00: that building every year, right?
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Tons of power.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And because of how pissed people are about this,
11:54
SPEAKER_00: because again,
11:55
SPEAKER_00: most people don't want data centers near them,
11:57
SPEAKER_00: don't even know how artificial intelligence is helping their life,
12:01
SPEAKER_00: and don't even know what a data center does.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Laws are starting to come out at a breakneck pace to try to prevent this from happening anymore.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: A lot of states,
12:08
SPEAKER_00: including Oklahoma,
12:09
SPEAKER_00: are encouraging but not requiring these companies
12:11
SPEAKER_00: to actually build their own power plants.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: The power that's used,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: it should be noted though,
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Is always almost entirely used to still cool these machines.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: So that's the problem.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the fact that these machines generate so much heat and that they have
12:27
SPEAKER_00: to be cooled that is the big energy driver.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: But something that's not talked about often regarding
12:33
SPEAKER_00: the power supply is what is actually supplying the power.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: If the data center is hooked into a city's power supply,
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And this will be the case for Oklahoma City's new data center
12:46
SPEAKER_00: that just got its zoning approval in West Oklahoma City out near Yukon.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: The power that could come if it's hooked into
12:52
SPEAKER_00: the city's power supply could be wind generated,
12:55
SPEAKER_00: dam generated, solar generated, coal burning, gas burning.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the city does for its power,
13:01
SPEAKER_00: it's just going to have to do a lot more of that if a data center links up into
13:04
SPEAKER_00: that.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to have to build more infrastructure, again,
13:07
SPEAKER_00: for having like hundreds of thousands more homes to have to power,
13:11
SPEAKER_00: um, Symbolized by that data center.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Most cities are requiring the AI companies to pay for the expansion of their infrastructure now.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: That was not always the case.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Most states are putting in laws that protect the taxpayers from any increases in power.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this has been a huge debate, and people are really upset about it.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So laws are catching up here.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is going to be a big problem,
13:35
SPEAKER_00: like the actual electricity costs going up,
13:37
SPEAKER_00: because I think a lot of that's going to get pushed off to the AI companies.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: But...
13:42
SPEAKER_00: But here is the big issue here with the whole power debate.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: It's that if this power comes from coal or gas turbines,
13:52
SPEAKER_00: whether or not that's in the city or in a power plant that's on
13:57
SPEAKER_00: the data center's campus,
14:01
SPEAKER_00: those processes create a ton of pollution.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: When you read experts,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Talking about the long-term effects of these data centers,
14:11
SPEAKER_00: which are going to multiply and be multiple in most big cities.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Edmond just came out with some industrial park zoning plans because they're trying
14:21
SPEAKER_00: to prepare and make their city ready for when they have this big buyer come in
14:27
SPEAKER_00: and try to start procuring land.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: It's the air quality that is the biggest concern here.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And the same goes for power plants that some of these data centers are building for themselves.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: El Paso.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, an example,
14:39
SPEAKER_00: a power plant on
14:41
SPEAKER_00: a new proposed data center's property could emit something like 360,000 cars worth
14:52
SPEAKER_00: of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: That's based on a car's average driving in a year.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And all of those smog particulates that come with 360,000 cars driving on
15:02
SPEAKER_00: the road every single day of the year.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: That is going to be a big problem if we have multiple of these in every city.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: It could worsen environmental quality.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we had the tropical storm,
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Isaiah's, they came through just like last month.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: That storm forced up particulates from some of the southern states like Texas
15:28
SPEAKER_00: and Louisiana up into Oklahoma.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And you could actually track how that was moving in the wind and stuff like that.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, this is a huge issue.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: I was listening to the Plain English podcast of Derek Thompson this week,
15:38
SPEAKER_00: and he was interviewing a reporter, Jasmine Sun.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And she said that most Silicon Valley execs know that this is a problem.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And they know that a lot of places do not want data centers to Doing this to their citizens.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: So they're expecting a lot of states to step in
15:56
SPEAKER_00: and just not have conducive environments for data centers to operate.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: And they're expecting a few desperate states to step in and hold and create
16:07
SPEAKER_00: and build and operate most of the data centers.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: You know,
16:11
SPEAKER_00: she actually gave the example of fracking and how some states became very supportive
16:14
SPEAKER_00: of it because it increased industry.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Think about the petrochemical industry that operates out of Houston, Louisiana.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, jobs, money.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Some states need it worse than others.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Oil and gas, as we all know, is Oklahoma's bread and butter.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: No Thunder, no Riversport, no Devon Tower without oil and gas.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: We have needed that around here to experience the growth that we've had.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, we needed fracking.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And we probably will continue to need fracking if we want to continue
16:46
SPEAKER_00: to build things like that in the future here in the city.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm only saying this because the tax benefits to cities
16:52
SPEAKER_00: that adopt these data centers,
16:54
SPEAKER_00: like previous industries,
16:55
SPEAKER_00: petrochemicals,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: oil and gas,
16:58
SPEAKER_00: the benefits to these cities in terms of tax dollars is going to be immense.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Millions and millions of dollars that could bankroll communities
17:07
SPEAKER_00: that have been gutted by the loss of their factories,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And other manufacturing jobs that have been consolidated or shipped to China.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: All those communities are going to find the opportunities available inside
17:18
SPEAKER_00: of building a data center really, really, really enticing.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Seems kind of inevitable that the states with less economic opportunity are going
17:25
SPEAKER_00: to jump at all this money that's coming from Silicon Valley.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: It's understandable.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we should know around here.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right now,
17:32
SPEAKER_00: kind of like with the weed industry,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: we are one of the most accommodating states in the country
17:38
SPEAKER_00: for data center development.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: We got 45 of them at present,
17:42
SPEAKER_00: which is not even close to like the 700 plus that Texas has or 700 plus
17:45
SPEAKER_00: that Virginia has.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I think Texas has like 400.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So we don't have that many data centers comparatively,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: but there are dozens more in development and likely many more that are not
17:57
SPEAKER_00: yet disclosed and that are still inside the NDA non-disclosure agreement process
18:01
SPEAKER_00: with local city councils.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I think the big question though,
18:06
SPEAKER_00: And this was mentioned in that same podcast on Plain English
18:08
SPEAKER_00: with Derek Thompson is how will states systematically regulate these data centers
18:15
SPEAKER_00: and support their communities in making the most they can from these companies
18:20
SPEAKER_00: while preventing environmental damage?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And honestly,
18:23
SPEAKER_00: like damage to people's quality of life as they have to deal with sound,
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And how horrible looking these buildings are, typically on the landscape.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:32
SPEAKER_00: there are so many stories out there about a family who has had a farm and they have
18:38
SPEAKER_00: a beautiful porch that's looked out over some rolling hills
18:41
SPEAKER_00: or this beautiful forest.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And then half a mile off their property,
18:45
SPEAKER_00: just outside of city limits, a data center goes in and is just a blight.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: So this is happening.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's going to have to be something that needs to happen to address
18:55
SPEAKER_00: the power asymmetry that these companies have.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Over the communities where they're going in and giving these godfather deals to.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: States can level that playing field with legislation.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I see that happening around here in Oklahoma,
19:10
SPEAKER_00: anti-regulation state, pro-industry state.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I see that happening here for a while.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the only statewide moratorium on new data centers is in New York.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, so it's not like moratoriums are common.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I know Munson keeps talking about wanting to do a moratorium on data centers.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: That seems like a hard thing to do because even a bunch
19:28
SPEAKER_00: of democratically led states are not just like starting moratoriums.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: These AI companies are shelling out billions upon billions and lobbying funds
19:37
SPEAKER_00: to these local and national politicians everywhere.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's just going to be up to every community
19:44
SPEAKER_00: to make sure they don't get fleeced by these big AI companies.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Question four.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that was a lot of talk.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: I need to get some water.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: What are the laws regarding data centers in Oklahoma?
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is from reporting done by Emma Murphy with Oklahoma Voice.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma Voice and the Oklahoman have reported on data centers in Oklahoma extensively.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Imagine Tulsa World has too.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: The Frontier has as well.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: So there are three laws that were mentioned in the Oklahoma Voice's reporting.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: One of them,
20:17
SPEAKER_00: House Bill 2992,
20:19
SPEAKER_00: was signed into law earlier this year and it requires new data centers to pay
20:23
SPEAKER_00: for their own infrastructure and the energy they consume.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Among other stipulations, again,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: like I said,
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't think taxpayers and citizens having to pay for the electric infrastructure
20:34
SPEAKER_00: and cost of these companies is going to be something that happens very much longer.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: I think that's going to get legislated really quickly.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Senate Bill 259 was also signed here in Oklahoma, requires data centers.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: If they want to use groundwater,
20:48
SPEAKER_00: like city water,
20:50
SPEAKER_00: to implement a closed-loop cooling system,
20:53
SPEAKER_00: So like if somebody is going to hook into a municipal water supply and taking all
20:58
SPEAKER_00: that water,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: they can't just use billions upon billions of gallons like the prior one does.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have to use that closed loop cooling system,
21:06
SPEAKER_00: which uses a lot less water than the evaporative cooling.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: So they can still evaporate water, though, if they want to.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: The proposed data center in Amber, just south of Chickasha, or south of Chickasha?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: No.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: North of Chickasha?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: 40 minutes south of Oklahoma City.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I think like 15 minutes south of Totals.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably north of Chickasha.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Ken's Steakhouse in Amber.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Haven't been out there in like 20 years.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: So data center in Amber,
21:35
SPEAKER_00: they're planning to actually truck in 275,000 gallons of water every single day
21:42
SPEAKER_00: to run that new data center.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, past last year, Senate Bill 480 allows data centers to build their own power plants.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And that bypasses utilities.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: So again,
21:56
SPEAKER_00: that sounds like a good thing on the surface because it's going to
22:03
SPEAKER_00: decrease costs
22:04
SPEAKER_00: to get passed to the regular taxpayer.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: But this could end up leading to pollution because a lot
22:09
SPEAKER_00: of these self-powered power plants on the data center campuses are ran
22:14
SPEAKER_00: by gas turbines.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's creating the smog.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: That's what's emitting all of that CO2 into the atmosphere.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and you might be thinking, where do Maisie and Munson stand on this?
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Maisie seems to be a continuation of what the Oklahoma State Legislature has said so far.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: He's said all the right things.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: He wants to legislate it.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: But as you'll hear most Republican lawmakers in the state say,
22:36
SPEAKER_00: they never want to, like, quote, strangulate the industry.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: So definitely no moratorium coming from Maisie.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: I think he wants to keep people happy, but I think he will definitely be pro-data center.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And if he gets elected to office,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Munson wants a moratorium until the state can do studies about what
22:56
SPEAKER_00: the long term environmental impacts are.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Then she wants to regulate the industry with laws that I presume would have
23:04
SPEAKER_00: to get passed through a Republican led House and Senate.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Again, New York's the only state that has a moratorium on this.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Some cities do.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Oklahoma City has a moratorium.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: The reason why this new data center in Oklahoma City, though,
23:17
SPEAKER_00: was able to still get approval for its zoning request was because it got submitted
23:23
SPEAKER_00: before the moratorium start date.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: But new data center construction in Oklahoma City is currently in a moratorium,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: and so there's no new approvals happening in Oklahoma City right now.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: But again, Oklahoma City is more of a moderate, democratic city, so it makes sense.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, question five.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: What's this new data center that just got approval in Oklahoma City?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: We've already mentioned it a couple times.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Reporting here done by Steve Lackmeyer at the Oklahoman.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: This dropped yesterday.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: First,
23:52
SPEAKER_00: it is important to note that what happened this week was just a zoning vote by
23:56
SPEAKER_00: the city council, which voted six to three in favor of the development.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: This is not the ultimate approval.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: To get this done,
24:05
SPEAKER_00: the city council will later have to approve An extensive city benefit agreement
24:10
SPEAKER_00: with Beltline Energy,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: the data center developer,
24:13
SPEAKER_00: and they will have to approve building permits and all kinds of stuff.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: So this is the beginning of this process,
24:18
SPEAKER_00: but I did see that there were some non-disclosure agreements signed with UConn.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, about this project.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this was a very secretive project,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: but I did see that UConn had signed a non-disclosure with Beltline.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Oklahoma City did.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see that anywhere in the reporting.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it has not been disclosed yet who the,
24:44
SPEAKER_00: the artificial intelligence company is that's behind this project.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Just the developer, Beltline Energy, they just build data centers.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: So we have no idea who it's going to be, whether it's going to be, you
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Google, Anthropic, ChatGPT, Grok, Twitter, who knows, X.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So the plans for this are that this campus is going to be a,
25:07
SPEAKER_00: quote, mega data center, which basically means it's just massive.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: All right, it's going, and we'll get to the actual acres and stuff here in a second.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: It's going to border...
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma City and Yukon.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: It's actually surprisingly close to Yukon.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just one mile to the west of Garth Brooks Boulevard on Frisco Road and I-40.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: It's just one mile to the east where the new Buc-ee's is going to be.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And they have zoning approval for 100 plus acres to the north of I-40
25:37
SPEAKER_00: and another 180 acres south of I-40.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a ton of space.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't that big compared to some of the other mega data centers.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Still a lot of space.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And this is the first big data center in the city on this scale.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Some of the conditions that are being imposed on the company by the city of Oklahoma City.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is reported by Steve Lachmeyer.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Noise studies by an independent consultant will have to be provided to ensure
26:01
SPEAKER_00: the development will not produce sounds higher than 55 decibels.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: 55 decibels is still pretty loud though.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, keep in mind 65 decibels is the sound of a hairdryer.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: A little less loud than a hairdryer.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Still, it's going to be a good buzz.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Generator testing,
26:17
SPEAKER_00: which is especially toxic because I think it burns natural gas and gas up into
26:22
SPEAKER_00: the air.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: That's going to be limited to 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: I guess that's loud too.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a mandated planning of a 50-foot landscape perimeter to screen
26:34
SPEAKER_00: the data center and try to limit the noise some more.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Water use is limited to 75,000 gallons daily,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: and they cannot use treated water for their cooling.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming this is a closed loop because an evaporative process wouldn't be able
26:48
SPEAKER_00: to work with that little water.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And the Beltline Energy is going to help pay for construction of a new OG&E substation.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: It is not abundantly clear yet in Oklahoma's laws who pays for some of these things.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: There is definitely some gray area,
27:10
SPEAKER_00: and OG&E has said that they're not passing any of these costs related
27:14
SPEAKER_00: to data centers on to the customers,
27:16
SPEAKER_00: but I have not seen anything that makes this abundantly clear
27:20
SPEAKER_00: that these costs are not being passed down.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I would hope that gets clearer.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Because if costs go up and this huge data center comes in around the same time
27:30
SPEAKER_00: as costs go up, you know people are going to be upset.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: I saw somebody say online,
27:35
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see this in Steve's reporting,
27:37
SPEAKER_00: that this is going to generate $14 million a year in tax revenue for the city.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: I did not find that anywhere else,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: but there will be a ton of tax revenue that comes through this project
27:46
SPEAKER_00: if it ultimately gets approved.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
27:48
SPEAKER_00: obviously that's a big part of the reason why Mayor Holt and other members of
27:51
SPEAKER_00: the city council want to get this done.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: I think that's also part of this benefits agreement.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have to guarantee a certain amount of money goes to education
28:03
SPEAKER_00: and roads and all kinds of stuff.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: They also submitted renderings of what this thing is going to look like,
28:08
SPEAKER_00: which I will say is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than most
28:13
SPEAKER_00: of those data centers you've seen that are just These white and gray monstrosities
28:17
SPEAKER_00: that like blight the sun off the horizon.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: This one is covered with glass,
28:22
SPEAKER_00: has some rock facades,
28:23
SPEAKER_00: has a big ass berm, fur, pine trees, outlining the whole perimeter.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, kind of looks like the new continental call I'll see them.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not actually bad to look at.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: But it's not a done deal.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: The city still has to approve the billing plans and the community benefit agreement.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, First Data Center is set to bring the city millions in tax revenue.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And they're not getting any tax subsidies as far as I saw.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: So it seems like the city could have done worse in the negotiations.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious how much pollution and You know,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: what this ultimately is going to end up looking like.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: So, we'll see.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: If it sticks to the renderings, it's going to look good.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know if they will.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Question six.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: What is the deal with these NDAs?
29:09
SPEAKER_00: The way this typically goes down is an artificial intelligence company,
29:13
SPEAKER_00: through the data center developer,
29:16
SPEAKER_00: reaches out to a city council,
29:20
SPEAKER_00: usually rurally,
29:21
SPEAKER_00: because it's easier to get this land rurally and it's cheaper,
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And they've identified a section of land that they'd like to buy
29:28
SPEAKER_00: that is close enough to certain utilities or close enough to something
29:31
SPEAKER_00: that makes it advantageous to build a data center there,
29:34
SPEAKER_00: mainly because the land's cheap.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And let's use Jones, for example.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: So this data center company reaches out to Jones and they're like, hey,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: we want to build this massive project and we also want to send the potential
29:50
SPEAKER_00: for millions of dollars of taxes into your city.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: But before we start our negotiations and before we tell you what land we're looking
29:58
SPEAKER_00: at, we want to sign a non-disclosure agreement with you and your city leadership.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: So word doesn't get out that we're talking about this land because if word gets out
30:07
SPEAKER_00: that we're talking about this land,
30:09
SPEAKER_00: people in the area are going to start raising the prices for land.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: So they do this.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: They don't just do it with Jones.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: They do it with Choctaw.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And Luther.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying a data center is coming to any of these places either, by the way.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: I have no intel on that.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: This is totally just a hypothetical.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: So they do this everywhere until they can get the best deal.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And what this does is it keeps the city leadership from being able to communicate
30:33
SPEAKER_00: and talk about what the deal dynamics are in their community.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And this totally benefits the artificial intelligence companies because they get
30:41
SPEAKER_00: the best deals they possibly can on land.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And they also get the best deals that they can with these cities in terms of terms
30:49
SPEAKER_00: and tax incentives and subsidies.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And you're probably thinking like, why would a city enter into this?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because these cities are desperate.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: This is a once in a lifetime land.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: This is just like a massive, massive amount of money that's coming into communities.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: So I mean,
31:08
SPEAKER_00: you can't blame the communities for wanting to try to bring in all this tax dollars
31:12
SPEAKER_00: to their community.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: But I think the way that it's going down where people like citizens
31:17
SPEAKER_00: in these communities are completely left in the dark.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And then whenever they go to talk to their city councils about the questions,
31:22
SPEAKER_00: because inevitably a contractor is going to say like,
31:24
SPEAKER_00: hey, a data center is coming to town.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: The city council members tell them, sorry, I can't talk about it.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: We already signed an NDA.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: So it just creates all this mistrust.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: It puts all the power in the hands of the artificial intelligence companies.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's a bad situation.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: This is not what happened with the Land Legacy case up in San Francisco.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: We'll be right back.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: They donated a bunch of acres of their land to Land Legacy,
32:06
SPEAKER_00: which is a conservation easement company, as a tax write-off.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know when this was,
32:11
SPEAKER_00: years ago,
32:11
SPEAKER_00: but they basically donated the land
32:13
SPEAKER_00: and said they were giving Land Legacy $3.8 million worth of land to be able
32:19
SPEAKER_00: to conserve.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And they do that because it's a tax write-off and they get to save money.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: But the issue with that is that Land Legacy gets to do whatever they want with
32:27
SPEAKER_00: that land forever after that.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And Land Legacy is supposed to not do anything with that land.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: So they just sit on it and let it become a conservation grassland or whatever,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: or just protect a section of the Osage Hills.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: All right.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: They do this all over the state.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: This is a very common thing.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: It's called an easement.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: So I guess the family got a godfather offer from Google and the family tried
32:54
SPEAKER_00: to change the map of the easement and they tried to like Basically say that, no, no,
33:00
SPEAKER_00: no,
33:00
SPEAKER_00: actually these acres that Google wants,
33:02
SPEAKER_00: these weren't originally included in the easement.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And the easement actually is this area over here on our property.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not this area.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: They worked with Sand Springs City Council.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Nobody thought to actually pull the title on this.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And so Land Legacy didn't even find this until it had already passed some steps with
33:18
SPEAKER_00: the Sand Springs City Council.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And Land Legacy is like,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: whoa, we hold the title and the rights to do what we want to do on that land.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And so now Land Legacy is in this protracted legal battle with the family and with Google.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: One side of this legal battle has a lot more money.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: So all of this was talked about on the frontier, but stuff like that is happening right now.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is why people do not like data centers because stories like this,
33:50
SPEAKER_00: if it was done the right way,
33:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:52
SPEAKER_00: in prior,
33:52
SPEAKER_00: they have an industrial park that is designed to do manufacturing and it's zoned
33:58
SPEAKER_00: for manufacturing and it's away from the people.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: All right.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: If it's done right, This doesn't have to be like this.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just when it's done like this and there's all this corruption and under
34:11
SPEAKER_00: the table dealing with city council members and NDAs, it just looks so bad.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: All right, question seven.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: What are the actual benefits of having a data center?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Jobs is the big one that's always talked about.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of jobs is what's said.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: It has been shown that, yes,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: thousands of jobs are created at the beginning as
34:29
SPEAKER_00: the data center is getting built out.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes, contractors, tons of jobs.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but a lot of those people fly in because they are specialists
34:37
SPEAKER_00: who build data centers all across the country.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Those are not always going to contractors in the community where the data centers go.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And it has also been shown that there's usually only 100,
34:47
SPEAKER_00: maybe less, maybe 20 jobs that are permanent jobs in the community.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And those are probably high paying jobs.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Most of them are high paying jobs.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: But jobs seem to not necessarily be a big long-term gain of these projects.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: The tax revenue is probably the most significant benefit of having a data center.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: It's millions at a minimum.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Many more.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: You look at that over 20 years and you're talking about like $100 million for community.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a ton of money.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I guess a benefit you could say is that it's going to make society more productive.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: I guess particularly the companies more productive and cost efficient,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: which I guess like all these Fortune 500 companies becoming more profitable is good
35:30
SPEAKER_00: for everyone's 401k.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe not inflation right now.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: With all this high interest loans that are going out to fuel this data center build,
35:40
SPEAKER_00: that's not really helping us, but...
35:43
SPEAKER_00: I guess, too,
35:44
SPEAKER_00: the other argument that is being said right now is that these need
35:48
SPEAKER_00: to get built out regardless.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: And if America doesn't build out the data centers,
35:53
SPEAKER_00: some other country is going to build out the data centers.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And whoever has access to AI,
35:58
SPEAKER_00: whatever country,
35:59
SPEAKER_00: whatever corporations,
36:00
SPEAKER_00: whatever government,
36:02
SPEAKER_00: whatever people,
36:03
SPEAKER_00: whoever has access to that AI has a tool at their disposal that can be a weapon.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Biosecurity, cybersecurity, just productivity and effectiveness, all that stuff.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: And so whoever has it is going to want to keep it.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: And whoever has the servers is going to be able to control whoever else has access
36:25
SPEAKER_00: to these artificial intelligence tools.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: So if we don't have the servers and we don't have the data centers and we decide
36:32
SPEAKER_00: to say,
36:32
SPEAKER_00: for example,
36:33
SPEAKER_00: as has been mentioned in that Plain English podcast,
36:36
SPEAKER_00: the United Arab Emirates build all the data centers over there.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Then we have a country that is not a democratic country possessing this asset
36:45
SPEAKER_00: that we are incredibly reliant on as a country.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: So that is another benefit of having a data center.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it allows everyone basically to just offload their ability to think
36:57
SPEAKER_00: into these devices,
36:57
SPEAKER_00: which theoretically,
36:58
SPEAKER_00: if you listen to these Silicon Valley demigod people,
37:02
SPEAKER_00: that is a great gift to all of us,
37:05
SPEAKER_00: which allows all of us to do more with our free time.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, Once we're all jobless because of AI.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: My take on all this,
37:13
SPEAKER_00: as much as I'm really not interested in artificial intelligence or using ChatGPT,
37:18
SPEAKER_00: this is just going to happen and it's going to happen everywhere.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: The building out of the data centers, It's happening.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to stop happening.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: How the build-out happens, though, is really important and is under local control.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: States, cities,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: and citizens need to ask these companies to build these data centers as cleanly,
37:39
SPEAKER_00: as quietly, and as energy efficient as possible.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Because we're going to need them.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: Whether or not we want to need them or not,
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Into the Oklahoma news roundup we go.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: But before we go there,
37:56
SPEAKER_00: and there is like a massive amount of news to analyze this week,
38:00
SPEAKER_00: I would first like to start with the death of Alyssa Walker Donaldson,
38:04
SPEAKER_00: the Miss McCurtain County who was found dead in her vehicle in 22
38:08
SPEAKER_00: in Broken Bow Lake,
38:09
SPEAKER_00: and who was discussed briefly in the documentary Kill Barry Print last week.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned how I would have liked to see her disappearance and death discussed more
38:17
SPEAKER_00: in the film,
38:18
SPEAKER_00: mainly because the details of her passing Don't line up with what
38:22
SPEAKER_00: the medical examiner and the sheriffs described as an accidental death.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Last week I also mentioned how in her vehicle she was found with her shirt pulled up
38:30
SPEAKER_00: above her bra and her top five buttons of her pants undone.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: She disappeared at the same time that the sheriff's department was hunting
38:36
SPEAKER_00: for recently escaped inmates from the McCurtain County Jail,
38:41
SPEAKER_00: one of which Walker Donaldson had a history with.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that was like a friends thing or a romance thing.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: The reporting insinuates that it was romance.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: So that was all what we talked about last week.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Between now and then, I received some messages from people intimate with that investigation.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: They agreed the investigation was scant and
39:07
SPEAKER_00: that there was like even more concerning issues and details
39:11
SPEAKER_00: with their disappearance,
39:13
SPEAKER_00: including,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: they told me,
39:15
SPEAKER_00: That her windows were rolled down when it was found,
39:19
SPEAKER_00: her back hatch was open,
39:22
SPEAKER_00: and that her vehicle had been reversed into Broken Bow Lake.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: The initial Sheriff's Department reporting on this
39:31
SPEAKER_00: and investigation made it sound like this was an accidental drowning
39:38
SPEAKER_00: where she just was inebriated and her blood alcohol level was two and a half times
39:42
SPEAKER_00: the legal limit, right?
39:42
SPEAKER_00: That's important to note here.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: That she just somehow accidentally drove her car into the lake.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, this boat ramp, again, is like not even close to the highway.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: You got to go like all the way through probably Beaver's Bend,
39:54
SPEAKER_00: like State Park to even get there.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: This does not sound like it was easy to get to this area.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: So, and all of these details together do not sound like somebody
40:01
SPEAKER_00: who accidentally was just driving home and drove her car in, right?
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: And I was told another car was found in the lake near the same locations.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago,
40:16
SPEAKER_00: containing two more people who had gone missing in 22,
40:20
SPEAKER_00: the same year Walker Donaldson went missing.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not a true crime guy, but this is not good.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, it must be said, like,
40:31
SPEAKER_00: there are a lot of missing people and a lot of crazy things that go down
40:35
SPEAKER_00: in McCurtain County.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: So, these cases may be unrelated.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to share that information with y'all
40:42
SPEAKER_00: because this Walker Donaldson case just doesn't add up when you look at all
40:48
SPEAKER_00: the information that's available.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you have not seen Kilberry Print yet, go watch it.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's just for the fact that it's a well-made movie and it's about Oklahoma.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Alright, okay, to the news.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Jason Momoa might be the most down-to-earth dude on the planet.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: I've only casually been acquainted with his acting through Aquaman and all
41:13
SPEAKER_00: the other stuff that he starred in,
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Minecraft movie,
41:16
SPEAKER_00: but by virtue of him showing up to dozens of restaurants and bars in Oklahoma
41:23
SPEAKER_00: and doing media with pretty much anyone who asks, I've come to love this guy.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, backtracking here.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: But he's in town filming Copperhead, which looks cool.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a crime thriller.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: It's based in Texas and Oklahoma.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: It stars him, Miles Teller, Kiefer Sutherland, involving a detective dude.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: The duo that's chasing down like a drug deal gone bad.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm in on that story.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
41:47
SPEAKER_00: so while he's been in Oklahoma filming,
41:48
SPEAKER_00: he's been to Whiskey Chicks, Suncattle, the OKC Zoo.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know how many other places people are making AI generated photos of him
41:58
SPEAKER_00: at their businesses and like their kids Halloween trunk retreats.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: It's been really confusing, really entertaining.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And this Saturday night, Halloween night at Fasler Hall, his band, Oof Ta Ta Ta, is performing.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Tickets are available.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: I love this guy.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Seriously, though, has a celebrity ever done this much when they're in Oklahoma City?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Ever?
42:26
SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't 37 years old and didn't have a functional bedtime of about 830 because
42:31
SPEAKER_00: of our five-month-old son and his sleep schedule,
42:34
SPEAKER_00: I would totally be there,
42:35
SPEAKER_00: but I cherish sleep more than anything I've ever cherished in life right now.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, next.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about where Sunday night's tragedy that unfolded inside
42:46
SPEAKER_00: the Paycom Center ranks in the history of tragic Thunder moments.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Jalen Williams dislocating his ankle,
42:53
SPEAKER_00: fracturing his fibula,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: after Cason Wallace gets a labral tear in his left shoulder,
42:59
SPEAKER_00: is a haymaker to the jaw for our Oklahoma City Thunder.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: The prohibitive championship favorites as of Sunday before that game.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: And still, today,
43:09
SPEAKER_00: after losing two of our best five players and
43:12
SPEAKER_00: with Chet developing patellar tendonitis only three games into the season,
43:17
SPEAKER_00: we still have the second best odds of winning the NBA title on Calci and FanDuel,
43:23
SPEAKER_00: only trailing the Spurs.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: I say that to say this.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: This is not as bad as Durant leaving,
43:30
SPEAKER_00: but it's probably worse than Harden getting traded for me.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: After Durant left,
43:34
SPEAKER_00: I knew we had no chance to win a title for years,
43:38
SPEAKER_00: maybe like a decade, and that was true.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: That was just the reality.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: When Harden got dealt, though,
43:43
SPEAKER_00: to Houston, it was stunning, but we still had two bona fide stars on the team.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: It was not hard to convince yourself that we could still win a title,
43:52
SPEAKER_00: and we probably should have won it if it weren't for those injuries and bad luck.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Still, should have just paid up to keep Harden,
43:58
SPEAKER_00: but we were guaranteed to be good after Harden left.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Sunday night, I think, like, falls somewhere in between that paradigm.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I got in my car to move it back into our driveway from in the street Sunday night,
44:11
SPEAKER_00: and just as I pulled the keys out of the ignition,
44:13
SPEAKER_00: I heard Royce Young say over the radio, Dub just broke his leg.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: That might have been the saddest I've ever been after hearing any words of Related
44:26
SPEAKER_00: to my sports fandom.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: It just sucks.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: It just, I don't know.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: It just sucks.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: There's really no other way to code it.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, young guys are going to get to develop now.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: It just sucks.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: I love this team so much.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: I love these guys so much.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: And I know everybody, including our players, love the city so much.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: We'll band together.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: You never know what can happen in sports.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've been through worse.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: So, and Presti, and Shea, we trust.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: All right.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Noah Cahan,
44:56
SPEAKER_00: as anticipated,
44:58
SPEAKER_00: When OU Athletics dropped that butterfly graphic yesterday on Instagram,
45:02
SPEAKER_00: is bringing his Last of the Bugs tour to Norman and Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium
45:07
SPEAKER_00: on May 9th.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: First thought, this is going to be so epic.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Nocahan is maybe not like 2014 Mumford & Sons,
45:16
SPEAKER_00: hyped and vibed, that was an insane event in Guthrie, but he is close right now.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: And he's coming in early spring.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now people are worried about the severe weather risk.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: And they're already posting that this is a bad idea to host an event in early spring.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: And to that I say, you have to live your life.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: All right, this is Oklahoma.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: Damn the tornadoes and have yourself a good time.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: The tornadoes are going to wreck pain and devastation.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: We don't know when.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Don't let them take events away from you before the tornadoes have already happened.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Life is way too short to let David Payne get in your head and not enjoy yourself
45:54
SPEAKER_00: when you have a chance.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Second thought.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: I got to wondering when finals week is at OU in May of 2027 and it literally starts
46:06
SPEAKER_00: the next day after this concert.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: If you're a student At OU.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: And if getting a letter grade lower on your transcript is what it takes to go
46:17
SPEAKER_00: to this concert, it's worth it.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Do it.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: In 2009, I went to that U2 and Black Eyed Peas concert at Gaylord Memorial Stadium.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: As someone who was not a fan of either of those bands,
46:31
SPEAKER_00: and I had honestly never listened to U2 in my life before that concert.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I was an uncultured sophomore in college at this point.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, give me a break.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: And I sat in the corner, like down low, could barely even see the stage.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: And that was incredible.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: The Black Eyed Peas were so good that night.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: So do it.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those like once in a lifetime events.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Damn the grades, get the tickets, take out the cost from your loans, whatever it takes.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: There are so many other news items to discuss this week.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Seriously,
47:07
SPEAKER_00: it's been an incredible time to be alive if you're interested
47:09
SPEAKER_00: in crazy shit happening in the world.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: But I'm just going to end on something I find to be hilarious and sad and if true,
47:16
SPEAKER_00: because always everything is alleged even more sad.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: So Paycom is being sued by a former employee who is alleging That Paycom failed
47:26
SPEAKER_00: to accommodate her severe onion allergy and actually fired her because
47:31
SPEAKER_00: of how hard it was to accommodate her severe onion allergy.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Only Paycom.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Could have an accusation like this in the press.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say that Paycom has a bad reputation
47:43
SPEAKER_00: for how it treats its employees in Oklahoma City,
47:46
SPEAKER_00: but I will just say the things I've heard
47:48
SPEAKER_00: about Paycom have not necessarily been things I would want to be said
47:52
SPEAKER_00: about my company if that was my company.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: So per the Oklahomans reporting,
47:57
SPEAKER_00: this employee had numerous severe onion reactions in her office space,
48:02
SPEAKER_00: sometimes on back to back days.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: While sitting in her cubicle.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: I believe we're talking like EpiPen reactions here.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean like to make light or like humor out of something serious
48:18
SPEAKER_00: because I imagine this was actually very serious and I hope she's okay now.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: It sucks that she was fired for whatever reason, alleged, whatever.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: But also,
48:27
SPEAKER_00: if you're sitting in the cubicle around someone who just had an allergic reaction
48:31
SPEAKER_00: to onions the day before and you eat something with onions in it again the next day,
48:37
SPEAKER_00: you're an asshole.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: Only at PACOM.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: At the end of last week's episode,
48:48
SPEAKER_00: I said I was going to do some reading and digging on
48:51
SPEAKER_00: the Diamondback ice detention facility in Matonga, and I did not do that digging.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: So, how about this?
48:59
SPEAKER_00: If you promise to go out and vote next week,
49:01
SPEAKER_00: I promise to actually read about the Diamondback facility in Patonga where
49:04
SPEAKER_00: the ICE detainees are being held and actually talk about it next week.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: That is a deal.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: A handshake deal.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: With an NDA.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Behind the people's back.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Next week we will finally talk about that.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: Also, let's all go vote Tuesday.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Then on Wednesday, we can talk about the results here.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: I cannot wait for next week.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Just to see what happens.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, who knows?
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Democracy is crazy.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a fun thing to be a part of sometimes.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, appreciate you listening.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: Again, I appreciate everyone who reads the work we're doing on drylineokc.com
49:39
SPEAKER_00: and we appreciate the likes, subscribes, and reviews.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: If you have a second, drop us a review where you're listening to this podcast.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: It just takes a few seconds and it helps us more than any single thing right now.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, I know where to find us.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: Powerhouse.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh God.