Data centers are where the industrial policy rubber meets the road. Where should they be sited? Who makes the decisions? What happens when the equipment ages out and the site goes quiet—what should a community expect in return?

Kate Gordon and Priyanka Mohanty get into all these questions and more with two people watching the data center boom from the ground up: Dana Kuhnline, Programs Director at ReImagine Appalachia, and John Kostyack, founder of Kostyack Strategies.

Dana brings the view from coal country, a region that created enormous wealth and kept little of it. John has tracked the buildout, and the fast-growing, cross-partisan movement pushing back on it.

Topic discussed: why the siting predictions of a year or two ago no longer hold; what Appalachia’s coal history says about where an industry’s wealth ends up; the “but what about China” argument that surfaces in nearly every local fight; whether a moratorium buys anything without a plan for the time it buys; what each guest would tell California’s next governor; and lots more.

Links & resources

From our guests

• Data Centers: Steps Communities Can Take to Avoid Stranded Assets — ReImagine Appalachia (Aug 2026)
• Local Government Resources Regarding Data Centers — ReImagine Appalachia webinar series
• The New Environmental Movement Could Change AI’s Trajectory — John Kostyack, Forbes (July 2026)
• Data Center Moratoriums and the Rise of Private Grids — John Kostyack, Forbes (Aug 2026)
• Kostyack Strategies
• ReImagine Appalachia

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