Botetourt County, a place so proud of its history that people still talk about how it once stretched all the way to the Mississippi, has met the future — and doesn’t seem to much like it.
Botetourt has now become ground zero for two of the most controversial technological developments in the land these days — data centers and solar farms.
Google is preparing to build a data center in the county’s business park; there have been multiple protests, although there’s likely nothing procedurally that can stop the project. Google has bought the land, and it’s properly zoned. There are some state water permits, but even the Mountain Valley Pipeline secured its permits, so the opposition seems futile — though still passionate.
Now there are proposals for two utility-scale solar farms — “industrial solar” in the language of opponents — before the county’s planning commission. These would be the largest utility-scale solar projects in the Roanoke Valley. Just as data centers are now spreading out of Northern Virginia, solar projects are now expanding out of Southside to west of the Blue Ridge. Unlike the Google data center, there are lots of procedural steps ahead of these projects, starting with a planning commission meeting on Monday.
I live in Botetourt, so have had a front-row seat to the controversy; the county has now sprouted lots of “No Industrial Solar” signs. I offer no opinion on whether these projects should be approved or denied. What fascinates me are the political contradictions inherent in all these views. We’ve seen these contradictions in other communities, but there’s an old saying in journalism that there’s never a story as important as the one an editor sees happen outside the window. (That’s a joke, by the way.)
1. Trump-voting counties are opposing a Trump policy
Logically, Botetourt County — and other rural counties — ought to be embracing data centers. Botetourt voters cast 71.8% of their ballots for Donald Trump in 2024, and promoting artificial intelligence has been a key Trump policy. It hasn’t gotten the same attention as other policy initiatives, such as immigration and tariffs, but that’s beside the point. Trump has been an enthusiastic supporter of artificial intelligence. Just two days after he returned to office, he issued an executive order that declared establishing American dominance in AI — versus the Chinese — is of “paramount importance.” He announced a $92 billion plan to invest in AI and the energy needed to power it.
There is no artificial intelligence without data centers.
Rural, Trump-voting localities pushing back against data centers is completely understandable — these facilities are thirsty for water and power and often make a lot of noise. Still, on the political level, this is not much different than these counties suddenly breaking with Trump on immigration or tariffs — they are going against a key Trump initiative. Nobody really frames it that way; it’s usually framed as “the people” standing up against “Big Tech.” However, Trump here is on the side of Big Tech, so that’s a distinction without a difference.
What are the long-term political implications of this split between rural counties and the president they backed by overwhelming margins? In theory, this opens an opportunity for Democrats. Nationally, Sen. Bernie Sanders has called for a moratorium on data center development. Closer to home, so has Beth Macy, the Democratic candidate for the 6th District seat in the U.S. House. More practically, though, since AI isn’t as branded as a Trump initiative as immigration and tariffs are, many people probably don’t see the connection — and in the end, rural voters may be more moved at the ballot box by all the other issues that traditionally led them to Republicans. We’ll see.
2. When it comes to solar projects, rural opponents cast aside property rights in favor of viewsheds
Property rights has historically been a key conservative value. Some rural counties in Virginia are still so respectful of property rights that they have no zoning ordinances. If we were ideologically consistent (and we rarely are), rural localities ought to embrace — or at least tolerate — solar projects as a property-rights issue.
That’s rarely the case, though. It’s certainly not in Botetourt, where the rallying cry against solar has been “Keep Botetourt Green.” That’s essentially a rejection of property rights and an assertion of a liberal view that we have a right to tell our neighbors what they can and cannot do with their land — that we have a community right to look onto our neighbors’ land and see green fields, not shiny black solar panels. Before you fire off your angry emails, keep in mind that I live in a rural county because I, too, like to see green fields; I’m just pointing out the ideological inconsistency we have. When it comes to solar, some otherwise independent-minded, small-government rural residents want to adopt the same mindset as a homeowners association.
3. The choices often aren’t between solar and staying green forever
I went looking for the two proposed solar sites in Botetourt County. The biggest of them — a 53.40-acre parcel — is on the main road, U.S. 220, between Daleville and Fincastle. For those not familiar with Botetourt, that’s smack in the middle of the county’s growth sector. This land is green now but is unlikely to stay that way, whether there’s a solar project built there or not. Before I found it, I came across a neighboring tract with a site that advertised: “Land for sale — 30 acres.” That’s a subdivision waiting to happen.
When I did find the 53.40 acres, what I saw was mostly a steep hillside, with the rest of the property impossible to see from the main road. I don’t know what neighbors further back might see, but those driving by would see nothing. The county’s GIS map shows that most of the property is set back from the road.
The smaller tract, a 20.69-acre parcel on Catawba Road, is behind a row of five houses and does not appear to be obviously visible from the road. This property might be more classically rural, but that stretch of Catawba Road has lots of houses, and there is active home construction underway on at least one parcel.
In both cases, if this land isn’t used for solar, it seems destined to be developed for homes.
I grew up on a farm; a 20-acre parcel isn’t really farmland; it’s a field. This isn’t a case of prime agricultural land being taken out of production because any production here would be slight. In some places, some farmers would argue that solar isn’t industrial at all; it’s a way to make their farms more profitable, and that some livestock (such as sheep, but occasionally cows) are quite happy grazing under solar panels.
The choice here isn’t really between solar and staying green forever, as much as we might wish it would stay that way; it’s between solar and whatever else might become of that land, be it a subdivision or commercial development. Solar might still lose out in that equation, but unless someone wants to put some kind of easement on that land, it will get developed for something at some point. Governing is about choices, and that’s one of the choices to be made here. What should the landowner be allowed to do with their land? Is solar better or worse than a subdivision?
4. We need more energy, but what kind? And where?
We have two things going on here at the same time. The Virginia Clean Economy Act requires the state’s two biggest utilities (Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power) to convert to noncarbon forms of energy (solar, wind, nuclear) with some exceptions for certain circumstances for natural gas. For Appalachian, the utility that serves much of Botetourt County, the deadline for conversion is 2050. That act has driven the explosion of solar farms across rural Virginia, particularly Southside. Because of that law, this would be happening even if there were no data centers — so we can’t connect these solar projects in Botetourt with data centers, but we can tie them back to the Clean Economy Act. Virtually every Republican legislator at the time voted against that law, and Republicans still think it should be repealed or drastically revised. Politically speaking, rural representatives in Richmond opposed this forced transition to renewables, yet the consequences of this law have mostly played out in their districts.
The Clean Economy Act was passed before the impact of data centers hit in a big way; energy demands, which were generally steady before then, have now spiked. The result is that Virginia now imports a lot of energy (only California imports more), and that energy tends to be both dirty (carbon-intensive) and expensive. Even if you’re not concerned about carbon emissions, you’re probably concerned about your monthly bill, so here’s an issue where left and right are in tenuous alignment: They both agree we need more energy.
Now, here’s what neither side likes to say very loudly, or at all: The reality is that most of that energy is going to be produced in rural areas because that’s where the land is — and where there are fewer people to object. Every now and then, you’ll see a proposal for a metro area — such as Dominion Energy’s proposal for a natural gas plant in suburban Chesterfield County — but that’s more an exception than the rule.
(Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy. You can be a donor, too, and also have no say.)
The left generally prefers renewables, which in Virginia overwhelmingly means solar. Solar needs land, and that means the energy preferred by Democrats winds up mostly in Republican-voting areas. That’s created political tension in Richmond. The legislators who most want solar don’t have to live with the consequences. Those who do want it the least. My impression is that Democrats don’t fully appreciate the depth of the anger about solar that we sometimes see in rural areas. If they want to see that anger first-hand, I invite them to come to Botetourt, and I’ll show them around.
We’re now seeing legislation — from state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County — to encourage more solar development in metro areas. What we don’t know, because it’s too soon to tell, is what the market will think. There are often those who ask why we don’t put solar panels over top of parking lots (I’ve been among those who have asked that). I see that’s one of the suggestions from the group Keep Botetourt Green. The catch is that solar developers have told me that parking lot solar is expensive — you have to build the infrastructure to hold it up — and that cuts into the profit margin too much. They basically weren’t very interested. Legislators could mandate parking lot solar, if they chose, but they’d be voting for a more expensive form of energy. That probably would not look very good on an opponent’s literature in the next campaign.
The right generally prefers natural gas, but we just saw how difficult it was for the developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline to build their route through rural areas. Trump likes to say “drill, baby, drill,” and crowds cheer, but he doesn’t talk about “build pipelines, baby, build pipelines,” which is the inevitable next step. Most of those pipelines would go through communities that voted for him and other Republicans.
There’s also another market reality: speed to market.
You may have seen the cheeky signs in some businesses: “If you want it done cheap and fast, it won’t be good. If you want it done good and fast, it won’t be cheap.” That definitely applies to energy. We’re seeing lots of solar development because it’s the quickest form of energy to get up and running. A developer can build a solar farm before the paperwork for anything else is even complete. The problem is that solar is very inefficient. Solar farms don’t produce power at night, and they don’t produce full power on cloudy days. The efficiency of solar projects is generally put at about 20% or so. That means we wind up devoting a lot of land to an inefficient form of energy because it’s cheap and quick. One reason it’s cheap is because the fuel source, the sun, is absolutely free. The most land-efficient form of energy is nuclear, but it’s slow and expensive. We also don’t see many communities that want a nuclear plant (or even a gas plant or, in Botetourt, a solar farm) next door. We, as a society, need to decide which we want. That brings us to this:
5. We all want to see cheaper energy — but we don’t want it produced nearby
Botetourt County is served by three different utilities: Appalachian Power and the Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative are the main two; Dominion has a small piece of territory. The State Corporation Commission provides a list that shows the Craig-Botetort co-op has the highest monthly power bills in the state, at $197.40 per kilowatt for an average monthly bill. Appalachian was about in the middle of Virginia utilities, at $163.56, when the SCC chart was compiled. It’s now a few dollars higher. Dominion, the state’s biggest utility, is at $170.61.
Nobody likes their power bill, no matter which utility we’re served by. We all want cheaper power. Logically, Botetourt residents (at least those in Craig-Botetourt territory) should want it more than anybody else in the state. Here we have two of our county neighbors who are willing to lease their land to an energy developer to produce cheaper energy — but now some don’t want that because they think it’s unsightly and out of character with the county. This is the essential conundrum we face with any energy development: Nobody wants it near them, no matter what it is. That’s completely understandable; those of us who live in rural areas generally live there because we don’t want much of anything around us. However, if we don’t want energy produced here, that means it will get produced somewhere else, which means there will be transmission lines — and they’re never popular, either, as we see from the current controversy over the Valley Link project, a proposed extra-high-voltage transmission line planned to run 115 miles from Campbell County to Culpeper County. If you’re starting to think there are no good choices, you’re right. There’s a problem here with everything.
None of this will help Botetourt County planners make a decision, and none of this will assuage those Botetourt residents who feel strongly about “industrial solar,” or those who worry that we’re about to bake the planet and we need to do whatever we can to stop carbon emissions. But it does put what’s happening in context, however uncomfortable that context may be for everyone.
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