Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christian Noem, should be fired.

>> Time now for our Reporter's Notebook segment.

I'm Laura Rogers with WKU Public Radio reporter Lisa Autry.

And Lisa, we've seen plans for proposed data centers in western Kentucky and Hancock County there in Hawesville.

Tell us about the plans there and how that's being received by the community.

>> Yeah.

Just last week, it was announced that a digital asset company known as Terra Wolfe had purchased more than 250 acres of land in Hancock County.

And it's the site of the former aluminum smelter owned by Century Aluminum.

It's set to become a large scale data center.

The land was purchased just a few months ago.

I talked to the director of the Industrial Foundation who said, you know, just as recently as a few months ago, there were still conversations about reopening the smelter.

But those conversations didn't lead to any place.

And so they just started talking about repurposing this industrial brownfield site.

Terra Wolfe is going to build a large scale data center there.

One of the things that attracted the company to that location was the fact that there's already a power supply there.

There are about 480MW of power previously used by the smelter that's already there.

And then there's the potential to expand over time.

So power capacity is a big issue when it comes to talking about data centers.

Terra Wolfe will not have to go out and look for additional sources of electricity.

The power is already there, and that's one of the sticking points when you talk about data centers in these rural communities.

Opponents have this fear of these facilities being a large drain on the energy grid.

There's also concerns about noise pollution and environmental pollution, those types of things.

And so data centers largely have been pretty controversial.

The head of the industrial foundation, though, said that that piece of land is already zoned heavy industrial use, and he doesn't anticipate a lot of challenges coming from it because it's simply a private company selling the land and facility to another private company.

Century aluminum, sold it to Terra Wolfe, and there wasn't a timeline for developing it into a data center.

But in all likelihood, it's coming to Hancock County.

>> And in Simpson County and Franklin.

We've seen plans there for a proposed data center as well.

And a very vocal group of community members have been attending these public meetings.

I know you've been covering those, and they are really they have a lot of reservations about what that could mean for Franklin.

And now there's also a question over who has jurisdiction over that land.

Is it the county or the city?

A lawsuit has been filed over a conditional use permit ordinance, and that vote tabled again.

And so what are we seeing there and and Franklin and Simpson County.

And what do we think is going to be next for those plans?

>> Yeah, I've attended a lot of the public hearings and they've turned into pretty raucous gatherings, lengthy and raucous gatherings.

People are very outspoken about this particular project.

It would be located just off exit two on I-65, close to the Tennessee border.

A lot of people are concerned, like I mentioned, about the noise pollution that would come from that, the fact that it sits on a karst landscape, it's about 500 acres of land, and it would be developed by a company called Tennessee Land Co, and they have gone to the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission twice now to seek approval of their preliminary development plan.

And the the Planning and Zoning Commission has now tabled a vote on it twice.

Their most recent argument last week, when they tabled the vote for a second time, was the fact that there's ongoing litigation between the county and ten Ki ten.

KY has sued the county over what fiscal court did in December, when they passed an ordinance requiring ten Ki, or any future developer of data center projects, to get a conditional use permit.

And basically that just gives the county more oversight into how a data center would operate.

>> So we'll have to see how that plays out in court.

>> Absolutely.

>> And how that could.

>> It's going to be a long process.

>> Yes, absolutely.

And then also in industrial news in Kentucky, the future of Blue Oval SK there in Hardin County's Glendale community.

What do we know about what we could see come out of that huge project there in Glendale?

>> Blue Oval SK announced in December they were closing, laying off the entire workforce, going to retool the plant for energy storage.

They will be producing batteries for industries like data centers, utilities, large scale industrial customers.

And so the plant is closed now, workers are getting severance pay until Saturday on February 14th.

Then that runs out.

Spent some time there, recently talked to several workers who said they're struggling to find other work.

In fairness to Blue Oval SK, the pay was pretty, pretty decent and they're struggling to find to find new jobs.

And many of them say, you know, we can't wait until the plant is retooled and begins operations in 2027.

You know, we have to find work now.

Some of them, it's interesting.

Say we would consider going back to work at Ford.

Ford energy is the new subsidiary that will run the plant again.

Some say they'll consider going back, but they want it to be a union shop.

Other workers just say they feel really burned by Ford just because the operations there were short lived.

And how they found out in a video from the CEO right before Christmas.

But the community there still very hopeful.

If you talk to business leaders, elected leaders, they're all very hopeful.

They said, you know, Ford has invested 5.8 billion in the EV battery plant.

They're investing another 2 billion to scale the energy and venture.

And, you know, this is a company that's been around in Kentucky since the model T. They're confident in Ford's ability to open a sustaining manufacturing plant there in Glendale.

It's just going to take a little bit longer than anticipated.

>> Just going to take some patience.

And something will be following of course.

And Lisa we appreciate it so much.

Lisa Autry with WQ Public Radio.