‘Probably no chance’: Beatrice Mayor addresses concerns over possible data center

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — The idea of a data center coming to Beatrice is raising concerns among the community.

A few people posted to social media, sounding the alarm about what it would do to the city.

Channel 8 took the question to the city’s mayor to try to clear up any confusion.

“There’s probably no chance of them coming to Beatrice,” said Mayor Bob Morgan. “You have to remember, electricity goes through transportation lines. That would be quite expensive for them. We would have to find land for them, our Industrial Park isn’t really big enough to handle a Google or other AI company.”

Beatrice is home to Radiant Tech, LLC, a data center that uses the city’s electrical energy.

According to Morgan, this is a benefit to the people.

“It really is a win-win,” he said. “They’re a great company. They use our electricity and power, but they don’t use our power when needed. They operate there and help distribute the cost of things to help lower or keep the same electricity for all of the residents in Nebraska.”

To clear up any more confusion, Channel 8 asked if something like this would be possible in the future.

“The one thing we’re not going to do is jeopardize the power to our city,” Mayor Morgan said. “We sit in one of the most unique places. We do have power, we do have water. We just built a new landfill, so we have a place for our waste. The last thing we want to do is destroy that for our future generations.”