Sabrina Tavernise

Sabrina Tavernise
Sabrina Tavernise
Personal Information
Status Active Education Barnard College Occupation Journalist, war correspondent, podcast host Country of Origin United States
Online Information
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Sabrina Tavernise is an American journalist and national writer-at-large for The New York Times . She previously served as a co-host of the newspaper's daily news podcast, The Daily , and has worked as a foreign correspondent in Russia , Iraq , Pakistan , and Turkey .

Tavernise joined The New York Times in Moscow in 2000 and spent a decade working as a foreign correspondent. While reporting from Iraq between 2003 and 2007, she covered civilian casualties, was among the first journalists to identify sectarian cleansing in 2005, and documented the experiences of ordinary Iraqis during the Iraq War . She later became a national correspondent covering demographic changes in the United States.

On-stream appearances

05-08-2026 Expert Warns Against Data Centers

On May 8, 2026, Tavernise joined Destiny's stream for a discussion about the expansion of large data centers across the United States .

Interview Questions
Timestamp	Destiny's Question	Tavernise's Response
0:00	Destiny asks Tavernise about her reporting on data centers, and whether she believes they could become a major topic of discussion in the upcoming elections.	Tavernise explains that she visited seven Michigan townships expecting minimal turnout, but instead found a large numbers of local residents who had never previously been involved in local politics. She goes on to describe the ability of this issue to bring together "strange bedfellows," and points to environmentalists and far-right residents (e.g. Michiganders for Jesus) organizing together on petitions. She further cites a Wisconsin pollster who found Democratic and Republican resistance to data centers to be identical (something the pollster alleges had not been seen in over a decade).
3:42	Destiny asks what the main unifying concern is that motivates people to show up to these meetings.	Tavernise responds that residents arrive with varied concerns: electricity prices, water and environmental impact, and privacy fears amongst libertarians. She asserts that the biggest overall driver is the scale, simultaneity, and secrecy of the projects. She goes on to point out that developers use code names like "Project Canoli," "Project Cherry Blossom," and "Project Mitten", aka projects that did not "scream data center". She argues this left residents feeling lied to and tapped into a broader distrust of "the political class" and "the elites".
6:12	Destiny suggests that unlike visible blue-collar industries (e.g. factories), data centers are difficult for many people to conceptualize. He proceeds to ask whether this "unknownness" (e.g. tech jobs) helps unify opposition (especially older individuals).	Tavernise agrees, and explains that when projects are opaque, people project their fears into them. She goes on to point to generalized anxiety about AI upending American employment, and asserts that data centers become the focal point of a "looming, scary" place in the national consciousness with regards to this fear. She adds that the companies worsen this by offering lawyers and PR people instead of answers.
12:38	Destiny asks how large an average data center is.	Tavernise responds that an average hyperscale data center covers roughly 32 football fields, takes about 15 minutes to drive past, and requires enough electricity to power a million homes.
15:33	Destiny asks whether developers choose locations based on land costs or subsidized energy prices.	Tavernise explains that siting is driven almost entirely by power access (aka spare capacity in the grid and proximity to transmission lines). She asserts that this is why developers have increasingly targeted rural areas. She goes on to state that developers have begun siting projects near gas pipelines as an independent power source, and points out that solar and wind farms alone cannot provide nearly enough power to operate them.
17:35	Destiny describes a "nightmare scenario" in which a rural town loses power during a weather event while a nearby data center continues running uninterrupted.	Tavernise agrees this is a major concern, and notes that many grids are old and strained. She further states that Michigan residents have already seen multiple rate hikes this year for grid updates unrelated to data centers. She notes that the colossal power demands of these data centers have sprung much discussion on the revival of nuclear capacity at Three Mile Island and potentially giving new life to coal-fired power plants.
19:55	Destiny asks about the overall trajectory of these projects and what the timescale for completion is.	Tavernise responds that construction takes roughly one to three years, and that outcomes vary by township. She recounts a Michigan township that voted against rezoning, was sued by the company, and ultimately settled to allow the project. She continues, and states that other towns delay by requesting additional documents or raising issues like bat habitats. She points out that because developers are racing against one another to put up these data centers, this prolonged haggling often times causes them to move on to another town.
21:20	Destiny compares the urgency to develop these data centers to a hot housing market where buyers are pressured into immediate offers.	Tavernise agrees with the analogy, and explains that independent developers scout locations and secure projects before contracting with companies like Oracle, Google, or Meta. She argues the situation is like a "land grab". She further adds that this issue is entering major races, and points to Governor Mills' veto of Maine's data center moratorium and Governor Whitmer's passing of Michigan tax breaks for these data centers. She points out that Michigan residents were "pissed" when they discovered that the Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner's husband served as vice president of a major data center developer.
25:00	Destiny points to a personal example of a friend's crypto mining operation seeking out subsidized electricity rates, and asks whether subsidized energy factors into where these data centers are built.	Tavernise responds that it does not, and notes that tech companies spent $700 billion on data centers over the course of twelve months (approximately three quarters of the Pentagon budget). She states that developers are instead looking for cooling water, transmission lines connected to spare grid capacity, and room to build out additional gas, wind, or solar generation.
26:51	Destiny asks whether these data centers generate significant jobs or economic output for the towns hosting them.	Tavernise responds that while construction employs thousands for a couple of years to build up the data centers (making unions and building trades very supportive of these endeavors) the completed facilities only employ about 15 to 20 people. She argues they are much less advantageous from a jobs perspective than a large office building despite being far bigger.
29:25	Destiny asks whether concerns about clean water consumption are a real issue or simply a popular talking point.	Tavernise responds that the answer to this question has changed over a relatively short period of time. She points out that early hyperscale facilities used evaporative cooling systems that consumed huge amounts of water, but newer builds use closed-loop systems that are fairly low-intensity. She states that people are currently reacting to how data centers were built five years ago and projecting that onto current construction.