With A Nuclear Option On The Horizon, Data Center Security Becomes A Higher Priority Than Ever

Brandy Byrd Chapman, a data center security expert for Ameristar Perimeter Security, has delivered a consistent message to clients during her nine years in the industry.

“Security should not be an afterthought. It needs to be planned at the beginning of any discussion about a new data center or expansion,” Chapman said. “Operators need to have a conversation with their security people starting on Day 1, versus asking them a few years later to make expensive changes to secure something that's already built.”

Lately, Chapman’s message has taken on a new urgency as the industry looks to adopt nuclear energy to help meet its insatiable demand for power. The industry’s need is so dire that there has been talk of restarting mothballed nuclear plants. However, small modular reactors are getting the lion’s share of attention.

SMRs are small-scale energy-generating plants with about one-third of the capacity of conventional nuclear power reactors. None have yet been installed on a data center property, but there is considerable interest in SMRs among operators.

Chapman cautioned that the industry needs to keep security and safety top of mind as it enters this next phase of its evolution. Adding nuclear power to the mix will considerably increase the threat level to an already beleaguered industry, she said.

“These sites must be secured against protesters who show up for no other reason than it’s a data center,” she said. “Now you're going to put nuclear on that site? What does that environment look like, and how do you secure it? Because now you're a target, similar to a military installation in terms of risk.”

Chapman will be discussing these and related issues when she participates as a panelist in Bisnow’s National Data Center Construction, Design and Development event in Dallas on Oct. 7. Click here to register.

Bisnow: What message will you bring to this event?

Chapman: It’s the same message we always send: As things change and move in this industry, security needs to be involved. And that is more the case than ever with SMRs potentially in the mix.

Bisnow: What is the situation like in Texas, which is home to nearly 400 data centers, about half of them in the Dallas-Fort Worth area?

Chapman: Everybody is talking about how there’s not enough power on the grid in the state, and natural gas and nuclear are seen as the future. Natural gas is nothing new, but SMRs haven’t been built and used yet in this context. However, permits have been applied for, and it’s only a matter of time. 

Even so, it appears that no one’s asking, “How does this impact the security of a property?” That’s really scary.

In addition, there seems to be a lack of awareness nationally, even among some on-site security experts, that this is coming. When I started to pick up the phone and ask people what their protocol was for SMR deployment, a lot of them would ask, “What’s an SMR?” At the moment, security teams are not being asked to write and deploy a protocol for a site that will have nuclear power. 

Bisnow: How will the use of SMRs impact perimeter security?

Chapman: The standard practice at data centers is to have an anti-climb fence line, cameras, probably an intrusion detection system and a crash rating that depends on the level of security needed. Your basic crash-rated perimeter fence stops a box truck hitting a fence line at a 90-degree angle at 30 miles an hour and goes up from there. 

When we start talking about the need for military-level protection, then we’ve got to move up the crash rating to 50 miles an hour and we need to stop that truck much further away from the asset.

Bisnow: How should data centers prepare?

Chapman: They need to be asking questions like, “Is our site selection team preparing for this if we plan to deploy an SMR?”

A standoff distance between the perimeter and the asset has to be followed to maintain security. Are we thinking about this when we buy the land and before we break ground? Do we want to be considered a critical asset that is going to be governed and audited by the NRC?

What is our current relationship with the local government? In rural areas, what is the response time to an incident? How are we going to deal with deliveries, vendors, visitors, vehicle screening, package screening? 

Bisnow: That’s a daunting list. 

Chapman: It’s a conversation that needs to be had. Sometimes, it can be hard for security to justify added costs because if they do their job correctly, there are no incidents to report. How do you find a data point that says, “Look, 50 people didn't break into our site and chose to go elsewhere.” That doesn’t exist.

It’s always a balancing act with security, and we're not trying to lock down data centers and turn them into military-grade installations. But they do need to be monitored and have layers of security to prevent intrusion, the perimeter being only the first layer.

Click here to register for the Oct. 7 event.

This article was produced in collaboration between Ameristar Perimeter Security and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.