Outside Walnut Cove, a project called Project Delta wants 1,849 acres along the Dan River. The parcel is physically bigger than Walnut Cove. In Rural Hall, Project Iron Spur wanted 128 acres directly across from Town Hall, until Forsyth's commissioners voted it down on July 30. Most people heard the code names before anyone asked their opinion.
Numbers checked July 31, 2026 · Forsyth denied Iron Spur 5 to 2 on July 30 · every number sourced on the detail pages
The whole story, zoomed out
How this happens
it ends at your power bill, but it didn't start in your county.
1
A project lands
A developer arrives behind a code name and an LLC: no named tenant, and a clock ticking to beat any new rules.
Duke earns a guaranteed return on what it builds, and a customer the size of a power plant justifies a lot of building. If the tenant never shows up, your bill still pays for the concrete.
Both planning boards said no, or not yet. Forsyth's commissioners agreed and turned Iron Spur down. Stokes rezoned anyway, then rejected its own board's pause. Neighbors are suing.
The state exempted data center equipment from sales tax, left property tax as the county's one real revenue tool, and let the school funding case die. Now it's moving to cap that tool too, with an amendment on your November ballot. That leaves counties hungry for exactly this kind of project.
Senate Bill 730 passed the House in June, 69 to 44, with real cost protections for regular customers when a giant power user connects. Then it stalled in Senate Rules. It also has holes. Its data center rules carry no penalties at all, while other parts of the same bill hand out $1,000-a-day fines. Its coal-plant clause waits on a reactor bigger than any Duke actually plans. And projects approved before it becomes law are exempt, a race Delta still intends to win; Forsyth's July 30 denial took Iron Spur out of it, at least for now. stop 5 · the stalled bill →
This guide cites its work. Every number traces to a filed application, a statute, a roll call, or published minutes on the detail pages, and if you find something wrong, email hello@andycantwin.com and I'll fix it and say so publicly.
The one number to remember
Reported: up to 90% of the coal plant next door
Project Delta · StokesProject Iron Spur · Forsyth
Reporters covering the refiled proposal put Project Delta at up to 2,000 megawatts, electricity for more than a million homes. Belews Creek Steam Station, one of the biggest coal plants in the Carolinas, sits a few miles from the site, rated at 2,220. Both numbers are ceilings: the most the plant can produce, the most the campus says it would draw. One customer, asking for almost the whole plant.
Now the part worth remembering on its own: that figure comes from a TV interview, not from the paperwork. It's not in Delta's refiled application, site plans, or meeting report, and it wasn't in Iron Spur's rezoning exhibit either. The number that decides what Duke builds, what your bill carries, and whether the state's proposed protections even apply is nowhere in the documents a county votes on.
2,220 MW
Belews Creek nameplate capacity
up to 2,000 MW
Project Delta reported draw at full buildout
90%
Belews Creek nameplate from Duke Energy's plant specs · Project Delta figure as reported by FOX8/WGHP, June 4, 2026 · the refiled application, site plans, and PIM report state no megawatt figure
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