New data centers are popping up all over the country, requiring massive amounts of energy and water and creating price hikes for entire communities.
That's why so many residents are fighting against data centers being built in their areas, though some state and local governments aren't listening.
1. A data center boomtown
The deserts of northern Nevada are becoming a hub for artificial intelligence infrastructure, offering vast plots of land for relatively cheap and tax incentives that reduce the cost of development. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Switch already have more than 40 facilities in Reno.
The American West is in a long-term drought, and the area in Nevada has a tightly managed water system that people depend on. After hours of public comment, Reno officials enacted a 30-day halt on new conditional-use permits for data centers.
Read more →
2. A Georgia lawsuit
A group of 20 residents in Coweta County, Georgia, has sued over the approval of Project Sail, a $17 billion project. Residents are claiming that the approval violates zoning laws and that a review of the roughly 103 acres of wetlands tied to the project was skipped.
On top of that, Georgia Power is being accused of using easement rights to force homeowners to sell land for the expansion of transmission lines needed to power the data center.
Read more →
TCD Picks » EDF Spotlight
💡EDF's Vital Signs newsletter delivers stories about game-changing solutions close to home and around the world
3. California's near-300 data centers
As of May, California had 288 operating data facilities, and 25 more are planned for before 2030. One of those projects is a massive data center in Imperial County.
It would be roughly as large as 17 football fields, use 330 megawatts of power, and require about 750,000 gallons of water a day in an area already dealing with extreme drought. But fierce public backlash and multiple lawsuits have led to a moratorium of at least 45 days, pausing all data center projects.
Read more →
4. A small victory
Perhaps because of the celebrity of its developer — Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fame — a proposed data center in Utah has gotten a lot of attention. Despite scientists' fears that the data center could generate enough heat to significantly alter the environment around it, Gov. Spencer Cox has defended its approval.
However, in response to the intense backlash, O'Leary said he would cut the size of the data center by half, or roughly 20,000 acres.
Read more →
5. Eyebrow-raising water usage claims
Texas may soon become the state with the most data centers under construction, which has led to worries among residents and public officials about how much water will be required for all those facilities. Data center developers claim the days of extreme water use are over, as new data centers will be built with closed-loop systems.
Citizens are understandably skeptical. "We just have not kept up with water supply and water infrastructure like we should have," Corpus Christi city manager Peter Zanoni told the Associated Press. "And it's decades in the making."
Read more →
Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
