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When data centers come to town, power bills go up, the water supply gets squeezed, and emissions start to rise. It's no wonder seven in ten Americans don't want one in their backyard. In the midst of this AI gold rush, many tech companies are taking advantage of communities, health, wealth, and safety for promises of a better future. But communities are fighting back.

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In this episode, we talk about the real life effects of AI infrastructure and hear how it's affecting folks in our community. We get the stats on this booming industry and what's at stake. We hear from Abre' Connor, the civil rights attorney leading the NAACP's lawsuit against Elon Musk's xAI — a data center that's now running 59 methane gas turbines in a Mississippi community, breaking a law that's been on the books since the 1970s.

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And we ask the uncomfortable question: could all this energy hunger actually accelerate the renewable transition? Is the AI revolution happening to us or for us? And what can we do about it?

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Episode Credits

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• Listener contributions: Artie Sadahiro, Birdie Peelman, Amanda Doughty
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

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Episode Transcript

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Katelan Cunningham (00:00):

You are listening to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. A lot of us these days feel very powerless. We take our little climate actions, we spend our money better, and it feels like, is any of this actually adding up? Does any of this really matter? Well, with the Commons app, you can put numbers to your impact. You can find out the emissions of each purchase. You can see how much money you're diverting from big box stores like Amazon and you can do it with hundreds of thousands of other people who are on the same. Mission. Commons helps you see how your sustainability impact actually adds up. And on this show, we talk to people about how they're living sustainably in an unsustainable world

Katelan Cunningham (00:53):

These days, it seems like we can't agree on much of anything, but there's one thing that most of us agree on. We do not like AI data centers. Seven in 10 Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their communities. I saw this play out earlier this month in my city. I recently moved just outside of LA to a city called Monterey Park, which is not a city that's in national headlines very often, but you may have heard of it recently because it became the first city in the United States to ban data centers by way of ballot measure and data centers lost in a landslide. Over 80% of Monterey Park voters, including me, voted to ban them despite promises of jobs, economic investment and tax revenue. Residents saw what was happening to other communities, water supply, power bills, and local environments, and they decided to opt out In a powerful show of force,

Katelan Cunningham (01:50):

There are plenty of other cities that are taking action by way of moratoriums regulations or requiring additional community approvals. And on the state level, 14 states in the US have proposed bills that would ban or create moratoriums on AI data centers. It is clear that unlike tech companies, communities do not seem impressed by the sparkle and shine of the AI gold rush. People are pushing back on this model of break it now and fix it later that we often find ourselves in and capitalism and especially in tech. Instead, folks are asking for a slowdown or an all out stop to AI infrastructure indefinitely or until we can ensure that these businesses are going to play by the rules, which by the way is a problem we keep finding ourselves in. We're writing the rules of a game while we're playing the first round. And oh, by the way, many of us weren't invited on the field despite the fact that it's in our own backyards. Amidst the persistent struggles of daily life, we're being forced to ask and answer questions that we didn't know existed five years ago. The biggest one of all might be do the ends of AI justify the means of our community's health, safety, and financial stability. I'm your host, Kaitlyn Cunningham, and today we're going to attempt to better understand the means and the ends and see how communities are showing up for a more equitable future of ai, even if that future is one. Without this technology altogether,

Katelan Cunningham (03:29):

Things are moving so fast in the AI industry. So let's get a quick snapshot of the scale. Right now,

Katelan Cunningham (03:38):

There are over 3000 data centers in the US, which is more than the rest of the world combined, and over 1400 more are under construction or in planning phases, and companies are spending a lot of money to build these data centers. As of April of this year, it was $50 billion, which if you're wondering is more than we spend on public transit. That is embarrassing and kind of sad. But for all the billions being spent on data centers, we're also stopping billions of dollars worth of new construction too, 64 billion in fact, from May of 2024 to May of 2025 alone. There are many reasons why communities are pushing back on data centers, noise pollution, environmental destruction, water use, energy use, emissions. Right now I wanna focus on those last three, energy, water, and emissions. I'm sure you've heard that data centers use a lot of energy, especially the newer hyperscale data centers. They span thousands of acres and they use as much energy as a small city or at least a hundred thousand households, and their energy use is expected to nearly double from last year to 2028. On top of that, many of these data centers are not even footing the full bill for the energy that they're using. Energy prices are going up for many of us, but for folks living in an area with a high concentration of data centers, they're seeing their power bills go up 267% over the past five years. This is happening in part because when a data center comes to town, they have high energy demands and that high demand raises prices across the grid for everyone in that region.

Katelan Cunningham (05:25):

The other reason why prices go up for residents is because the energy demands of a data center require updates to energy infrastructure like transmission lines and power plants, and the cost of those infrastructure updates are distributed across the energy company's customers. That includes the data center, but it also includes you and your neighbors. Some cities are being faced with losing power altogether. Like in Lake Tahoe, the local utility told customers that it's going to cut off power to homes after May, 2027 so it could meet the demand of data centers. All this energy zapping around in these data centers really heats things up. And how do you cool it down with water? Hyperscale data centers need a lot of that too, up to hundreds of millions of gallons a day for cooling. That's as much as 16,000 households. And that's just for the cool down. This is really scary stuff, especially when we're talking about drought prone areas like Arizona, where data centers, water usage is projected to reach 3.7 billion gallons in Arizona, thirsty data centers have already dropped the capacity of two major water reservoirs from 90% to 30%, and in some cases data centers are bypassing some very necessary red tape to get the gallons that they need.

Katelan Cunningham (06:49):

In Fayetteville, Georgia, a data center guzzled up more than 30 million gallons of water from residents before anyone even knew that it was happening. What happened was residents were turning on their tap and getting very, very low water pressure. So when the city went to investigate, they found that two industrial scale water hookups were feeding water right to the data center. One of them was done completely off the books and the other wasn't linked to the data center's utility account, so they weren't being charged for the water. The data center ended up having to pay back $150,000, which it owed. But imagine being told to alternate your watering days or take shorter showers. Meanwhile, a data center is illegally or even legally operating at full scale. We still rely on fossil fuels for energy and I'd say if these data centers need so much power, they can pay for a very belated transition to cleaner, lower emission energy on a huge scale.

Katelan Cunningham (07:45):

And there are some steps happening in that direction, which we'll get to later, but not nearly enough. And the result is that these thousands of acres of data centers are pumping out a ton of emissions, not without recourse, more on that later, but with reckless abandon until that recourse comes. Some of the emissions are coming from the energy use. Natural gas is currently the biggest source of electricity for data centers generating 40% of their energy. Next is a cluster of renewables, mainly solar and wind. Those come in at a collective 24%. Nuclear is 20%, and coal is 15%. So that's over half of data centers energy coming from fossil fuels, which adds up to a nearly two x rise in data center emissions from 2020 to 2025. Some of the emissions are also a result of land clearing. Just like when you look at the emissions breakdown of animal agriculture, a lot of this footprint is coming from the fact that when you cut down all these trees and plants to build a data center, those trees and plants were absorbing emissions. So when they're gone, they can no longer absorb that carbon. Some of you listening are unfortunately seeing these effects firsthand in your own energy bills, faucets, and air quality.

Amanda Doughty (09:14):

Virginia is known as data center alley because 35% of all data centers located in the United States are in Virginia. The biggest impact we are facing is the financial impact because Dominion Energy, which is our power provider, is not holding data centers accountable for their fair share of electric costs. As there's no legislation enforcing this, which is leading to people having unprecedented and unaffordable electric bills, this is causing a huge financial strain on an already unstable financial situation. People are having to choose between paying their electric bill or paying their rent, and this is incredibly unfair. Data centers also have a huge environment impact where we live due to their use of fossil fuels, which we already struggle with where I live because we have coal plants and ship building facilities which contribute to great air and water pollution. I have personally taken action against data centers in my state.

Amanda Doughty (10:06):

There were rumors that a data center was coming to my city, so I started petition opposing the building of a data center where I lived. It received 4,000 signatures in a month. I attended town hall meetings and city council meetings where I inspired numerous people to take action and speak up against data centers coming to where I live. Thankfully, there is no data center coming to where I live at this moment. I've spoken to our delegates in the General assembly discussing how important it is to pass legislation to regulate data centers. Data centers in our state have free reign as there's little legislation regulating how they run their operations. They also receive a huge tax exemption, which costs Virginia $1.9 billion a year. I'm continuing my work by raising an awareness through social media of data center impacts and what we could do to help convince our legislators of what they should be doing to hold data centers accountable while alleviating strain on Virginia's pocketbooks.

Birdie Peelman (11:04):

As somebody who was born in and currently lives in the deserts of Arizona and has had multiple data centers built in my surrounding area, I and my community have experienced AI and data centers impacts firsthand. The cost of electricity has gone up and with a lot of other prices increasing, I've seen how difficult it's been on people and their families to keep up with it. For some reason, Arizona is a hotspot for data centers with over hundreds of them in the area. I believe somewhere around 150 in the state. Despite being a desert that already experiences drought quite frequently, it's already record breaking hot in this area and data centers have been proven to heat up the neighborhoods near it according to multiple sources, to dangerous temperatures Since 2021. Utility bill prices have been driven up by data centers around 30% and are expected to increase in the coming years. AI in general has also laid off tons of workers in my area, especially in job spaces like consulting and certain customer service positions. With this continued trend, what at least I expect to happen is competition for entry-level jobs between over and under qualified individuals with a lack of positions in certain degrees with AI potentially and unfortunately already replacing these workers.

Artie Sadahiro (12:16):

Baltimore is actually a really interesting case study for this because we have had an ongoing issue with Johns Hopkins University, a local university that recently built a data science and AI research center that just so happens to be literally across the street from residential row homes. Um, this is up in the Remington neighborhood of Baltimore.

Artie Sadahiro (12:45):

The community's been pretty staunchly against this since they started proposing it, and there's been a lot of incredible organizing around with this, whether it's general disapproval of furthering this kind of technology and being in any way passive or in support of it. People had a lot of concerns about Hopkins's storm water direction resources. Um, they've already had prior to this like data center conversation. Hopkins' storm water movement systems on their campus have been pretty unpleasant. They need a lot of updates and there's parts of their campus where the water just pools, you can see like sediment forming in it and obviously that's a net negative for the residents there. And that has some other environmental impacts as well, which would only be exacerbated by the presence of a data center especially 'cause that's going to have a big impact on the water quality in that neighborhood.

Artie Sadahiro (13:46):

Despite, um, intense protest from the communities, Hopkins cut down a number of 50 plus year old red oak trees that lined that street, not even to make space for the foundation of this building to go, but literally just to move in their construction equipment. There's a really heartbreaking video online of a, I believe a Red hawk like flying around one of the construction workers that was like cutting off limbs from this tree. She's trying to like protect her nest as these guys cut it down. So they've gotten a lot of pushback on all fronts from humans and non-human alike.

Katelan Cunningham (14:35):

In addition to grassroots organizing. In some cases, the law is getting involved with these data centers. You may have heard that the NAACP is actually suing Elon Musk's company XI. Well, I wanted to find out what a lawsuit like this looks like and how communities can know what questions to ask of data centers and their representatives. So I called up Abrey. Connor Abrey is an environmental justice and civil rights attorney, and she's the director of the Center of Environmental and Climate Justice at the naacp. She oversees the strategy and collaboration across the NAACP to dismantle environmental racism and she leads the association's Stop Dirty Data campaign. Hi Abrey, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Abre' Connor (15:22):

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here to talk about all the things, <laugh>.

Katelan Cunningham (15:27):

Yes. Yes. Let's dive right in. So when we're talking about data centers and communities, there's sort of this before the data center opens and after the data center opens, and we're seeing more and more communities really speak up in this before phase, before the data centers are built, but there's also action being taken after. And one of those situations is in South Haven where the NAACP has a lawsuit against X'S data center. Can you catch us up on when this lawsuit started and what it's all about?

Abre' Connor (15:55):

Yeah. Well, I I I would have to start with our advocacy in Memphis because it is related to our case in South Haven and what we were seeing in Memphis, we were working with, um, local community groups and our branch and our state conference in Tennessee and what, you know, the groups there like mc a Protector Aquifer and Young Gifted and Green, um, along with our branch leadership in Memphis had flagged was that they were moving forward with potentially trying to get this hyperscale data center up and running as quickly as possible without dealing with, um, any of the permitting needs in order to do so. And so under the law, you have to have a permit under the Clean Air Act to be able to operate like something as large as like a hyperscale AI data center because of the pollution that is involved with running a data center or a gas power plant, um, of that, of that size.

Abre' Connor (16:58):

So what Elon Musk x AI tried to do was to basically say that they were going to utilize methane gas turbines in order to power this data center. Hmm, well, like trying to have that as this framework to get around the law. We were like, this is not what the law intended. Um, the Clean Air Act is about ensuring that when you have that much pollution that is being regulated, that there's transparency, that there's safeguards in place. And this company tried to get around that. And so in Memphis, you know, we sounded the alarm about those concerns and we're like, you cannot do that and we're gonna stand with communities and we're going to put the legal muscle behind, you know, the things that community groups are saying. And we filed a notice of intent to sue, uh, and then we were able to get some safeguards in place.

Abre' Connor (17:47):

But when the company decided to copy and paste that same kind of project in South Haven, Mississippi, then it was very clear to us that we needed to go ahead and file the lawsuit. So there are a number of different actions that, um, we took with community groups leading up to that including, you know, flagging this for the state of Mississippi, their agency, their environmental agency there flagging this, you know, in a number of different ways, very publicly to say that communities are saying in that area that they do not want this data entered to operate in this way. And because they continue to move forward. We filed a notice of intent to sue and then we filed the lawsuit and then we shortly after that filed something that's called a motion for preliminary injunction. Okay. Which means that the court moves more quickly on our request to basically stop them from operating while they don't have a permit under the law in order to operate in the way that they are.

Katelan Cunningham (18:50):

Yeah. So what is the status right now? What is the status right now at this data center?

Abre' Connor (18:55):

So the status right now, um, is that, and this is what happens when you have billionaires who are putting their profit over people. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. When we first started this case, we were at just like, and not that this is small at all, um, to put this, but there, you know, we're closer to like the few dozen methane gas turbines that were operating this second gas power plant for the data center. And since filing our case until now, they are up to nearly 59 methane gas turbines that are on site. Oh my gosh. Power this data center. And that should be alarming to everyone. There are companies who are asking to potentially bring online methane gas turbines at any capacity. It's, you know, obviously a problem. But you know, some of the requests that we've seen in other parts of the country are like less than 10.

Abre' Connor (19:53):

Hmm. And we have 59. Uh, and you know, and at that point, you know, a lot of municipalities, like they have concerns and they're saying like, oh, I don't know, like this feels like a lot. So you would think that when you have 59 on site, that there would be different conversations that are happening. And so the status is, you know, that we have our motion for preliminary injunction. Um, we've asked the, you know, the court to be able to hear our case. And so we will get a decision about, you know, our motion that we filed in the next couple of months. Um, but in the meantime, you know, we're continuing to put pressure not only on XAI and MZX tech to do the right thing, but also on these municipalities and these state agencies, um, and other individuals who are in the capacity of being able to help with regulatory changes to ensure that that accountability exists with the company, but also with the laws that are supposed to be put in place to help people. It should not be on, you know, every day individuals to be able to say, Hey, there's this law that's clearly been in place since the 1970s Yeah. That the agencies that are supposed to be overseeing this, that they also should be alarmed. And so we're continuing to push our case, but we're also continuing to say that these agencies who have the ability to ensure that the law is being implemented in a way that protects people, that they are taking those opportunities seriously.

Katelan Cunningham (21:35):

I mean, it's interesting. We're in the sort of wild west moment of AI in so many different ways trying to figure out what we're doing here. And so I can imagine that in this sort of limbo that we're in before, there's a lot of rules and regulations specifically about data centers that companies might try to take advantage of that. But it's wild that this law, like you said, has been around since the 1970s. This is not new information. So I'm wondering like how does an unlawful project like this doesn't get stopped from the beginning? What sort of checks and balances were missed or need to exist for this to never even have gotten this far?

Abre' Connor (22:07):

One of the things that we are seeing is a, a messaging and a narrative effort to shift what it is that we're actually seeing, um, with our own, our eyes, our own sensory mechanisms. There has been an effort to lead us to believe that the ends somehow justify the means, um, and that the conversation has really been around like this technological revolution. And eh, yeah, there might be some things around the infrastructure, but don't worry that much about that. Let's talk about what's gonna happen at the end. And so when the conversations are happening with state elected officials, with some individuals who have the ability to ask additional questions, the questions that are being asked of these companies don't reflect the kinds of questions that should be asked as it relates to the impact on communities. And so when you don't ask those questions, then you don't get the answers about what the impact is actually going to look like when you're only talking about, you know, and potential economic impact.

Abre' Connor (23:19):

And we've also seen that messaging change over time. Then you're not asking questions about how many gas turbines are gonna be running in the community. You're not gonna get answers around, you know, the amount of water usage in a community. You're not gonna get answers around like, you know, more pollution and contamination or, you know, land use of like what it would actually take to actually have a hyperscale data center in a community. You're not gonna get those answers because the questions are not reflecting what we know to be the major impacts, or the noise, quite frankly, um, that people have flagged is a huge concern when it comes to a data center coming into their community. And so I think that it's important for everyone who's involved. And I think that communities have been doing a great job of this Yeah. Of asking the questions, right?

Abre' Connor (24:11):

Because when we don't have the individuals who are in those elected positions who are also mirroring those types of questions, then they're going to get left unchecked. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But that's what we saw, you know, with with XAI was that it was the community that started asking questions. It wasn't necessarily fully coming from the conversations that they had from the beginning mm-hmm <affirmative>. When it came to like bringing a project like that online. You know, we're in a moment now where community members are like, even if we don't have the individuals who are supposed to be representing us asking those questions, we are going to ask those questions. And then when the time comes for us to be able to have elected individuals who represent us, we're also going to make sure that that's the case as well.

Katelan Cunningham (24:58):

A lot of states are in this election period right now I'm in, we're in California, there's election happening. So this is the time, this is the time to be asking those potentially elected officials, what are you gonna do? Because this is inevitably gonna happen to so many communities. In the process of working on this episode, I, I found myself wondering, why, why isn't there a playbook? Why aren't there some lists of questions for people to ask? And then I found out that the NAACP released the Frontline framework earlier this, this year. I would love if you could tell us a little bit about that.

Abre' Connor (25:26):

When we first got involved with our work in Memphis, and also we started to hear from other, um, of our branches and our state conferences across the country, uh, it became very clear that we needed to have a unified approach to how we were approaching and how communities could approach like the conversations Yeah. Like where are we even starting from when it comes to data center advocacy? And so we actually built out a convening that actually led to the principals. We did that with local organizations in Memphis. Um, we did it at A-H-B-C-U, uh, Lemoine Owen actually in the area. And we had over a hundred different organizations, activists, coalitions that were represented either virtually or in person. And we built it based off of the 17 environmental justice principles in order to have a starting point and had conversations with folks who actually developed out those EJ principles as well.

Abre' Connor (26:30):

And it was the first set of data center principles that have been nationally developed around how community guided principles should look. And they are that our health and the environment are sacred, that communities most affected must lead that jobs cannot justify harm, accountability must be enforceable, that we reject false solutions. And fossil fuel dependency infrastructure must be community led, interconnected harms require interconnected solutions. Solidarity builds power. And that we walk our talk. And what was really important even in developing the principles, was also just the community that was built during those several days that we were there in Memphis with folks who had said like, wow, we thought we were the only group that was fighting on data center issues in our communities, or we didn't know that, you know, there was this other group in in the other part of the country who also was like dealing with the same challenges that we were. And I will say that I think that, you know, folks being there and being able to be energized, you know, at the height of the conversations of people trying to figure out what it is that they could do, you know, well before there were many other conversations that were happening. I think that that helped create a silver lining, um, for communities who at that point did not feel like there was the unification to allow for the mobilization to happen in the way that we're seeing it now.

Katelan Cunningham (27:59):

So we know we're in a space where for the most part, data centers are not being shed in a good light. And it makes me wonder, you know, a future for AI seems inevitable in some sense. They're not just gonna turn around and shut all these data centers down tomorrow, but I wonder is there a good data center? Is there a model of a data set of of, of a data center that's doing right by the communities and the environment? Does that exist? And if not, what does that look like to you? Is there, is there a future according to all the research and the sort of like time you spent with the these communities? Is that a thing that can exist?

Abre' Connor (28:32):

One of the things that we wanted to really emphasize in our entire stop Dirty data campaign, and, and the way that, you know, we want communities to feel empowered to make these decisions, is to highlight that this is not a conversation around the broader technology around what it means for us to make technological advances. Right? Hmm. Because there is like, you know, this conflation of like, oh, AI means, and a and hyperscale AI data centers means technology advances. And we've been making technological advances for many years before we had hyperscale AI data centers that ever, you know, were a part of the conversation. And I think that us having a conversation around what are the technological advances that are needed in order to assist, you know, humanity, our ecosystem more broadly, I think we should definitely continue to have those conversations. And at the same time we have to have a real conversation around what it means to bring on a hyperscale data center into a community.

Abre' Connor (29:48):

Do does it need to happen right now? Mm-hmm. Do we need more time in order to sit back, pause to do the research to see whether or not it even makes sense to build it there? When I first graduated from law school, I moved to the Central Valley of California and I was doing a lot of work with migrant farm workers and in places where, uh, companies and the oil and gas industry was like, Ooh, this would be great for fracking <laugh>. Um, and so a lot of the conversations right at that time was around, if we don't get fracking moving as quickly as possible, we are going to miss this moment for energy dominance, for us to be able to make the advances that we need and the energy sector and we have to do it now. We need to make sure that we get the contracts in place for several decades so that we can have time to build this out.

Abre' Connor (30:44):

And communities were saying at that time, like, this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to us, but I'm not sure why. Like, what is the rush? What is the speed that is needed? And then, you know, a lot of the tactics that we saw then as it relates to, oh, we'll fix this one small thing within the community and that'll be a way to offset, you know, all the environmental impacts right, that are happening to, to people and to wildlife and to the entire ecosystem. And then what we saw, you know, within the next decade after that was the harms for having fracking by far did not outweigh the benefits that were supposed to be put in place. There were rarely any decommissioning plans that were put in place. And so now we have all this infrastructure that lives in communities that we now know from, you know, hundreds and quite frankly thousands of reports, um, will lead to long-term health impacts for the people who live there.

Abre' Connor (31:46):

And I think that now that's the conversation that we should be having, the conversation we need to be having now is what does this really mean for us moving forward? What is the future of humanity and our entire ecosystem, our wildlife, our resources, what is that going to mean if we move at this speed? Yeah. And it, it means that we are going to end up completely removing our entire ecosystem from existence. Then we have to be honest with ourselves and say, is this the right direction or do we need to redirect and make sure that our technological conversations really encompass a future that we can all be very proud of? Because I think that this conversation is also one around democracy, you know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Localized democracy, people being able to make decisions for themselves. And that is something that is inherent to us being able to progress as a people and as humanity and as a larger ecosystem is, you know, us being able to have ownership within our own decisions. And the more that we completely remove that from, you know, everyday decisions, then what does that say about the future of where we're heading?

Katelan Cunningham (33:05):

Thank you so, so much for the work that you're doing for coming to talk to us about it. I really appreciate it.

Abre' Connor (33:10):

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Katelan Cunningham (33:23):

If you wanna get a look at the NAACP's recommendations for protecting frontline communities to stop dirty data, look no further than the show notes. We've got a link right there for you. Now maybe you've thought if big tech needs all this power, why aren't they building a ton of solar panels with the same fervor as they're building data centers? I was wondering that. So I called up commons founders, St. Charlie, St. Paul to get a glimpse at how AI is reshaping our grid. So we've been talking in this episode about communities pushing back against data centers, but I wanna zoom in on something really specific. I wanna zoom in on the energy story because all these data centers need a ton of ideally cheap energy to operate. Can this be an opportunity for renewable energy demand to grow?

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:16):

It is absolutely an opportunity. Renewable energy is already cheaper than fossil fuel derived energy in the US even without subsidies. So the way we know this is energy costs are typically measured in something called the levelized cost of energy or the LCOE. It's basically the average net present cost of generating a single unit of electricity like a kilowatt hour over the lifetime of that asset. And there's an investment bank called Lazar that does an annual analysis comparing the LCOE of different sources of energy. And around five or seven years ago, we started hitting a tipping point where renewable energy started outperforming fossil fuels. Generally on an ongoing basis, onshore wind and utility scale solar are cheaper than natural gas or coal. Wow,

Katelan Cunningham (35:03):

I didn't know that. That's pretty incredible, especially given the amount of subsidies we know the fossil fuel industry has already gotten.

Sanchali Seth Pal (35:10):

It's really exciting. And to be fair, this does vary depending on the location and whether you're comparing a new build versus something existing. Like it's cheaper to run an existing coal plant than to invest in a totally new utility scale solar plant. But it's really exciting. Basically if you need a lot of cheap abundant energy for this foreseeable future, you think that's gonna grow and you don't want prices to increase once you've depleted those natural gas wells. Or if your oil gets stuck in the straight of ous, you're really gonna wanna lean on renewables. It is just good business sense.

Katelan Cunningham (35:43):

So the big question is, is this happening? Are the companies that are building these data centers shifting to renewables

Sanchali Seth Pal (35:50):

In some ways? Yes. Um, tech companies are signing wind contracts pledging to go carbon neutral. One of the most interesting parts of this story is actually that AI is resuscitating nuclear energy from its grave. Nuclear has been something we haven't wanted to touch because there've been so many disasters in the past. For example, three Mile Island is the site of one of the worst nuclear energy disasters in US history, but it recently announced that it is being restarted thanks to a grant from Microsoft. And nuclear is particularly interesting to tech companies because it can operate at full capacity 24 7, unlike wind and solar is not something that's available part of the day or part of the year and not the rest of the year. And everyone who's anyone in tech is paying attention to nuclear, whether it's Gates, Musk, Bezos, even Sim Altman, they all have their nuclear energy investments. So in some ways the AI boom is almost waking companies up to the reality that we need to bet big on renewable energy too and we need to do it now.

Katelan Cunningham (36:51):

Okay. So on the surface, this sounds to me like a win, and I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer, but I feel like I know better. I learned that if something sounds too good to be true, that's often the case. Is that the case here and now?

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:06):

Oh my gosh, you are not gonna love my answer.

Katelan Cunningham (37:08):

No,

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:10):

I mean there's lots of good things, but it's just not that simple. It is true that tech companies are prioritizing renewable energy largely 'cause it makes good business sense, but it's just not happening as fast as the media makes it sound.

Katelan Cunningham (37:23):

All right. Walk me through it. What's happening?

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:25):

Basically a lot of these announcements are really early stage investments. There are things that aren't gonna materialize for a little while, and even where there's commitments to net zero or a hundred percent renewable energy being made right now, it's happening at least partially by using renewable energy certificates or wrecks. These are basically credits that say somewhere in the grid, renewable power was generated and I'm gonna buy those credits to match my consumption. So I get to claim I'm a hundred percent renewable.

Katelan Cunningham (37:54):

Okay, tell me if this analogy is right Rex. Sound to me. Like if I called my cousin in Baltimore and I said, Hey, I'm gonna pay you for a tree, A tree that you already have in your lawn, and I'm here in Los Angeles and I say, Hey, I paid my cousin for a tree, I'm reforesting. Is that kind of what a wreck is?

Sanchali Seth Pal (38:14):

Kind of? Yeah. It's like saying, Hey, I'm sending a signal that I really like this good thing that you're doing, but you're already doing it. So I'm saying keep doing that thing. If I'm buying a rack, I'm telling utilities, I love that you have renewables, but I'm not actually creating new ones to be honest like I do this. It's how I personally express demand for renewable energy as an individual.

Katelan Cunningham (38:38):

That's interesting. So tell me more about how you buy Rex for yourself at your own house.

Sanchali Seth Pal (38:44):

Yeah, basically I'm a renter, so I can't install solar, but I do have the option to buy Rex via my community choice energy provider, which basically bundles in renewable energy credits with electrons from my utility provider, pg e. So I like these tech companies. I'm using a rack to support renewable energy somewhere on the grid. I'm sending a faint signal out there into the market saying there are buyers who value racks. It's almost like a vote of encouragement to energy suppliers to keep doing what they're doing on renewables, but it's not having a direct positive impact in my community necessarily. Just like tech companies buying Rex aren't having an impact for local communities around their data centers.

Katelan Cunningham (39:25):

So Rex are better than nothing

Sanchali Seth Pal (39:29):

But not as good as installing new renewable energy on site. Onsite emissions is the actual carbon intensity on the local grids where data centers are physically running and that's what we need to address directly to have an impact on people's lives between 2020 and 2024, for instance, both Microsoft and Google have doubled their onsite emissions.

Katelan Cunningham (39:49):

That is a lot. So what would it take to actually compensate for these onsite emissions?

Sanchali Seth Pal (39:56):

So the gold standard for compensation is additionality. The idea is if you are creating net new demand for power that didn't exist before, you can't just compensate for that by buying credits from a solar farm that was already built and already supplying electrons to people. You need to fund the construction of brand new renewable energy that wouldn't have existed without your investment. You need to add clean energy to the grid, not just reshuffle the accounting.

Katelan Cunningham (40:21):

Is this progress happening anywhere?

Sanchali Seth Pal (40:24):

It's starting. Big tech companies are making some moves to lower and compensate for new emissions coming online. We're seeing signals like Alphabet. Google's parent company recently spent $4.75 billion in cash to acquire intersect, which is a company that builds renewable energy infrastructure for data centers. Microsoft has signed agreements for nuclear power and is directly investing in reactor technology like we discussed.

Katelan Cunningham (40:50):

Okay, maybe I'm expecting too much here. Like this stuff sounds great, but these tech giants are giant. It feels like they should be the ones that are just undoubtedly trailblazing and completely changing the state of our grid to to transition to renewable energy much faster.

Sanchali Seth Pal (41:07):

Companies in the US are spending billions of dollars to build data centers and the pace of their technology and infrastructure scaling is extremely fast. So it's possible for them to move quickly and at scale, but that pressure is coming from the market. Companies are motivated to build quickly, and there's not necessarily a very strong motivation to do it in a way that's directly paying off for our communities.

Katelan Cunningham (41:31):

How do we create this motivation? Are there any states that are doing this?

Sanchali Seth Pal (41:36):

Yes. In February, Illinois introduced the Power Act, which would require data centers to pay for their own energy generation and source from new renewable energy and energy storage facilities. The Power Act would also require transparent requirements for water usage and cumulative environmental impact assessments before creating data centers near frontline communities.

Katelan Cunningham (41:59):

Okay. I love this example. It's great to look at other states as a model to work from. If we can get more states to enact these kinds of regulations, would that change anything about how these data centers operate in our communities?

Sanchali Seth Pal (42:14):

Well, new solar or wind projects or nuclear projects built to serve data centers don't just clean up that particular data center's footprint. They add capacity to the regional grid. That means lower carbon intensity, better reliability, maybe even cheaper prices for electricity for the whole community.

Katelan Cunningham (42:31):

The thing that I found really heartening and equally discouraging <laugh> about this episode is the fact that we individuals in our communities have to do so much of the work to show up for this. It's annoying that these checks and balances are not put in place before things get this far. Like why weren't we having this conversation five years ago?

Sanchali Seth Pal (42:51):

Totally. It is really interesting to be here at the dawn of a new industry. This is not something that comes around that often. Like we weren't around when the auto industry was created, but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the way data centers are governed today will determine the health and wealth of our communities for generations. It's an important moment to stop and say, what are the things we're gonna look back on in 20 years and 50 years and a hundred years? And be proud that we advocated for today.

Katelan Cunningham (43:20):

And it's really inspiring that communities are already showing up now to make this change at the ballot box and city council meetings and the data center locations.

Sanchali Seth Pal (43:29):

Yeah, we are showing up and saying, if you're gonna use our grid, let's build something now that makes it better.

Katelan Cunningham (43:35):

Yes, we are. Thank you so much, char.

Sanchali Seth Pal (43:38):

Thanks, Caitlin.

Katelan Cunningham (43:52):

In these early days of this new technology, extreme caution, discretion, skepticism and scrutiny are all necessary. And unfortunately, it seems like communities are the main ones carrying this burden to try and prevent and remedy direct harm by these data centers.

Katelan Cunningham (44:12):

One way to somewhat reconcile that would be for data centers to relinquish some of their ownership, which may sound a bit ambitious, but Senator Bernie Sanders recently put forth a bill that we're keeping our eyes on. It's called the AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. And the legislation would give the public direct ownership stake in some of the largest AI companies. I really hope that we can continue to show up and keep these data centers accountable, but I also hope that people in office and the people running these companies will also show up for communities and for environmental equity. Here's to showing up and making some noise. The momentum and enthusiasm of the AI movement must be matched by our own momentum and enthusiasm for environmental equity. And it doesn't seem like they're slowing down anytime soon. So we shouldn't either. Thanks to the folks out there who are already showing up in their communities today. You heard from some of them. This episode was edited and engineered by Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Kaitlyn Cunningham, with resource support from McKenna mc Ty. Stick around for one more minute to hear from someone in the climate community who could use a hand. And I'll uh, catch you back here next week for our season five finale.