The Data Center Backlash Should Also Be a Climate Reckoning. It Isn’t Yet

Welcome to the latest edition of Power Play! From now until the midterms, senior writer Molly Taft will be sharing their thoughts every Sunday on this political season’s hottest issue: data centers. We welcome reader comments, and will be answering questions from the comments section in future editions.The post-lunchtime Climate Week panel featuring tech executives working on AI and data centers was only about a minute into the discussion when a man stood up a few rows over from me in the audience and started yelling.“The idea that we can keep running on fracked gas is a lie!” he exclaimed as security tackled him.The panel tried to get back to business after the protester was removed—only to be interrupted again when another person stood up. That’s how things proceeded for the next 10 minutes as protesters with the group Extinction Rebellion NYC staggered interruptions, yelling about various harms of AI over the speakers onstage, who tried valiantly to continue their conversation.For nearly a decade, Extinction Rebellion groups have used public protest to draw attention to the climate emergency, staging disruptions at corporate-friendly events like this one at Climate Week. Usually, these types of interruptions draw polite silences or subtle eyerolls from panelists waiting for them to stop.But this experience seemed particularly frustrating to these panelists. Cully Cavness, the cofounder and president of data center infrastructure company Crusoe, confessed to the session’s moderator that he was still thinking about the interruption several minutes after security had taken the last protester out.I get why they were on edge. The protest at the panel was a microcosm of the tough couple of months for data center defenders, with public opinion at rock-bottom levels and moratoriums popping up in red and blue states. It’s understandable why tech folks would be tense.Cavness, at one point, said that he assumed most of the protesters probably didn’t even live near a data center and didn’t understand the benefits they could bring to the local tax base. Emerald AI’s Varun Sivaram forged ahead talking about how data centers could become “good citizens,” to work on the grid to lower bills and bring more clean energy online.“Careful what you wish for,” Sivaram cautioned the now-absent protesters near the end of the session, warning that depriving communities of data centers could deprive them of good actors to help transform the grid.Lots of folks might take the opportunity, as the protesters did, to yell at a data center executive if given the chance. But unlike the Extinction Rebellion NYC members, climate change almost certainly wouldn’t be the first thing on their minds. Data centers were a hot topic at Climate Week, but it’s also a self-selecting event where people care about one particular issue.Local concerns—the kind Sivaram and Cavness seemed to be responding to—have dominated the larger national conversation around data center dissent. Poll after poll show that climate is one of the last data center-related environmental concerns on the list for many voters behind water, energy use (and its impact on bills), and local air and noise pollution. Even some climate folks—notably investors—see the state of the atmosphere as a backseat issue. “Climate Week could basically be ‘AI and data center week,” cofounder and managing partner at VoLo Earth told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s all about energy, and most of us as climate investors, myself included, are focused on the energy system.”During Climate Week, I also caught up with William Lawrence, who is currently locked in a tight race for Michigan’s 7th congressional district. Lawrence knows the climate crisis well—he’s one of the original founders of the Sunrise Movement climate activist group. He’s also made data center opposition, as well as opposition to AI, a cornerstone of his pitch to voters, which helped him win a tough Democratic primary.Lawrence says there are at least three hyperscalers building projects in his district, and he just released a wide-ranging platform to stop AI development. The platform says that data centers “threaten our air, water and quality of life,” but makes no mention of climate change. When I ask him about the omission, he says that there are Michiganders coming to him with climate concerns about data centers, although water concerns and energy bills tend to rank higher. He says that in general, there’s a strong “environmental consciousness” animating the data center movementt—which may include climate, but isn’t always expressed exclusively in terms of worries about emissions.“We have a small amount of billionaires and political insiders who have made it impossible to feel confident about the future,” he says. “They’ve destabilized our ecological system. They’ve destabilized the political order.”Sivaram’s point that the massive influx of electricity demand from data centers could help to transform our electricity sector for the better is true. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening on the ground, where data centers are facilitating a massive fossil fuel buildout that’s happening faster than expected.A day before the panel, at a different briefing, I watched BloombergNEF analysts talk about the group’s projections of a massive new influx of demand for fossil fuel power over the coming years, driven primarily by data centers. Data centers, according to BNEF’s analysis, will likely comprise more than 5 percent of global electricity demand by 2035, tripling their needs now. The majority of that demand will be met by new and existing natural gas plants, and could raise the power sector’s emissions by 6 percent in less than 10 years.That doesn’t even account for gas power plants being built off the grid to service data centers. A separate BNEF analysis of 99 proposed on-site gas power plants found that they could increase US power sector emissions by 20 to 33 percent if they’re all built, posing a major climate threat. Declines in emissions from coal plant retirements will be more than offset by new gas emissions, and more coal plants are staying online thanks to the new demand.Even if data centers pull off the PR turnaround of the century and ease concerns about water use and energy bills, the fossil fuel buildout still looms as one of the biggest consequences of their buildout. Extinction Rebellion may, at the end of the day, be right: all those added emissions mean that even those of us who aren’t living near data centers will end up feeling their impacts.The post-lunchtime Climate Week panel featuring tech executives working on AI and data centers was only about a minute into the discussion when a man stood up a few rows over from me in the audience and started yelling.“The idea that we can keep running on fracked gas is a lie!” he exclaimed as security tackled him.The panel tried to get back to business after the protester was removed—only to be interrupted again when another person stood up. That’s how things proceeded for the next 10 minutes as protesters with the group Extinction Rebellion NYC staggered interruptions, yelling about various harms of AI over the speakers onstage, who tried valiantly to continue their conversation.For nearly a decade, Extinction Rebellion groups have used public protest to draw attention to the climate emergency, staging disruptions at corporate-friendly events like this one at Climate Week. Usually, these types of interruptions draw polite silences or subtle eyerolls from panelists waiting for them to stop.But this experience seemed particularly frustrating to these panelists. Cully Cavness, the cofounder and president of data center infrastructure company Crusoe, confessed to the session’s moderator that he was still thinking about the interruption several minutes after security had taken the last protester out.I get why they were on edge. The protest at the panel was a microcosm of the tough couple of months for data center defenders, with public opinion at rock-bottom levels and moratoriums popping up in red and blue states. It’s understandable why tech folks would be tense.Cavness, at one point, said that he assumed most of the protesters probably didn’t even live near a data center and didn’t understand the benefits they could bring to the local tax base. Emerald AI’s Varun Sivaram forged ahead talking about how data centers could become “good citizens,” to work on the grid to lower bills and bring more clean energy online.“Careful what you wish for,” Sivaram cautioned the now-absent protesters near the end of the session, warning that depriving communities of data centers could deprive them of good actors to help transform the grid.Lots of folks might take the opportunity, as the protesters did, to yell at a data center executive if given the chance. But unlike the Extinction Rebellion NYC members, climate change almost certainly wouldn’t be the first thing on their minds. Data centers were a hot topic at Climate Week, but it’s also a self-selecting event where people care about one particular issue.Local concerns—the kind Sivaram and Cavness seemed to be responding to—have dominated the larger national conversation around data center dissent. Poll after poll show that climate is one of the last data center-related environmental concerns on the list for many voters behind water, energy use (and its impact on bills), and local air and noise pollution. Even some climate folks—notably investors—see the state of the atmosphere as a backseat issue. “Climate Week could basically be ‘AI and data center week,” cofounder and managing partner at VoLo Earth told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s all about energy, and most of us as climate investors, myself included, are focused on the energy system.”During Climate Week, I also caught up with William Lawrence, who is currently locked in a tight race for Michigan’s 7th congressional district. Lawrence knows the climate crisis well—he’s one of the original founders of the Sunrise Movement climate activist group. He’s also made data center opposition, as well as opposition to AI, a cornerstone of his pitch to voters, which helped him win a tough Democratic primary.Lawrence says there are at least three hyperscalers building projects in his district, and he just released a wide-ranging platform to stop AI development. The platform says that data centers “threaten our air, water and quality of life,” but makes no mention of climate change. When I ask him about the omission, he says that there are Michiganders coming to him with climate concerns about data centers, although water concerns and energy bills tend to rank higher. He says that in general, there’s a strong “environmental consciousness” animating the data center movementt—which may include climate, but isn’t always expressed exclusively in terms of worries about emissions.“We have a small amount of billionaires and political insiders who have made it impossible to feel confident about the future,” he says. “They’ve destabilized our ecological system. They’ve destabilized the political order.”Sivaram’s point that the massive influx of electricity demand from data centers could help to transform our electricity sector for the better is true. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening on the ground, where data centers are facilitating a massive fossil fuel buildout that’s happening faster than expected.A day before the panel, at a different briefing, I watched BloombergNEF analysts talk about the group’s projections of a massive new influx of demand for fossil fuel power over the coming years, driven primarily by data centers. Data centers, according to BNEF’s analysis, will likely comprise more than 5 percent of global electricity demand by 2035, tripling their needs now. The majority of that demand will be met by new and existing natural gas plants, and could raise the power sector’s emissions by 6 percent in less than 10 years.That doesn’t even account for gas power plants being built off the grid to service data centers. A separate BNEF analysis of 99 proposed on-site gas power plants found that they could increase US power sector emissions by 20 to 33 percent if they’re all built, posing a major climate threat. Declines in emissions from coal plant retirements will be more than offset by new gas emissions, and more coal plants are staying online thanks to the new demand.Even if data centers pull off the PR turnaround of the century and ease concerns about water use and energy bills, the fossil fuel buildout still looms as one of the biggest consequences of their buildout. Extinction Rebellion may, at the end of the day, be right: all those added emissions mean that even those of us who aren’t living near data centers will end up feeling their impacts.What We’re WritingIf the data center gas buildout keeps raring ahead, the climate is going to need all the help it can get. This week, I covered the launch of a new startup that aims to use supercritical CO2 technology to make dirty data center gas turbines more efficient. It’s been studied for decades as a potential energy solution, but it’s yet to be successfully commercialized. The founders hope that deep-pocketed data center operators that are also hungry for power will bet on the tech to meet some of their energy needs and help bring down costs. Eventually, they want to expand the use of the technology to supercharge clean energy sources, like nuclear.What We’re ReadingGoogle will launch an experimental satellite next week outfitted with computer chips to test how data centers may perform in space. The company says the satellite will stay in orbit for a year; its equipment will answer "simple queries," the New York Times reports.Oracle has sent a force majeure notice, which could allow it to delay payments to the developer of its data center project in New Mexico, which has been plagued by multiple local environmental challenges and permitting issues. Bloomberg broke the story.Should Native American tribes support data center development? It's an issue splitting candidates and leaders all over the country; TIME has the story.