Data Centers, AI, & the Growing Demand for Energy: Impacts, Risks, & Solutions

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.

Learn how the rapid growth of data centers is affecting electricity bills, public health, communities, and the environment and what can be done about it.

Data centers, the physical infrastructure powering the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and our increasingly digital lives, are expanding at an unprecedented pace and scale around the world. This growth is creating enormous new demand for electricity and other resources, with consequences for communities and the environment. In the United States, where data center development is surging, unchecked growth could raise electricity bills for families and small businesses, strain power grids and water supplies, increase pollution, and slow progress toward a clean energy future.

Communities should not be left to bear the costs of this expansion without a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them. People deserve transparency and a real say in whether and how data centers are built. The wealthy technology companies driving this growth should pay for the infrastructure their facilities require rather than shifting those costs onto the public, bring new clean energy to meet new electricity demand, and meet strong protections for public health and the environment.

Linked below are fact sheets, expert blogs, guides, and other resources that explore the impacts of data center development in the United States and around the world as well as solutions that can help ensure people and the planet remain at the center of the decisions ahead.

AI Has an Energy Problem

Asking ChatGPT a quick question might feel innocuous, but you might end up paying for it in the long run. The massive data centers that are popping up around the country to support the AI boom are using up enormous amounts of energy and water and creating noise and air pollution. NRDC’s Ben Schaefer, senior manager of strategic communications, and Jackson Morris, director of state power sector policy, dive into how these centers can impact nearby communities and your energy bill.

Data, Reports & Analyses

Read various reports, analyses, blogs, and backgrounds here.

Article from NRDC.