An analysis by Business Insider revealed that the growth of data centers is forcing utilities to abandon renewable energy targets and turn to fossil fuels, increasing the estimated yearly public health expenses of data centers attributable to air pollution to between $5.7 billion and $9.2 billion.
The demand for electricity in data centers is significantly more than what renewable power can now supply, as Big Tech places bets on generative AI. Utility firms claim that fossil fuels produce more affordable and dependable electricity to power the increasing number of data centers that operate around the clock.
In the US, developers have applied for licenses for 1,240 data centers as of 2024, which is almost four times as many as in 2010. The ensuing spike in demand for power is already among the biggest since the start of World War II, according to Julie Cohn, a research historian at the University of Houston’s Center for Public History.
According to the report, the power demand of all allowed facilities may range from 149.6 to 239.3 terawatt-hours per year if they all go online. The state of Ohio’s electricity demands in 2023 would be almost equal to the low end of Business Insider’s forecast, while the high end would be almost as much power as the whole state of Florida needed in the same year. According to a federal analysis from 2024, demand may increase to levels that are greater than Business Insider’s projections by 2026. The effects are most noticeable in communities that are already stressed by pollution.
According to IT businesses, customer demand is what drives their power usage. The sector is directly motivated to utilize electricity effectively, they add, because power is the biggest operational expense for data centers.
The tech behemoths have highlighted their renewable energy pledges in their discussions of their data center construction spree. Amazon declared last year that it has made billions of dollars in investments in over 500 wind and solar projects across the world to power its activities, including data centers. A $10 billion contract was revealed by Microsoft to construct renewable energy infrastructure for its data centers. Google agreed to pay $20 billion to do the same. Despite such attempts, these cutting-edge computer farms are frequently fuelled by traditional energy sources that emit pollution.
The billion-dollar pollution problem
According to the report, the power generation for data centers might result in public health expenses of between $5.7 and $9.2 billion if all permitted data centers are brought online. It is anticipated that between 190,000 and 300,000 episodes of asthma symptoms, such as coughing, chest tightness, or wheezing, and between 370 and 595 premature fatalities will occur annually.
Business Insider used information from the backup generator permits for the 1,240 data centers it identified, including the power output and the maximum pollutant emissions the generators could produce, to calculate these impacts. This method was partially inspired by research conducted by Julie Bolthouse of the Piedmont Environmental Council, who looked at Virginia air permits.
Business Insider utilized the permit data, guided by expert estimates of data center electricity use, to determine the proportion of emissions from power plants on their electrical networks that were attributed to the data centers.
Business Insider then used an Environmental Protection Agency methodology that evaluates the expenses to prevent outcomes like heart attacks, asthma attacks, missing school or work days, and premature deaths to estimate the public health burden from those pollutants.
At 30 to 48 terawatt-hours annually, Amazon’s 177 data centers are expected to have the largest power use, with the midpoint of the range being roughly equivalent to 3.6 million US homes based on typical use. About half of that would be used by Microsoft’s 44 data centers.
Microsoft makes large investments in carbon-free power everywhere it operates, according to a Microsoft representative, who also linked the company’s need on fossil fuels to their usage by utilities.
A representative for Amazon emphasized the company’s dedication to expanding the supply of renewable energy sources, but she did not respond to Business Insider’s estimations of the costs of public health or offer data on electricity usage. According to a different Amazon representative, Business Insider’s approach of calculating consumption is predicated on assumptions that fail to take into consideration significant variations in how businesses construct and run data centers, and it oversimplifies intricate data center operations.
In response to Business Insider’s inquiries concerning our methodology for calculating data center power consumption, QTS declined to comment, and neither Google nor Meta responded. A representative for Microsoft said that the company’s data centers “do not always run at 100% of their installed capacity.”
Toxic generators
Every month, data centers test their backup generators, which typically last less than an hour and occasionally supply emergency power. According to permits, the air pollutants emitted by these generators can cause hospitalizations, ER visits, and asthma diagnoses.
According to a report submitted to the Virginia Senate last year, data center generators in the state released 7% of the total pollutants permitted under their permits in 2023. Business Insider calculated that if all of the country’s planned and current generators released at the same rate, they would release almost 2,500 tons of nitrogen oxides annually. That is the same as more than two million passenger automobiles traveling back and forth between California and New York.
Business Insider estimated, using the EPA tool, that data center generators alone might cause about 20,000 episodes of asthma symptoms annually and result in a public health impact of $385 million.
Google and QTS spokespeople said that Business Insider’s generator emission methodology was based on erroneous assumptions that exaggerated the utilization of backup generators. Business Insider was informed by Microsoft that its backup generators operate “much fewer hours annually than the industry-wide average used in the EPA estimates.” Amazon stated that more investigation was required to confirm the conclusions of Business Insider.
According to a spokesman of the industry interest organization Data Center Coalition, data centers are “actively evaluating alternatives that can provide similar reliability, fuel availability, siting flexibility, and workplace safety protections” to conventional diesel-powered generators.
Models of generators release various quantities of particular pollutants each year. In one air permit, QTS calculated that the yearly emissions from a facility’s generators may result in sulfur dioxide emissions as low as 2% of permit limits and nitrogen oxide emissions as high as 32% of permit limits.
According to a Business Insider investigation that put all 1,240 data center sites onto a different EPA tool, more than 230 data centers nationwide—nearly one in every five—are in neighborhoods already overloaded by environmental pollution. The program combines census demographic data with information on 13 monitored contaminants within a mile radius.
These towns may suffer catastrophic consequences if their pollution burdens increase: There is a greater prevalence of asthma among children there. Preterm births are more common among mothers.
With 29 sites in regions with exceptionally high pollution loads, Amazon owns the most of these data centers.
Roughly half of Cogent’s facilities, a quickly growing developer with 13 approved centers according to Business Insider, are placed in overloaded towns; similarly, Google and QTS have roughly one in five of their centers located in overburdened communities.
Clean energy, on paper
Compared to less than 2% in 2018 and 4.4% in 2023, data centers are predicted to contribute at least 6.7% and perhaps as much as 12% of all power used in the United States by 2028, according to the 2024 government assessment. According to official data, fossil fuel-fired power plants account for 60% of the US electrical grid’s power.
In order to counteract negative effects, developers of huge data centers are pledging to make significant investments in renewable energy projects like wind farms and solar power plants, as well as financing the expansion of nuclear power. In Virginia and Washington state, Amazon committed over $500 million last year to develop nuclear power through power purchase agreements, while Microsoft intends to buy 100% of the electricity produced by Three Mile Island if regulators allow the reopening of the closed nuclear plant.
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the amount of carbon-free electricity capacity contracted for by Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google increased by 69% in the year ending in February. Big Tech businesses also purchase renewable energy certificates, which involve compensating someone else for each megawatt of electricity sent to the grid using renewable sources.
Aaron Tinjum, an energy policy director with the Data Center Coalition, told Virginia regulators last year that data center operators and owners are unique in their dedication to decarbonization through sustainable energy and their leadership in this regard.
Meanwhile, the demand for data centers is forcing regulators and utilities to abandon planned renewable projects in favor of continuing to use coal power plants and expanding their natural gas power plants.
To meet power demand driven primarily by data centers, Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electricity utility, told regulators in 2024 that it was “infeasible” to switch to renewable electricity generation entirely, as required by state law. Instead, the company suggested using more renewable energy sources in addition to increasing amounts of fossil fuel-fired power.
Dominion Energy spokesperson Aaron Ruby told Business Insider that the company was still trying to boost sustainable energy and that its plans to fulfill historic power demand were in compliance with state law.
In late 2024, Louisiana’s largest energy provider, Entergy, informed regulators that it would have to construct three natural gas plants in order to meet the demand for electricity from a newly planned Meta data center.
Similarly, early this year, Mississippi Power officials informed regulators that the state’s largest coal power plant, which was originally set to close in 2028, would need to continue to operate in order to meet data center demand. Business Insider estimates that once fully operational, a single Amazon data center in Mississippi will require 2 to 3.3 terawatt-hours annually. That is equivalent to the electrical use of 240,000 homes in the United States on average.
A representative for Meta told Business Insider that the company has contracts for more than 15 gigawatts of new renewable energy. According to a representative, Amazon is dedicated to achieving net-zero carbon emissions in all areas of its business by 2040.
Inquiries were not answered by Entergy and Southern Company, the parent company of Georgia Power and Mississippi Power.
Threats to Waterways
Urban planners and river ecologists caution that the development of data centers jeopardizes the habitats of sensitive species even before they are put online.
According to a Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development environmental impact analysis last year, an 11-building Amazon data center site would permanently harm over 6 acres of wetlands.
A representative for Amazon informed Business Insider that the business will carry out a research on wildlife management and would look into ways to reduce its impact on wetlands and species of concern.
According to a 2022 report commissioned by the National Parks Conservation Association, up to 1,350 tons of sediment would be dumped into Quantico Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, due to construction-related soil erosion from two data centers planned in Virginia. This would clog fish gills and decrease their resistance to disease. According to the paper, an increase in sediment would run the risk of altering the waterway itself, which might upset ecosystems and endanger frogs, turtles, and other aquatic life.
Concerns were also expressed in the study on the huge releases of tainted cooling water from data centers. According to the paper, that discharge would put aquatic creatures at risk for swelling quantities of metals, petroleum-based pollutants, pesticides, and herbicides, which might result in sores and malformations.
Data center violations
Over the previous 20 years, data centers in nine states received 56 civil fines from state and federal environmental inspectors, totaling at least $1.4 million, according to Business Insider. These were Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act infractions that carried penalties of at least $100,000.
The top two companies on the list are Equinix and CyrusOne, which operate so-called colocation data centers that rent out processing capacity to other businesses. They have seven and six fines, respectively, followed by QTS with four and Amazon with three.
In Business Insider’s research, Digital Realty, one of the major colocators, generated the highest monetary amount of fines. An environmental inspector in Virginia discovered nine emergency generators operating without permits in a data center owned by Loudoun County Digital Realty in 2018. The inspector stated in his enforcement recommendation plan that data center developers “have an economic incentive to construct facilities quickly” and that Digital Realty “made a business decision and enjoyed the economic benefit” by adding generators without a permit. The business finally consented to pay $317,913 in 2020 to settle all penalties after further infractions for exceeding allowed generator limitations and using generators without permission during periods of high pollution. Regarding Business Insider’s findings, Digital Realty chose not to respond.
Meanwhile, there is still a possibility of contaminated water. An industrial “Chemical Belt” QTS data center in New Jersey paid $179,000 in 2023 to resolve allegations that it had not sufficiently monitored pollutants released into Ambrose Brook. Water comprising chemical descalers, algaecides, and corrosive antibacterials is continually released by the plant during the winter.
QTS settled with no admittance of fault. According to a QTS representative, the Piscataway data center met all monitoring criteria and was in complete compliance with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection permit. The spokesman also stated that QTS resolved three additional environmental regulatory issues at data centers and was fully compliant with the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
A representative for Amazon stated that the business has a history of adhering to environmental laws.
A CyrusOne representative told Business Insider that the company is dedicated to environmental responsibility and conforms with environmental rules. According to an Equinix representative who spoke to Business Insider, the company had not fully complied with permitting, timing and tracking, and emissions requirements in certain limited circumstances, but “we aggressively work to ensure that our facilities are in full compliance with all applicable regulations.”
