The Data Center Boom Is Toxic

[00:00:00] Molly Taft: I think I've seen a lot of times like, well, you know, you need a data center, you're online, you're using a data center right now. And that's totally true. But also like, why do you need more? I think is like what people say. [00:00:12] Speaker 2: Are AI data centers destroying the world? Are they really as bad as everyone's saying? And should we just ban the development of them? Over the past few years, the rapid expansion of data centers across the country has raised critical questions about energy consumption, water use, environmental sustainability, and public accountability. While tech companies frame these data centers as necessary for innovation and economic growth, critics argue that their hidden costs are increasingly being borne by local communities and public utilities. But how bad are data centers really? And what should we be doing to stop them? Molly Taft is a senior reporter at Wired covering climate and energy, and she's been reporting on all of this. So today we're going to dive deep into the data center boom and talk about the challenges and opportunities that it presents. Hi, Molly. Welcome to Power User. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So I want to start with kind of a very basic question, but it's one that like, honestly, I'm not even sure I could answer very succinctly, which is what is a data center? Like, how do you best explain what these things actually are and what they do? [00:01:13] Molly Taft: Yeah. So a data center is basically just a building that houses all of the equipment that we need to like do stuff on the internet, on the cloud, run any sort of compute that you need. You know, so if you enter this building, it's probably going to be like rows and rows of server racks. It's going to be some fiber optic cable. They don't look like much from the outside. You might have also had a data center like down the street from you and you never knew. Like a data center is technically just an area or a building where there is an equipment for computers. I mean, a lot of college campuses, for instance, have had smaller data centers and their tech centers for years. You know, there's like a really broad definition of what it is. I think when we're talking about data centers in 2026, they're often very different from what the data centers of yore might have been, for instance. And it's very basic definition. It's just where you put all the equipment you need to run technology, to run AI and to run the internet essentially. Well, I want to kind of break down some of those [00:02:14] Speaker 2: differences. I think it came out recently in one of my like neighborhood group. I work in downtown LA and there's a data center down here. So I'm sure there's maybe even several and people were like, this is why there's been smog in Silver Lake is because of the data center. And so I feel like it's caused a lot of anxiety. And I think they're a lot more common, as you mentioned, than people think. But when did this sort of new era of data centers become a thing? And kind of when did we see this departure from like the data centers of yore that were used for mostly powering like the internet, social media, Google maps and stuff to these AI powered data centers and how do they differ? [00:02:49] Molly Taft: Yeah, I think the, the biggest difference is, is scale. Basically I would date the conversation back to when chat GPT came out. Right. And we all of a sudden started talking about what the future of AI holds and the need to develop AI as fast as possible, specifically with LLMs. The difference with LLMs is that they require a lot more compute. Like these servers, basically they're just a lot beefier. They need a lot more energy and they need all of the infrastructure that comes with that energy. So they're running hot. Their cooling needs are really much different than the cooling needs of some of the older data centers. They require massive amounts of electricity. So like the scale is really the difference. So when we talk about data centers being built today, it is true that they are, they are quite different from the ones that might be in cities, or that might be on college campuses. It's simply a matter of scale. However, like inside the process is not much different. You're still running racks of servers. You have chips, even though they're different, it's just mostly the resources that go into it. I think people's perceptions of them have also been impacted by both like, you know, you had Brian Merchant on your show a couple of weeks ago and you guys were talking about the tech lash, right? In 2010, let's say Google is coming in to build a data center. Everyone loves Google. You know, that sounds like a great idea. Folks are generally open to tech. They do tend to add to the tech space of towns. It's a high tech building, but generally pretty low profile. No one minds too much. Fast forward to this year, the types of buildings that they're talking about constructing are a lot bigger. They have a bigger footprint, but we are also 15 years down the line. We have really pivoted culturally towards these companies correctly, right? You know, these, these are companies that have been very much at the forefront of American politics and American consciousness and have seen their role in society morph. And so when we're talking about building facilities for them in 2026, it's not just that they're bigger. It's that we have a different perception of what it means to be physically around this manifestation of big tech. So I think like interior, pretty similar inputs, pretty different and also attitudes towards what [00:04:58] Speaker 2: this means. Very, very different. Yeah. I feel like I really started to hear about the data center backlash in the past year and especially like being on YouTube, like that's when you start to see a lot more interest. I think these are also like, because they're physical buildings, they're things that people can go and like content creators can like go make a video about, like it's where it's a little bit harder when you're talking about some of these AI technologies or these AI companies to kind of like visualize the sort of the scale or the harm or whatever, but how bad are these data centers? I guess like that's kind of what I'm interested in getting into with you today. Cause you cover, you know, environment and stuff. And I feel like this has also become this meme online where I think there's so much harm attributed to them and maybe for good reason, but I am curious as somebody that's like covered this world, like when did these data centers become like harmful and when did we start to really associate them with like these environmental impacts or were they always kind of having a really intense environmental impact when we just weren't paying attention? [00:05:55] Molly Taft: I think that's a really good question. It's something a lot of people are asking them. We're talking about like what it means to give resources to private companies on the timeline and the scale that they want. And that's really the conversation that we're having. I'll back up. Like I got to wired like a little over a year ago and started writing about data centers because they were really cropping up. And I noticed that there was this like vitriol building in communities. I think a lot of it started in Northern Virginia is the densest stretch of data centers in the world. Historically it's near DC. It made sense in the past to cite these things where there was fiber connectivity, there was like good power and it's proximate to DC. It's close to a political hub of power. So like Northern Virginia is a hotspot, Washington and Silicon Valley were kind of the three big hotspots. Around 2023, 2024 Virginians started to be making a little bit more noise because they were noticing a lot more data centers come in. It was getting pretty crowded in, in that stretch. And they were also seeing an impact on their power bills. I think that's a really big, important issue. Like I said, these things suck up a lot of energy and there have been some pretty scary projections from the Virginia legislature. I think specifically put out some projections in late 2024 that was like, if we keep building these things, this will use a lot of power and it will stretch the grid. So I think that in Virginia, Virginia was really the nexus of a lot of this opposition. Fast forward to the summer of 2024, like around the same time that this dissatisfaction with the data centers in Virginia was building up there. Elon Musk starts to build XAI. And I think that that really helped also change the narrative on data centers because of how he went about it. In true Elon Musk form, he decided that he wanted to build Colossus One, his campus to power rock rock as fast as possible. And he started running into the same sort of bottlenecks that every data center developer does mainly speed to power. Like it takes a long time to get hooked up to the grid. And he said, you know what, like, I'm just going to build this as fast as possible. It's actually, I still think it's crazy. He basically found these natural gas generators that they use out in the Permian basin for like drilling and construction. And normally you would rent like one or two for your project. And he brought in, I think at the peak on Colossus One, it was like 35 and he just started running them. And he situated this campus in area of Memphis called Box Town, which is historically black neighborhood that already has some of the highest rates of asthma in the country. And he didn't get air permits for these turbines, basically through a loophole in the Clean Air Act, which is very debatable. We don't have to get into it, but like he ran these things for a year without like permits. And that caused a huge, rightfully so, the community got really, really pissed off with this. The NAACP is currently suing him for pulling a similar move across the state border in South Haven, Mississippi. And you know, I think you can still go on Twitter. And if you look into the replies of like a Grok generated tweet or something, you can see someone being like, this tweet was made and like depriving people of air. And like, I do think like in this case, it's like pretty demonstrably true. So that conflict, I think also really supercharged this. [00:09:04] Speaker 2: I feel like Elon Musk is such a bad actor. And to hear that he came in and kind of like, I don't want to say like destroyed data centers for everyone else, but I do think that like, he kind of, it sounds like took it to this really extreme place and started building this data center that is so deeply unethical and like harmful. But how much has that become the norm? And also, how is that campus operating today? I feel like it's gotten so much scrutiny, but it seems like it's still thriving. I have thought about this for a while. [00:09:32] Molly Taft: And I have heard rumblings from the industry that like, this did cause like a massive problem because it really put attention on this data center for polluting this neighborhood correctly. I think one distinction that we have to understand when we're talking about data centers that like, I don't see happening with a lot of other infrastructure is the amount of money and power that is being put behind to build them quickly. Like that is the number one goal for a lot of these companies is to get these things up as fast as possible. We're in a race, right? Like we hear that all the time. We're in the AI race and you know, the big bottleneck for a lot of these companies is building compute. And so I have to say a couple of weeks ago, Anthropic announced that they are going to be renting space in the Colossus one campus, which is the campus that has gotten so much negative press attention. It's also Anthropic, which is, you know, the good, the good AI company, which I really think shows that while the industry might have some hangups about how he chose to go about doing this, it was successful for him and they did take notes. So one thing that has started building that I've just been like really fascinated by is companies building their own power. This is a combination of different strategies and needs and responses to some of the public backlash. First of all, building your own power circumvents your need to connect to the electric grid, which can take years. It is really complicated for a large load like a data center to get connected, even with all of the weight of federal and state governments behind it. It's just like, there are long wait times for the grid. And then also if you build your own power, you can circumvent some of the criticism that data centers are raising electric bills, right? So like win, win. This is really unusual. So we basically now have a couple different companies, several different companies building their own power plants, which is not something that we generally did. Like that's not how power has traditionally been delivered even to like large industrial customers. But what we have now is these big data center developers are buying whatever they can find. I genuinely think a lot of them are really agnostic on power. I think it's whatever they can find as soon as possible. That does happen to be natural gas. In most cases, that is still like the easiest thing to set up and the cheapest baseload power you can get in many respects. I know a lot of them are working on nuclear, solar, wind, but like primarily it's gas. It's going to be gas. And so they are basically scrambling to build natural gas plants to power these data center projects, which is to me a pretty clear derivative of what Musk did, right? And so that is one genuine thing that I have been really focused on my reporting. And one thing that I am genuinely pretty worried about these data centers is because assuming even as many of these projects don't get made, right? Like there's a big question about how many of these projects are actually going to get built. Even assuming, you know, half of the projects, a third of the projects, two thirds of the projects don't make it. We are still pushing a pretty substantial like private natural gas build out. And also this doesn't even take into account the natural gas that's being added to the grid to meet projected demand, the coal plants that are staying online. So when you're talking about data centers and power, I, from a climate perspective, am pretty worried about what happens when we add more demand for fossil fuels specifically to the grid. Even if these things don't end up getting built, I can't foresee a company going through all these lengths to build like a natural gas plant and then being like, you know what? Nevermind. Like we don't need it. And I think they will probably find uses for it. But it's really, it's crazy. You can talk to experts and they're like, we don't really know what's going on. Like this is just not how we traditionally have built infrastructure. It's not traditionally how we've built power. It's kind of a brave new world. And I think for data centers in the environment, one big thing to consider is like the emissions of all of this. Right. And there are very smart people out there who have proposed really interesting solutions to make tech companies pay for renewables buildouts to make tech companies pay to fix our grid. There's so many problems with our grid that could use an influx of cash, right? Like our electric grid is like so fun, but like that's kind of not what's happening right now. Like I would love that, but that's not what we're doing. And so when the rubber meets the road, one of my big concerns environmentally about data centers is the fossil fuel use that's going to, that's going to come. [00:13:58] Speaker 2: Well, how does, you know, that increase in fossil fuels and all of these private power plants all over cropping up, like affect our landscape, like as a country. And how does it affect just people that that might not even live like next door to the data centers or next door to the power plant, but sort of like further on in another area of the state? [00:14:16] Molly Taft: I love this anecdote because I think it's so telling around the turn of the century, like late nineties, there was all of a sudden this panic over the internet taking up a lot of energy. And it was all like, oh my God, by the year 2010, the internet's going to take up half of American power. Right. So the solution there's literally, I think it's a Forbes cover article that was called like, dig more coal. The internet's coming. I'm paraphrasing, but basically the solution for like two or three years was like, we gotta, we gotta get more coal. We gotta, we gotta supercharge coal. Like this is the only thing that's going to work because the internet is going to eat so much power and we need it and that's it. And so of course that didn't happen. Like technology gets more efficient. It is like literally in these companies best interests to make their technology more efficient. The internet did not eat up half of American power demand by 2010, but like for a while, it definitely boosted the coal industry. So when we're talking about what's happening now, we are facing a projected energy increase for the first time in like a couple of decades, like American energy use has been pretty flat and it's good for our emissions. Like we have been bringing down emissions. That is generally good. We are now seeing this big demand. And so it would be great to meet that with renewable energy. It'd be great to meet that with like grid solutions, but like, it looks like there are several industries that stand to benefit from different scenarios. And like, I think my big concern is the fossil fuel build out. I think with the Musk situation that brings up local air pollution, which is like a different concern entirely. I think if you build a data center out in the middle of nowhere, not near any people that uses natural gas turbines, it's really not good for our larger planetary emissions. In terms of local air pollution, that might not be as much of a problem. The problem is to build a data center, you need a couple of components. One of them is fiber connectivity that often happens naturally in more populated areas. So you are building a data center. And if you are going to power it onsite with fossil fuels, you are going to have to be more concerned about the air quality. And so that's a separate issue. And that's what kind of got the Musk situation so much negative [00:16:29] Speaker 2: grass, right? If you're watching this video and you like my work, please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter at usermag.co. That's usermag.co. I don't have any long-term brand partnerships and a lot of my content is effectively demonetized. I've lost major brand deals for speaking out on certain issues and for challenging power. As you can imagine, advertisers are not exactly eager to work with somebody who covers a lot of the topics that I cover and talks about the things that I talk about. These videos I make are entirely funded by you and I can't continue to make them without your support. So if you get any value out of the videos that I create and you want me to be able to create more, please support me on Patreon or Substack via the links below. On Patreon, I do bonus episodes, monthly Q and A live streams, and post frequent updates about my work. My Substack newsletter gives you a bi-weekly roundup of everything that I'm seeing and reading and paying attention to online. You can also get my newsletter on Patreon. Once again, the links to everything are below in the description. Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. Well, also, I mean, I feel like if they're building out all of these gas powered power plants and stuff, like they're not going to suddenly want to switch to renewables. And it seems like, yeah, I think that a lot of companies, [00:17:44] Molly Taft: I think they genuinely would like to, and I think they are making genuine plans to try to do that. I don't, I think a lot of these companies are pretty agnostic. I don't think anyone is secretly in league with oil and gas, but it's also like you put in all that effort to build a power plant. And then in five years, I mean, you could, I guess, switch to solar, but also you have like a perfectly good natural gas plant. Those things last for like 30 years. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I don't know. [00:18:07] Speaker 2: I just, I feel like it's like, once it's there, it's easier to use, or maybe another company, a smaller company comes in and starts using it. Like if you're creating those systems, like, what are you going to do? You know, I just doubt that they're all going to be sort of taken offline. [00:18:21] Molly Taft: You are creating demand and supply. I can't like emphasize to how quickly things change on the ground. I did this big story about greenhouse gas emissions from like 10 or 12 proposed data center plants. And one of them was project Jupiter in New Mexico. And I think it was like 16 million tons of CO2 equivalents. And I emailed the company and I was like, Hey, correct me on the numbers. And they were like, actually those are wrong. We have changed what we're going to be using. And I was like, cool. Can you give me the numbers? And they were like, no, they were like, you'll have to wait until the permit comes out. And then the permit came out like two weeks later and they had partnered with a fuel cell company. So they were like, okay, our emissions are going to be substantially lower because we partnered with this fuel cell company. The thing is like the fuel cell company in question, like has never delivered that much product ever. It's like, it's substantially more than what they've built. So a lot of these companies are just like on the fly being like, what can we get? How fast things are changing? Like they're refiling permits. Like it is really hard to say definitively what is going to happen. But, you know, I do know that there is like a renewed interest in like powering a lot of this with natural gas, basically. And coal. There are a lot of coal plants staying online. [00:19:29] Speaker 2: With, I could think like the rise of all these data centers, like there's just been so much conversation about the environmental impacts. And you're mentioning air quality, which is horrible and terrifying. Like you're saying it's leading to rising emissions, greenhouse gases, whatever. But it seems like a lot of the issues that people take with the data centers are actually much more local than that. It's sort of how it's affecting like the local ecosystems, the local environments. And I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about that and like, how real are those problems? Like, are they limited? Are they not? Because it sounds like Elon Musk is obviously the worst actor of all time. But, but, you know, should people be scared if one of these data centers is potentially coming to their neighborhood? Like I said, people are finding out that their data centers exist around Los Angeles and freaking out. And so, yeah, like what is the more like localized impact on the environment outside of just potentially emissions from a gas powered power plant? [00:20:15] Molly Taft: I think one of the problems with talking about data centers is it like it is so dependent, right? It is like dependent on a number of different factors. I think like one of the things that people are the most concerned about is water, right? And this is a really thorny topic because we are like actually pretty bad at talking about water as a resource in general. So the water impacts I think are so dependent on location. They're so dependent on the design of the data center that it really is. You need information before you say you should be worried about this. You shouldn't be worried about this. But as to the other physical impacts of a data center, I hate to say there's like never going to be any concerns again because there are a lot of projects being built right now very quickly. There's some cooling methods that I've been looking into that do use forever chemicals, which is always a concern in terms of production and emissions. But like in general, they are big industrial buildings and the concern environmentally is like roughly the same as other big industrial buildings that make noise, right? I think people, when they talk about is this data center safe? A lot of what that code word is, or they are really expressing, in my opinion, a lot of the time is, is this worth the resources that we're putting towards it, right? Like, is this worth the water that this might need? Is this worth the land that it's going to be built on? Is this worth potentially having some air emissions, you know, even though there might be an industrial project, like a couple of like blocks or streets away that has similar air emissions? And I think for, for some people are very good at expressing there where they're like, I don't want any resources going towards this. And that's, that is like a valid opinion to have. You know, I think that that's where the conversation needs to start going about data centers, because like, in a lot of ways, they are very analogous to big industrial [00:22:09] Speaker 2: projects. That's kind of like, I guess, like what I've been curious about, because I think like when you see the conversations online, which is mostly where I feel like I follow a lot of this stuff happening, like there is this sort of blanket understanding of like, oh, data centers are going to destroy all the water. They're going to do it. And it sounds like in some cases that's maybe true in some instances or whatever, right? Like some are worse than others. Some are better than others. But it also seems like a lot of these concerns are really around like the construction issues where like there is an irresponsible contractor that's poisoned or, you know, gotten sediment into a local well. And that's not really data centers specific. And there's a lot of anger at these data centers. And, you know, we're talking about resources. I guess what the data center boosters will say is like having a data center could also bring millions of dollars of tax revenue into this town and actually help a lot of these people. And they're shooting themselves in the foot. And I'm sympathetic to some of those arguments in some cases, because it does seem like some of these people are just being a little bit unreasonable or hyperbolic about this stuff. And so I'm curious, like your thoughts and your take on those discussions and kind of the nuances of these issues. And like, I guess, how real are those concerns and how real are the trade offs as well from, you know, doing a data center moratorium, blocking all these data centers and then potentially not having any of the upside? Yeah, it's funny because I think there is a [00:23:25] Molly Taft: real divide between what gets amplified online. And when you talk to someone who's actually involved in like a local protest against data center, I will say like a lot of the work of actually stopping a data center moratorium is like really boring. Like you kind of have to be on top of like permits, county meetings. A lot of these people are pretty meticulously organized. And like, at least the ones I've spoken to are very careful to, to say we're not opposed to AI or we welcome economic development. We're just not sure about this project. And also to be fair, there are some projects where I'll look at this and I'll be like, I don't know what's going on here either. Like a lot of the dissent, the original dissent I find is a lot of this information is proprietary. So water use, especially that's proprietary. Companies are really not required to disclose their water use. That's like, it's not something that's public. If you're connecting to the grid, you don't even really have to say like how much energy you're going to be using. That's again, that's like between you and the utility. Again, like these are not heavily regulated structures. So like, it's kind of like a, in a many respects until recently, it's like a big mall going in. That's kind of the amount of oversight that they have. People are upset about that. And like, that is, I think where a lot of the outrage comes from is specifically, they are upset about what they perceive as like a lack of input on this coming to their, their area. A lot of times also the end tenants will not be public for a while. So like, if you've ever looked at the structure of these things, it's like the LLC, the developer has for the infrastructure company. And then there's a shell company in there and then there's another shell company. And then like, eventually you might get to AWS, right? Like, but it's like 15 companies later and it, it just feels weird. And my whole thing is like, you guys are the richest companies in the world. Just go to the communities. Like, I think that there was really a complacency on the behalf of some of these really powerful tech companies to not understand that communities would get upset about these structures, partially to be fair to them, because they weren't a huge deal before, but also I just, I don't think they really clocked how this would wind up for them. So that's where the on the ground outreach comes from. Online. There is a lot of misinformation about like water and environmental impacts. I don't think it's fair to say data centers are going to eat all of our water. But again, like what I always come back to with that is like, I think it is pretty fair to say, I don't want data centers to have any of our water. And that's a perspective you can defend, right? Like you are allowed to say like, I don't think this industry is worth the water. And I think that's another crux of where the companies have not made a good pitch to people as to why they should welcome this massive build out. I feel like I see a headline every year of the day where it's like, our economy is like half data center construction. And it's like, that's so great. You know, people are seeing their electric bills go up and yet these companies are, they're getting the power, right? They are getting this cash in this investment. I think I've seen a lot of times, like, well, you know, you need a data center. You're online, you're using a data center right now. And that's totally true. But also like, why do you need more? I think is like what people say. [00:26:29] Speaker 2: That's what I'm wondering too. And I, I mean, I went to this, like maybe you were there there. I feel like the data center industry is having all these like briefings for journalists now where they're like, please let us explain to you. And they sort of say a bunch of talking points. But one question that's really not been answered clearly, and maybe there isn't one is, is like, why do we need so more? Like, you know, what, how many more do we need? And like, you know, you mentioned efficiency as well. And like, when you talk to people in the AI world as well, like a lot of them also think that, you know, we're going to be making more efficient models or like China's actually already building more efficient models than we are. And I don't know, like how much of this is also just sort of excessive expansion for different companies to kind of win these races. When could we just halt development? Would that be fine? I don't know. I don't want to like make my internet slower. Right. The examples that, that of course the data center people will give is like they power hospitals. Like, do you want your Johnny to fall off life support because the data couldn't come through or something like, like, no, obviously not. No, but also like they can't all be powering up. We're not, we're certain. We didn't just give everyone universal healthcare. So I don't think people are going to the hospital in America, but like we are all using these digital services more and more. And like, there is a lot of people like, of course, which they also love to point out of like, oh, you hate AI and yet you use it or whatever, but it's like AI is being integrated into more services sometimes for better, a lot of times for worse, but like, I don't know. I certainly use some AI tools myself more than I did maybe three years ago. So would that ultimately sort of harm our way of life or whatever? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. [00:27:59] Molly Taft: You know, this is really analogous. The fossil fuel industry is very involved in plastics production. Oil and gas is a feedstock for plastics. And back in the eighties, they are so involved. It is like such an important industry for them that like, I don't know if you've heard of like this sort of campaign in the eighties to get people to adopt recycling, even though the companies knew that it wasn't actually going to solve the problem. The fossil fuel industry was like part of that, right? So a lot of their messaging to this day is still like, well, you're using something made out of plastic and that means it's oil and gas. And yet you want to ban oil and gas. Interesting. And it's like, you know, you look back on the amount of stuff that's being given to us now as disposable, which we are being inundated with because these companies have largely escaped regulations. And it's like, okay, well now we have all this trash and you guys keep fighting regulations that would make you help us clean it up and you keep increasing this output. And again, I don't, I don't even necessarily think everyone's like rubbing their hands together being like, how can people, you know, use more plastic. I think that's just the nature of capital is like, you want to earn a profit. And so you make more of this and that's kind of how it's happening. So that's what I feel about AI. The question of like, how many more data centers we need, if someone could answer that they would be the richest person in the world. No one knows. I mean, even with stuff like Stargate, so Stargate is this like massive government encouraged build out of campuses specifically for Oracle and open AI. They're in like, I think six or seven states. Fact check me on that, but you know, it's the great American AI experiment. Like we are going to build these big campuses and that will get us ahead of China, right? I'm oversimplifying, but basically it's a huge data center campus build out. There are starship campuses in Abilene. Which is in Texas, right? In Texas. Yes. In I think west, northwest Texas. So there was all this hype, you know, like this is going to be the surefire thing. Right, right, right. So I'm looking at this permit about a year and change after the Abilene campus got under construction. And I'm like, okay, great. They filed a permit for this power plant, this gas fired power plant. I will call them and get comment. And Oracle was like, oh, that's not us. And I was like, what do you mean? That's not us. And you know, it's hard to find out these things. So I was like, wait, okay. So like you guys are on this part of the campus. They were like, yeah, we are renting these buildings, but that building is not ours. And we're not using the power plant. We are connected to the grid. So it turns out that like they had reshuffled it. Oracle and OpenAI were like, actually, we don't need those buildings anymore. So then the developer was like, well, who's going to go in these buildings. So now Microsoft is, is using the power plant. Right. So they're on the same campus and that could change too. Like a lot, there's so much shuffling around. There's like data center contracts getting canceled and renewed and power structures changes left and right. Like it's, it's really a wild west. It's hard to tell how much more we're going to need. And I think people know that, you know, I was down in Georgia a few months ago and I toured this proposed site of this project. I don't think they know the end tenant yet. And the developer was like, okay, great. We've bought this property. It is very close to the public utility. So that's why we, you know, we're, we're really close to the power source. I think the utility for the Georgia power run power plant is like 700, 800 megawatts. It serves the whole region. The data center is going to be 600 and they're like, we're going to build it. And then Georgia power is going to expand its gas plant. Don't worry. You won't pay for it. But all of these people are like, what do you mean? Like how, how can you guarantee that that is going to happen? Georgia power, by the way, is like incredibly unpopular in Georgia because their power bills have gone up like 40% in the past couple of years because of this big nuclear expansion. So people are already really pissed at Georgia power. So they're like, why would we trust you if this is going to take 10 years, what is AI going to look like in 10 years? And I don't think anyone has a really good answer for that. Like, will we need data centers in 10 years? Will we still be building them at this clip? I think the tech companies would rather have much more efficient models, but we just don't know yet. And so I think people have really good questions about like, who's going to be holding the bag? Not even if the bubble bursts, if just like, we don't need as many physical structures anymore. Right? [00:32:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That's kind of, I feel like a concern as well, because we don't want to just have more like abandoned, you know, we've like decimated this land. Now we have these abandoned buildings. There's environmental concerns with that. Like at the same point, and I don't know if you feel like this is a climate reporter, but it's as somebody that does care about the environment too. It's like, I'm wondering if any of this is good that people are at least talking about the environment again. It felt like this thing, there was like that New York times story of like Democrats need to stop talking about climate change. And like, it does feel like climate was sort of this like hot issue and then sort of fell out of favor. And now I don't know, as like, I keep talking about online lately, but like I'm vegan and I care a lot about, you know, factory farming and all the harms of that industry. And so like part of me, when I see this anger at data centers, I'm like, yes, let's also, by the way, like, let's also look at factory farming. Let's also look at, like you said, like mass production and like of fast fashion. And do you see that spilling out or do you think that this might sort of take a lot of the energy out? And I see a lot of other responses that are like, well, everything uses power. So who cares? And what can we do? I have a hard time with that. I know you [00:33:09] Molly Taft: agree with you as someone who like also knows how like demonstrably bad, like factory farming is, is so bad. It is so bad. Plastics to plastics production, terrible. I think that the, for me, the difference I see is like, those are things that have been woven into our society pretty seamlessly. We got used to them over a pretty long period of time, right? Like plastic availability slowly ramped up through the eighties and nineties until we're not using as many things that we used to reuse anymore. The availability of like produced meat and animal products again, was just like slowly offered to us more. Like it was a consumer choice. And I think the difference with this is like, I will say like a factory farm is way more environmental impacts than a data center. I think part of what we're seeing is people respond to the shock of something that is being presented so quickly that is coming to their neighborhoods and that, you know, they are not seeing a benefit from and that they just don't understand why they need it. And it's, it's coming so quickly, right? It's not coming over decades, like these other things were. I would really love to see this energy directed elsewhere. I also like, I, I have to say similar to when you talk about it, when people talk about their worries about a data center being built in their backyard, I'm like, yeah, I mean, if you drive the coast of Texas and Louisiana, you drive cancer alley, like those people in the frontline communities down there have been exposed to some of the most like harmful emissions from petrochemical and oil facilities for decades. And it is like demonstrably harmful. And to be honest, like people generally ignore it because they are like poor communities of color. And so we are seeing, I think the experience of those frontline communities. Like I, I just want people to also understand those and understand kind of those impacts as well. That said, like, I think some of the climate stuff was hard because it was not coming to people's backyards and the way that this is. So like the optimistic side of me hopes that like people start thinking more critically about projects that are coming to their neighborhood. But like, as we've discussed, the flip side of that is, you know, the renewable energy backlash. Like you can be opposed to anything in your backyard. If you think hard enough, there's this whole backlash to solar and wind energy being built in places. There's a really big backlash to battery energy right now. And I think you can argue about the impacts of those, but those are probably a net benefit for the environment. And it would be good if we built more of them. So I don't know if I have an easy answer for this question. I think it's like, it's great to see people get engaged in kind of like questioning some of these things. I hope the critical reasoning skills like last, but I also think like with media, I think that the questions we should be asking are less like, what are the specific impacts environmentally of this data center project? And like, why are people mad about this? I actually think that like some of the reporting falls a little bit too easily on like, what's the water footprint and what's going to happen with the emissions and less about like talking to the actual people in the community and being like, why are you mad about this? I think a lot of times when I have those conversations, they're like, we don't know very much about it. And like, there's like no jobs. So why would we want it? And it's like, that's pretty valid, you know? [00:36:17] Speaker 2: Well, I feel like a lot of the reporting is very like, here's a dirty glass of water. Like this is the, the dirty glass of water that you're going to be drinking. And again, also because it's mostly just construction issues. Like it just, it's, it falls flat. And I think it's, it's easily used by these people that want to just hyperscale and build everything to be like, look at these, you know, bum idiots that like are getting mad at this like stupid fake thing. [00:36:40] Molly Taft: So I wrote about Karen Howe's error in her book, Empire of AI, which is a phenomenal book. And she made like every journalist's worst nightmare is that she was working with a primary source document that didn't have metrics on it. And so she overestimated the potential water impact of this data center by a factor of a thousand, which is a lot, like it's a lot. It was a bigger, the thing though about that error is that she was writing about a data center coming to outside of Santiago, which Chile is going through like a 16 year drought. There are a lot of problems with water access in that area. Are data centers the main culprit? Probably not, but like they are at a point where it is like, we can't add more stress to the water supply. That's like a legitimate question to ask. Like this was a, probably not a very good data center design. And so I think what happens when people have a knee jerk reaction. So I will say like having a knee jerk reaction about water, it's like we really are about to start to see like the consequences of like us using too much water. So like, I completely understand why people are freaked out about water right now. It is like probably something to be scared about, but yeah, not being accurate with where you get scared about things does give ammo to the other side to be like, dismiss all concerns about it. Data centers don't use water, like data centers use a tiny amount of water. So like, you know, it's not important. It's like, no, there, this is a legitimate field of study. Like there are professionals who have been working on water and electronics and data center designs. It's not like, I don't think any of them would say it is the number one most pressing environmental concern about these buildings, but like it's something to talk about. And it like in water scarce areas, you probably shouldn't design a thirsty data center. Like there are absolutely valid conversations to be had, but the vitriol against them is so strong right now that it is getting really, really hard to have those conversations. And the flip side of that is also like data centers that use less water, use more power. And if they're hooked up to the dirty grid, that's more emissions. So like you do have trade-offs, you know? Totally. I know. And I think [00:38:40] Speaker 2: it's also just important to distinguish between like construction issues that would affect any building. And as you said, like, how are we actually constructing these data centers? Is power the issue? Is water the issue? Like, how can we do it better? And just also like explain to people why they would want them because I'm a tech reporter and I love technology. And even I am like, I don't know how many more do we need? Like, you know, it's, so I think like, I think the tech industry has failed so spectacularly. And now, I mean, as I've written about, but, and I have another story coming out soon, like they're just doing all this ridiculous, like kind of like psyop type marketing and like attacking people and like, you know, trying to go after people like Alex Boras and just these, these candidates that speak out about it. And I think that's actually making them look even worse. Like, I think it's really backfired [00:39:24] Molly Taft: on them. I mean, I will say I'm working on a piece right now about the idea that the data center resistance is AstroTurf by the CCP, which like, is something they love saying that. They love saying that. I think it's really hard to tell if something is a, I don't have an opinion on it yet, but I will say that like, I have been watching this happen. It's pretty organic. I think one of the ways you can tell it's organic is a lot of it is really disorganized. Like a lot of people hate data centers for all different reasons. I think if they were all getting a handout from food and water watch or whatever, they would be a lot more on the same page than they are, but like, it's all over the place. Right. But yeah, I think like we are about to see a real response. I mean, just earlier this week, we at Wired published that story about like the new terrorist designation for like anti-tech campaigners. Like that is the consequence of this, right? Is like, we are dealing with an administration and also not to discount, like they are rolling back all kinds of environmental regulations and permitting requirements in the name of constructing data centers. And that affects all sorts of industries. Data centers are being used as the reason to push forward industrial development with as few guardrails as possible. That's like another genuine environmental impact. I don't think people are necessarily thinking about it, but like that's happening. And so I think that it's all getting really muddy and it's been difficult to kind of find the signal and the noise in either side of this conversation. You know what I mean? It's really, it's really hard [00:40:52] Speaker 2: to have a normal conversation about data centers. The astroturfing stuff really gets to me because I feel like as somebody that like reports on online influence and has a very good understanding of like what is fake and what is not, I can see an influence campaign and it's not the CCP. Like it reminds me of the TikTok stuff where it's like, they're probably just sitting back and watching us do whatever. They're not that invested to that micro level. They're not like psyoping people in Utah. If anything, the tech industry is the one that is doing all of these sort of like shady tactics. And there's a lot of special interest groups with all different sort of goals in mind on all ends of this issue. And I just did episode two with Natasha Tiku talking about like the effect of altruist movement. And, you know, a lot of people are sort of leaning into this data center stuff in a way that I think is ultimately unhelpful to push their own ideology. And I hate to see people fall for that, but that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate like issues that we want to talk about, [00:41:46] Molly Taft: you know, related to this stuff. It's been both like shocking and also not shocking as someone who's covered like, you know, different protests against different infrastructure, energy infrastructure, environmental, like kind of people's awareness of some environmental impacts versus not. I also want to like bring up, I think like one huge influence on this is the Maha movement and just our general anxiety in our culture right now about like things poisoning us and poisoning our environment, which is another difficult conversation, right? Because like they get a lot of things right. Like we do a really dog job of regulating chemicals in this country and like we could be so much better, but you know, then you also have the flip side of like, okay, well, there are other things about that movement that are currently getting accomplished in the government that like, like are definitely pseudoscience, right? And so I think that people feel really nervous about environmental regulation, about the government's ability to protect them, about like what is in their air, their water, their soil right now. And it's causing a lot of anxiety. And so when you have something this high profile that's happening this quickly coming to their backyards, like I'm both surprised that it blew up like this, but I'm also kind of not. It's like, I do just keep coming back where I'm like, guys, you're the most powerful companies in the world. Did you not like send, I don't know, like spend a billion dollars in each city you're going to like put up, like build a new, like give them whatever they want. It's fine. Like just, I think half of these problems could genuinely be solved if these companies thought like more than two steps ahead. But then again, Anthropic is renting Colossus one and two and Colossus two is currently has a lawsuit from the NAACP. So like, do they care that much? I don't know. Like I go back and forth on this. I think they, yeah, I don't think they care. [00:43:36] Speaker 2: I don't think they care. And I think Anthropic really drives me crazy, especially because they love to like, be like, we're the good one. We're the good AI, but they are doing the same exact as all of them. And the fact that they're willing to do that with Musk is just like, I'm like, okay, so it's all, it's all just branding. I think at the end of the day. Yeah. And this is where like, [00:43:55] Molly Taft: I get why you would want to put breaks on this development. It also just shows like how desperate they are for compute. Like you would not have picked that campus if it was, if there were other options [00:44:05] Speaker 2: available to you, I don't think. What are your thoughts on these like data center moratoriums? Do you think that that is a useful strategy and where do you think are areas that we can push to make a difference in these policies, especially as they relate to climate? I think that it's an interesting [00:44:19] Molly Taft: technique. I just wish people would be a little bit more open about why they want a moratorium. I think a lot of people ascribe environmental concerns and like, there are legitimate ones and maybe that's what they are genuinely feeling. But I also think like a lot of people are using them as a vehicle to stop big tech, which is like, that is a debatable strategy, right? It is really unique that the two national politicians who have tied like AI safety and guardrails on the tech and data center moratoriums together are Sanders and DeSantis. Like those are the two guys we're working with. And so I think, first of all, when you're, when you're thinking about a moratorium, you're supported in a moratorium, it's like, what do you actually want out of this? Right? Like, do you, do you ever want a data center there? If not, then figure out why not, right? Like legitimately figure out why not. I think like a thought exercise is like, if the perfect data center came to your area where they are like, we're going to pay your town a billion dollars. We're going to not take any tax breaks. We are going to build entirely renewable energy. You know, we will use the least water possible. Like we are going to be an ideal tenant. Like, would you still not want it? And if the answer is no, then that's, that's great. But like figure out why. Right. And then I also think that people who are concerned about the environmental impacts, it's tough because I think also the climate movement is on its heels right now. Like this has been a really tough year plus for the momentum that was built up during Biden. Like a lot of the big groups have had their funding cut off or like people step back from the movement. I mean, people like Gates have like publicly stepped back from like funding climate solutions. Like, and a lot of these tech companies are also walking away from their commitments because their emissions are going up too much because of AI. So like, it is easy to feel like it's not an issue anymore, but if you're actually interested in this, there are absolutely groups on the ground who like are utility watchdogs. And like, that's where the real action is, is like a lot of these utilities going to utility meetings, you know, like it is, I gotta say boring and very complicated, but like, that's kind of where a lot of the action is, is like, that's how we do mostly energy in this country. There's a lot to be done. There's a lot of like folks who are really plugged into like locally, what can happen around clean energy and climate are often plugged into the utility groups. It's a really tough time to be worried about the environment. Like I have a lot of anxiety about it. Just covering all this stuff. There's that like meme going around where it's like reading a leftist book. And at the end it's like, yes. And it's like, and what can we do mutual aid is totally a thing. And like, I kind of feel like I'm like, you know, but I also like, I think it's really legitimate to acknowledge that like, we're living in a really scary time. And I think finding outlets is like really important for people. I just don't want people to like be incredibly physically anxious about like a small data center, right? Like, I think you're probably going to be fine. But like, if the larger tech build out concerns you, then like figure out ways to get involved, you know? Like, [00:47:11] Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty good line to walk. Well, Molly, thank you so much for joining me and chatting about all of this today. Thank you for having me. This was fun. All right. That's it for this week's episode of power user. If you like my show, please, please support me on Patreon or sub stack via the link below on my sub stack. I send a weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following online. You can also get my newsletter on my Patreon where I do bonus episodes, a monthly Q and a and more. If you like this show, please give a rating and review on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of power user. See you then.