"The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years as use of artificial intelligence grows."
"Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has a new mission: bringing more transparency to data center construction and the impact those data centers have on nearby communities. Brockovich — who was famously played by Julia Roberts in a film dramatizing her legal case against Pacific Gas & Electric — recently launched a website with a map of data centers across the United States."
"As Staci Hartwell sees it, her community has much more to lose than to gain from the development of a massive data center."
"GOOCHLAND, Va.—Deborah Blackburn leaned on her cane in a line to enter the Central High Cultural and Educational Complex, angst-ridden over a giant transmission line proposal for reasons that are common refrains here: It’s all to benefit data centers in Northern Virginia, and it will disrupt the rural character here outside Richmond."
"NextEra Energy agreed to buy Dominion Energy in a roughly $67 billion deal that would create the largest power company in the U.S., underscoring the energy industry’s pursuit of scale and capital to meet growing electricity demand from U.S. tech companies."
"The findings highlight inflationary pressures on electricity costs in mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. “The price impacts on customers have been very large and are not reversible,” the grid market monitor said."
"Michigan’s Department of Attorney General and several environmental justice groups presented oral arguments on Friday before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing that emergency orders that kept the J.H. Campbell coal plant from retiring were illegal applications of federal law."
"In rural Jasper County, two defining energy trends of the Trump era — reviving coal and building gas-powered data centers — are converging."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to roll back limits that require coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers through polluted groundwater, saying a three-year-old rule is unduly costly for the energy industry at a time when energy demand is spiking."
"EPA on Monday proposed allowing data centers, power plants and other industrial facilities to begin certain construction work before obtaining required federal air permits."
