Aaron Cantu [00:02:31] A woman named Mimi Patterson, who’s lived in the Santa Teresa neighborhood for 26 years, described to me how she came to find out about this data center.
Mimi Patterson [00:02:43] They only put the signage after I brought it up. It was no signage, no notice, no notification to the neighborhoods.
Aaron Cantu [00:02:50] She described to me a lack of outreach from the city or from any officials about this facility.
Mimi Patterson [00:02:59] The neighbors who lived here lived here for 45 years, and they moved to San Diego. They moved to a different location in San Jose because they don’t want to be near this facility.
Cecilia Lei [00:03:16] Okay, so clearly locals aren’t happy about data centers, but they do serve an important function for AI. Tell me more about what they do and what are the broader concerns.
Aaron Cantu [00:03:28] It’s a facility that hosts servers. They analyze lots and lots of data and they use a ton of electricity to do this. And they do this in order to find patterns within that data. And so the more data you have being analyzed by these servers, the more electricity, the more energy is going to be used for that process. They also use much more water because they need that water to cool the servers so that they continue to function properly.
Betsy Popken [00:04:01] I think people should be more aware that data centers lead to environmental harms that impact the rights of people.
Aaron Cantu [00:04:09] So Betsy Popken, she’s the executive director of the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law. And so Betsy and a lot of other researchers looking at the ethics of this kind of technology have been raising concerns and questions about the build out of ever larger data centers.
Betsy Popken [00:04:29] It increases the amount of water that’s used, the amount of waste that’s produced, it increases the load of pollutants that go out.
Aaron Cantu [00:04:41] So right now these data centers are primarily drawing their electricity from California’s grid. In the event that the grid goes down or for whatever reason electricity isn’t available from the grid, these centers rely on diesel generators on site to produce that electricity and to ensure that there’s no interruption in Internet service at these data centers.
Betsy Popken [00:05:11] I do think that independent research should continue to be funded on the environmental harms of AI data centers.
Cecilia Lei [00:05:20] We know diesel is a fossil fuel and that’s like a dirty word in California. They’re notoriously bad for the environment and we know this is a state that’s committed to green energy. So why diesel?
Aaron Cantu [00:05:34] The argument for diesel is that it is a stable form of energy that can enable these servers to continue to run in the event of a power outage. There’s a lobbying group called the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and they have supported efforts to basically make it easier for data center builders to erect these large centers with limited public input. And they’ve responded to concerns about diesel backup generators, essentially by saying that it’s an overblown concern. These generators only run very rarely in a given year. And so the concern that they’re going to be emitting greenhouse gasses or going to be polluting nearby communities is not legitimate because these are just meant to be emergency sources of power.
Cecilia Lei [00:06:36] So like you mentioned, the data centers primarily use electricity from the state’s power grid. But even if it’s used sparingly, why do critics say relying on diesel as a backup power supply is harmful?
Aaron Cantu [00:06:50] So first of all, diesel is a fossil fuel. Burning diesel, even if it’s just for a few hours a year, can result in greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Diesel is a carcinogen. It is known to exacerbate respiratory and other illnesses in people. And in fact, a paper published in December by researchers at UC Riverside looked at diesel generators for data centers in Virginia. They found that the increase in permits could be tied to an increase of asthma symptoms, 14,000 additional cases of asthma symptoms and 300 million dollars in additional health costs.
Cecilia Lei [00:07:37] And as we talked about, people who live near these data centers are dealing with a lot of disruption and health risks. How are residents like Mimi in San Jose, who we heard from earlier, how are they pushing back?
Aaron Cantu [00:07:49] I think there isn’t much pushback right now. Mimi told me that she believes her neighborhood in southern San Jose was targeted because residents don’t have the same resources to fight back against companies that want to build large data centers. And they don’t have the same kind of political clout with local authorities that wealthier communities have.
Mimi Patterson [00:08:14] We were fighting a five billion dollar company called Equinix. I mean, who was going to fight that? We’re not Los Gatos, we’re not Saratoga, we’re not Los Altos. You’re going to ask yourself, why don’t you build in those neighborhoods? Because you have people who have deep dollars who can fight you. We don’t.
Aaron Cantu [00:08:32] Even when they spoke with others who lived in their neighborhood, people just had no idea that this data center could pose any kinds of risks. You know, some of their neighbors even thought that because the data centers would be constructed down the street, that they would have better internet access. And that’s just not how it works. So I think you’re probably going to see an increase in that gap between sort of a public lack of awareness and policymakers and lawmakers who are really driving this push for data centers to be built more quickly and larger.
Cecilia Lei [00:09:10] And this brings into question regulation. I wonder who’s ultimately responsible for regulating data centers as they continue to be built and expand. And what are they doing?
Aaron Cantu [00:09:25] Basically, anything that’s over 50 megawatts in the state is supposed to be under the purview of the California Energy Commission. But there’s actually an exception to that rule. If a facility such as a data center uses between 50 and 100 megawatts, it actually can be exempted from that oversight process from the state. And then those approvals fall to the city and the county. So there’s not as much regulation as you might think there would be because California has this sort of loophole. And so companies have essentially constructed these facilities to operate on up to 99 megawatts. And so they’re just under that limit. And so you have a pretty lax environment right now that’s also kind of behind the curve of the the build out that’s happening right now.
Cecilia Lei [00:10:20] Well, it seems like these days everybody’s talking about AI. It’s clearly here to stay, whether we like it or not. But from what we’re discussing, there’s clearly this steep environmental cost. And it really does point to this tension between California’s innovation technology and also the state’s environmental leadership. So how do you see this playing out as we move forward?
Aaron Cantu [00:10:46] I think that a first step and a logical step would be a requirement for the state to disclose the amount of electricity and energy that these facilities use in a given year. The California Energy Commission does collect that information, but the law currently prevents it from being made public. So I think that’s probably one step is to make that information public. And then I think residents who live near these facilities could be more informed. But otherwise, I think, you know, there’s a lot of pressure, political pressure, to get these facilities built and built quickly. And so I think it’s going to take some advocacy, you know, by residents, by people concerned with greenhouse gas emissions and by lawmakers to ensure that the public has some insight into what’s happening.
Cecilia Lei [00:11:42] Well, Aaron, this is such important reporting. Thank you so much for talking about it with me.
