Data Center Boom Risks Health of Already Vulnerable Communities
- Author: Cecilia Marrinan
- Full Title: Data Center Boom Risks Health of Already Vulnerable Communities
- Tags: #planet #data_center
- URL: https://www.techpolicy.press/data-center-boom-risks-health-of-already-vulnerable-communities/
Highlights
- However, industry narratives consistently neglect a crucial element: location. To truly explore the impacts of data center expansion – both traditional and “sustainable” – we must examine existing and planned data center locations in tandem with cumulative historical and societal contexts. (View Highlight)
- Overlaying California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's latest iteration of its environmental map screening tool, CalEnviroScreen 4.0, with Data Center Mapping coordinate datasets revealed a clear correlation between poor public health indicators and clustered data center locations in California. To be clear, this correlation does not prove (nor necessarily suggest) that data centers caused the poor public health outcomes; rather, it is evident that data centers are clustered in already polluted areas with such outcomes. (View Highlight)
- Because many data centers use backup diesel generators, generating harmful fine particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx), as well as increasingly using fossil fuels for their energy sources, location is crucial in determining the potential disproportionate scale of pollution impact on communities. (View Highlight)
- A 2024 paper from researchers at the University of California, Riverside and Caltech found that data centers could contribute to 600,000 asthma-related symptom cases by 2030, with overall public health costs exceeding $20 billion. (View Highlight)
- Novva, whose model centers on sustainability, coined its BVHP center the “greenest data center ever created in the area.” Novva says it uses hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as biofuel for its generators, sodium UPS batteries with no thermal runaway risk or rare earth materials, and a waterless data center cooling system. (View Highlight)