Overview
Data centers have existed since the 1940s, but they have come into the spotlight in the 2020s as computing and AI demand increase. To satisfy the increased demand for data processing and storage infrastructure, favorable data center policies were implemented, but now, data centers face growing bipartisan resistance across the country. One major cause for concern is the public health impact of data centers, including their significant energy and water use, and their contributions to air and noise pollution.
Data centers are facilities that house computing and storage servers. Data centers have existed since the 1940s, but they have come into the spotlight in the 2020s as computing and AI demands increase. To satisfy the increased demand for data processing and storage infrastructure, favorable data center policies were implemented, but now, data centers face growing bipartisan resistance across the country. One major cause for concern is the public health impact of these data centers.
Environmental Health Considerations
Data centers’ energy demands strain the existing electric grid. Fifty-six percent of data centers’ power comes from fossil fuels, which, when burned, increases air pollution and contributes to rising global temperatures. Air pollution contributes to a variety of health issues: asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and increases infant mortality. Data centers also cause surrounding areas to be hotter via the data heat island effect. It’s estimated that up to 343 million people worldwide may face a land surface temperature increase of up to 16°F by living near data centers, posing extreme heat threats to these communities.
Extreme heat can cause death via heatstroke and can also exacerbate preexisting health conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and asthma. In addition to rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat events, global warming can also cause more extreme weather events – extreme cold, droughts, wildfires, cyclones, heavy precipitation, floods, and more. These events are destabilizing to human health, increasing all-cause morbidity and mortality. Data centers’ energy use and air pollution contribute to and intensify the effects of global warming and cause associated health risks.
Because data centers consume tremendous amounts of energy and heat up easily, they require constant cooling. Estimates from 2021 show that data centers in the U.S. use nearly 450 million gallons of freshwater per day, but this figure is incomplete and likely an undercount, given that one-third of data centers do not collect or report data on water consumption, and many more data centers have been built since that time. There is also a discrepancy in current data center water use reporting: many tech companies report data centers’ direct water use but indirect water use remains unreported or underreported.
Data centers, as they are currently built, strain freshwater resources and are associated with preventable illness. Freshwater is a limited resource (only one percent of the available water supply) that is already being depleted due to climate change. Rising temperatures cause more freshwater to evaporate and stay in the atmosphere instead of staying on the ground. Data centers further exacerbate this problem by demanding freshwater use at a time where nearly 30 million people in the U.S. struggle to have enough water to drink, cook, shower, and use in daily life. Lack of access to freshwater makes people vulnerable to dehydration, malnutrition, and exposes people to waterborne diseases. The associated mortality rates are also staggering: over one million people die annually around the world from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases alone.
Beyond straining water supplies and degrading air quality, data centers also create sensory pollution, jeopardizing the quality of life for surrounding residents. Various components of data centers, such as cooling systems, fans, and diesel generators emit noise. Data centers’ noise pollution reaches or exceeds 90 decibels, which can cause hearing loss and sleep deprivation. The persistent noise can also cause residents to experience headaches, insomnia, nausea, and anxiety. Data centers also emit light ceaselessly. Light pollution impacts sleep quality by interrupting the circadian clock and can cause mental health disorders. For these reasons, data centers as currently configured tend to have a negative impact on human health whenever they enter a community.
Evolving Regulatory Landscape
Federal agencies like the EPA are not pursuing any nationwide regulations on data centers despite their associated environmental health concerns, which gives localities and states broad discretion to regulate data centers according to their needs. At first, states offered tax incentives and exemptions because proposed data centers offered economic promises like increased jobs and a flow of private investment into the area, but many state and local governments have begun to reconsider their approach.
Because of the harms that data centers present, many communities became concerned about proposed or planned data centers being built in their vicinity. Various communities are mobilizing to resist the building of data centers in their backyards. Certain toolkits encourage community engagement with government officials, from county to state to region. These local campaigns play a pivotal role in shaping local and statewide data center policy. Proposals have focused on pausing building these data centers and limiting the negative effects of data centers.
Some localities have successfully passed moratoriums on data centers, and multiple states have proposed moratoria to pause the creation or expansion of data centers within their jurisdictions. In July, New York became the first state to order a state-wide moratorium on approvals for new data centers via Governor Hochul’s Executive Order 62. However, New York’s Senate Bill S10642 for responsible data center implementation still awaits the governor’s signature. The more expansive and protective senate bill includes regulations for “large data centers” defined as using 20 megawatts of energy or more, but the less restrictive executive order defines affected data centers as using 50 megawatts of energy or more. In August, Texas’ Governor Abbott also issued a directive on data centers, requiring them to pass audits before resuming construction. However, critics note that additional legislative action is needed to protect people and the environment.
Beyond moratoria, some states are beginning to pass laws regulating data centers. In July, New Jersey passed the Data Center Fair Share Act (S731/A796) which requires data center companies to pay for their own energy use and associated grid infrastructure instead of offsetting that cost onto the existing grid and ultimately to residents. It also requires data centers to become more energy efficient and manage the heat they produce, which would help reduce some of the heat-related health concerns related to data center heat emissions.
There are other mechanisms to regulate data centers in jurisdictions where there has not yet been statewide action. Data center task forces and community benefits agreements are two legal and policy tools being utilized to determine community safeguards. For example, data center companies may enter into legally binding agreements with communities to use clean energy to power these centers and prevent higher energy costs from being passed on to community members. In addition, data centers can commit to move away from using freshwater for cooling and shift to more sustainable methods of cooling such as closed-loop cooling systems that use both freshwater and wastewater, free cooling, air cooling, or immersion cooling. Making data centers more environmentally and financially sustainable would mitigate public health risks.
Most Americans oppose unregulated data centers due to their environmental health impacts and they continue to be civically engaged on this issue. Communities sit at a pivotal crossroads where collective decisions about data centers will determine the future of the quality of their health, their homes, and their lives.
This post was written by Suha Iqbal, Summer Legal Extern, Northeastern University School of Law, and reviewed by Jill Krueger, Director, Climate and Health, Network for Public Health Law.
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