Word of building a new AI data center here in Colorado Springs has triggered a firestorm reaction. The planned data center is being touted to be a chip manufacturer's plant off of Garden of the Gods Road.
The center, proposed by Raeden, a real estate data center
company, would be located at 1565 High Tech Way. It's been given the moniker
"Project Taurus" as part of the development proposal.
However, word of the proposal has been met with fierce
backlash by neighbors adjacent to the proposed center. Residents are calling
for transparency and sustainable solutions to mitigate potential disruptions. The
facility is expected to use between 50 and 55 megawatts, and almost certain to raise electricity costs for locals.
According to an April 7 Colorado Springs Gazette story:
Colorado Springs residents fired up over proposed AI data center
"Residents of the area were fired up as they met face-to-face with a developer who wants to bring a data center into their backyards. So many wanted to speak that the line stretched from the lobby to the parking lot of the Hyatt Place hotel at 503 W. Garden of the Gods Road."
Adding:
"Those who made it in mainly expressed concerns about the data center’s water use, noise pollution and power requirements. One man, a retired Air Force Lt. Col. who has lived in Colorado Springs for 30 years worried about the cascading effects the data center will have. He said:
“The impact on us will be more than significant … the noise levels, impact on the electrical grid, utilities continue to crank up our rates, and we are in a drought,” he said. “The last thing we need is something sucking up our precious resources.”He's not wrong, nor is he 'hysterical". While the development is claimed to focus on a "brownfield" approach, which involves retrofitting the existing structure to utilize its established electrical infrastructure, the residents aren't convinced this will relieve them of unaffordable electric bills. Not to mention a host of other negative impacts - which have hit other regions, towns, cities. (Interestingly, Raeden’s founder, Jason Green, said he could not disclose the name of the company that will occupy the new data center.)
Let's be clear that the rapid expansion of AI data centers has introduced significant environmental and community impacts, particularly concerning intense water consumption and persistent noise pollution. These facilities, often designed to support high-density computing, require vast amounts of water for cooling and create significant sound due to 24/7 operations, diesel generators, and heavy-duty HVAC systems.
Legislators in Maine on Tuesday were already acting. They passed the nation’s first
statewide ban on large data centers, part of a growing backlash to the
energy-intensive facilities that fuel the rise of artificial intelligence.
The measure would block the creation of new data centers that
draw more than 20 megawatts of power until the fall of 2027 and establish a
mechanism to study their impact on the electrical grid.
Maine’s moratorium was approved in final votes Tuesday by both
houses of the state legislature. The bill will now go to Gov. Janet Mills (D)
for signature.
A spokesman for Mills did not immediately respond to a query
about whether she plans to approve the legislation. Mills has said she wants an exception for a data center on the site of a
defunct paper mill, but legislators earlier rejected such an amendment.
Battles over data centers have erupted across the country, from small towns to big cities, emerging as a rare source of bipartisan alarm.
At least 12 other states led by both Democrats and Republicans are considering their own temporary bans.
Data centers house computer servers crucial to the internet,
cloud computing and more recently AI. The average newly planned data center
uses as much electricity as a city of 500,000, according to a Washington Post analysis, and some supersized
facilities now under construction use far more.
A broad range of communities are voicing concern over how data
centers consume electricity, water and farmland. Maine’s bill pausing new data
centers was introduced in February. The state has some of the highest
electricity prices in the country, and lawmakers say the moratorium is
necessary to study how data centers fit into Maine’s larger energy picture.
Last year, local resistance stymied proposed data centers
representing $152 billion in potential investment, according to Data Center
Watch, a research project by an AI security firm.
Proponents, meanwhile, say the centers create jobs, fulfill
consumer demand for online services and are critical to the next wave of
technological progress.
Those advocating temporary bans say they’re not standing in
the way of progress but taking the time to implement the proper regulatory
framework for large projects with potentially wide-ranging impacts.
For example, a single large hyperscale data center can consume between 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day, comparable to the water usage of a small town of 30,000–50,000 people. This is simply inadequate here in the mountain West where already our snowpack (which feed the river, lakes) is already down to 20% or less. Roughly 40% of U.S. data centers are located in areas of high or extreme water stress. By 2028, it is projected that AI-related data centers in the U.S. could require up to 32 billion gallons of water annually. Where is all of this water going to come from?
Then there is the pollution. Discharged water, or "blowdown," from cooling towers can contain high levels of dissolved solids and treatment chemicals, which, if not managed, can affect local waterways and strain municipal treatment systems.
Now add to the above all the sound pollution. Large-scale HVAC units and fans produce a constant (24/7), low-frequency hum that can be audible to residents hundreds of feet away with dire effects.
At the Colorado Springs information meeting, developer Jason Green put up a white board showing specific decibel (dB(A) limits (see lower top image). The presentation attempted to defuse the issue by focusing only on the design parameter of a 60-70 dBA maximum output.
But this is not an effective measure by itself because it filters out the low frequency/infrasonic range, focusing on sound sensitivity detectable by the human ear. There are numerous health and other environmental impacts of this low frequency attenuation that weren't addressed. There are studies indicating long term exposure to this low frequency range can result in cognitive impairment and hearing loss. A better measure of design safety requirements is dB(C).
Second is the heat island effect. Jason Green informed Springs' attendees of a power consumption between 50 and 55 megawatts. But a Cambridge study of 6000 data centers found nearby temperatures were raised by up to 16.4 degrees F, with effects felt up to 6.2 miles away. The study found the math involved to calculate for this particular center that would require knowing the cooling system design's Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). But it cannot be lower than 1, meaning a 50MW data center operating a capacity could be discharging 60MW of heat into the atmosphere. (Note: 1 Megawatt is equal to approximately 3,412,142 BTU/hr.
And:
And:
No comments:
Post a Comment