Data centers are under fire for a variety of reasons: noise, water and electricity consumption, secretive development deals and generally pushing their way into rural Ohio and reshaping its landscape.
A recent poll showed more people would support a nuclear power plant being built in their community than a data center to power artificial intelligence − although majorities opposed both.
To blunt some of that pushback, Amazon Data Services, Google, Meta and others have worked to reduce water consumption and are now looking to add their own power sources to ensure they aren't a drain on the grid for residents and other businesses. The industry is installing their own natural gas turbines and even looking at adding mini nuclear power plants to provide
the juice.
But preserving grid capacity might unwittingly lead to a new problem for data center operators: air quality and environmental impact.
While small nuclear reactors are not fully developed for data centers, individual natural gas plants are powering at least two of Ohio's more than 230 data centers, many of them clustered in Licking County. Nine others are either approved or pending approval to run on natural gas turbines. At least five of those are in Licking County, according to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
And an agreement announced Aug. 17 has confirmed plans by Japanese investors, OpenAI and the U.S. government for a $33 billion natural-gas, turbine-powered power plant in Pike County to operate a massive data center campus in southern Ohio.
The shift to natural gas is bolstered by a year-old state law that has streamlined the approval process, encouraging data centers to use so-called "behind the meter" power, independent of the conventional power grid.
Jobs, growth. But at what cost to climate change, public health?
So how much natural gas does a data center actually use to power a gas turbine? Where does it come from? And would all that combustion worsen Ohio's air quality, public health and respiratory illnesses while contributing to climate change from greenhouse gasses like sulphur dioxide, methane and carbon dioxide?
The carbon footprint of AI systems alone in the European Union is estimated to be between 32 million and 79 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2025,according to a study in ScienceDirect. The numbers in the U.S. are as much as 100 million tons. That's equivalent to 23 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven in a year; more than 11 billion gallons of gasoline combusted, 11 billion pounds of coal burned or 8 trillion smartphones fully charged, according to the U.S. EPA's greenhouse equivalencies calculator.
At least half of a data center's electric power demand is used for operations — circuit boards, resistors and capacitors, transformers and switches. The rest is used for cooling, according to a report issued this year by the U.S. Congress.
A large, gas-turbine powered data center, typically the size of large shopping centers, could require more than a billion cubic feet of gas per day, enough to power five to six million homes per day, or 10,000 to 15,000 residential homes for a year, according to Williams Co. which handles about a third of the natural gas used in the U.S. That's enough to power every home in Worthington.
Much of this gas is found more than a mile below the surface of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, known as the Appalachian Basin.
The ongoing process of drilling and hydraulic fracturing, pumping the gas through expanded gas lines across Ohio to power expanding data center operations will worsen air quality and worsen human health, experts say.
The American Lung Association has long supported clean, renewable energy to power data centers. And its message is increasingly relevant as more hyperscale data centers are veering to alternative power sources.
"Anything that will not lead to cleaner air and harm individuals, we do not support," said Kezia Ofosu Atta, director of advocacy for the association in Ohio.
Already, half of Ohio's 88 counties get failing grades on particle pollution and ozone with Franklin County scoring a 'C' for ozone and failing grade on airborn particulate matter.
Atta said Ohio and other states are at a "pivotal point," because once turbine operations begin, it's difficult to stop them.
"In the long run, using fossil fuels is going to have a really negative consequence on air quality," she said. That means rising rates of COPD, childhood asthma and other breathing problems.
"In the long run, the state is going to pay for it, in overall health and rising healthcare, hospitalization and Medicaid costs. It's up to the government to decide if they want to sacrifice the health of their people," Atta said.
An OpenAI statement to The Dispatch included: "Any new generation must undergo rigorous environmental and air-quality review, (by Ohio EPA and other enforcement agencies) comply with all applicable legal requirements and use modern, efficient technology and robust monitoring to minimize impacts."
Natural gas no way to power AI data centers, lawmaker says
Ohio Rep. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) says that state lawmakers have given fossil fuels virtually unregulated freedom to expand while virtually halting development of environmentally friendly power sources.
"We have locked out renewable power from Ohio because the legislature is being corrupted by existing power generation interests," Smith told The Dispatch.
Developing smaller "community energy" projects would allow smaller solar arrays to power, or at least complement, traditional power sources. The current electrical grid is akin to a Wal-Mart parking lot, he said, filled before holidays or peak shopping hours, but with idle capacity wasted at other times.
He insists: "You can increase power generation and in a manner that doesn't hurt the atmosphere. We just had the hottest July in 132 years, he said, noting the 76.9 degree record.
Natural gas, like other fossil fuels, Smith said, is not limitless and also tied to global conflict.
"We've got less reliable, less affordable power and the climate crisis is getting worse. My strategy is to argue that the prices are too high because we've broken the foundational core of the economy. It's the interests of today versus the interests of tomorrow. We're making corrupt decisions on power generation and creating a whole series of self-inflicted wounds."
Steve Stivers, president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce says that natural gas is far cleaner than coal from 20 years ago, producing far less carbon and greenhouse emissions "even if you account for massive natural gas plants in the future." Coal, which provides more than a fifth of Ohio's power, is being phased out.
Still, Stiver said, gas should be improved to make it as clean as possible.
"If there is an environmental impact, we need to work to mitigate that the best we can," said Steve Stivers. "We are all for economic growth in Ohio. But we have to live on this planet also and don't want to do anything to harm the environment."
Critics overstating problems as resident pushback continues
Data centers are important for jobs, tax revenue and growth, the Washington D.C.-based Taxpayers Protection Alliance says.
"We've advocated for policymakers to give them (data centers) a chance ... to preserve jobs, economic opportunity and tax revenue," said CEO Ross Marchand, noting that gas turbine power is important.
Modern natural gas systems convert about 60% of fuel into electricity, Marchand said. Gas power is "significantly cleaner than the alternatives," such as coal, adding "they're only going to get cleaner with innovation."
Mike Chadsey, director of external affairs for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, says that air quality is excellent in the state, "at the same time we are producing and consuming record amounts of natural gas."
"There is room for natural gas and wind and geo-thermal. But for data centers, it's an opportunity for natural gas to show its reliability," Chadsey said.
But a backlog and shortage of newer multi-stage turbines means that that less efficient equipment is being used.
"The shortage of gas turbines and the demand from data centers means that any gas turbine that can produce power is likely to get turned on, even if it’s old technology with poorer efficiency and emissions," said Steve Lynch, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Gas Turbine Research, Education, & Outreach at Pennsylvania State University.
And backlogs are due to the challenges of manufacturing gas turbines, which require scarce rare earth elements. Blades, for example, reach temperatures of more than 2,300 degrees and require a special casting process.
The Alliance issued a report saying data center critics are overstating claims of water and energy usage and that "Lawmakers should stop targeting data centers and start supporting policies that encourage investment."
This comes as a recent analysis by BloombergNEF showed that new gas-powered data centers will create 20% more greenhouse emissions nationwide.
The city of Hilliard has objected to an Amazon Web Services data center that would use natural gas fuel cells for power. The fuel cell array, to be located on the city's eastern edge, would convert the chemical energy of natural gas, or methane, into electricity through an electrochemical reaction without combustion. Carbon dioxide would still be an emission. The project is currently under review by the Ohio EPA.
Hilliard resident Cathy Cowan Becker has fought against lawmakers who choose fossil fuels over solar and renewable sources in her role as head of Save Ohio Parks, which opposes fracking and supports parkland preservation.
She said she's watched as the Ohio Power Siting Board has approved three times as much land for natural gas fracking last year as it has in the past three years combined.
"We do think this is for powering data centers," she said.
Of the projects she's researched, "every one of these that I've seen are split between the least efficient and most polluting turbines, combined essentially with car engines."
Becker attended a public hearing Aug. 17 in Millersport near Buckeye Lake where the Fairfield Energy Center has proposed a 1,300 megawatt natural gas power plant that she said "will release as much greenhouse gas as the city of Pittsburgh."
"All of this pollution is just going to cover this area, right over this community. The biggest problem is the fine particulate matter. This is going to be on their town every day," Cowan Becker said.
H.B. 15 paves way for more data center power plants
The year-old law from House Bill 15 speeds up the permitting process used by the Ohio Power Siting Board for data center power plants, encouraging gas-fired power independent of the conventional electric grid from which most residential homes generate power.
Chris Tavenor, legal counsel for the Ohio Environmental Council, questions the strength of Ohio's EPA permitting.
"The strength of the permits is linked to the strength of their enforcement," Tavenor said. "We've been seeing an aggressive weakening of the water and air pollution standards."
The environment was touched on by GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy who, in a recent policy statement, said he wants to require new data centers to follow strict, environmental standards, without specifying how.
His opponent Amy Acton supports a conditional moratorium on new data centers, stating that companies must cover all utility and environmental costs, use union labor exclusively, and operate with complete transparency.
Tavenor remains hopeful. "The way that Ohioans have been uniting on the data center question does give me hope that we will come together and solve these questions," he said.
Others agree that environmental and personal health shouldn't take a back seat to Ohio's economic growth.
"If I'm in a local community and they're building a new power plant, I'm worried about hazardous emissions including carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other particulate matter which can lead to asthma, heart-attacks and breathing issues. And they do kill people." said Rob Moore, principal of Scioto Analysis, a Columbus public policy analysis firm.
Under the Obama administration, federal restrictions on air quality were strengthened and renewable energy sources subsidized, leading to improved air quality.
Now, said Moore, "We could see a big rollback of that where we had been seeing advances."
Even so, Moore concedes that data centers still benefit Ohio's economy.
"When you have (businesses) throwing around billions of dollars, there are great benefits that can come to the state," Moore said. "But there are serious environmental concerns that can also affect the economy. The environment is part of the economy." He suggests a carbon tax, tougher environmental regulations and a commitment to clean air to offset or reduce the higher costs to healthcare, Medicaid, pharmaceutical and lost productivity when people get sick.
"There's not an easy solution," he said.
Growth and development reporter Dean Narciso can be reached at dnarciso@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Data centers pursue alternative energy sources, but is that a solution?
