The billion-dollar pollution problem

Business Insider

6 hours ago

The data center boom is driving utilities to torpedo renewable energy goals and rely on fossil fuels, pushing data centers' expected air-pollution-related public health costs to between $5.7 billion and $9.2 billion annually, a Business Insider investigation found.
As Big Tech bets on generative AI, electricity demand for data centers far outstrips what renewable power can currently provide. Utility companies say fossil fuels generate cheaper, more reliable electricity to keep the ever-growing number of data centers running around the clock.
Developers filed permits for 1,240 data centers in the US as of 2024 — roughly quadruple the level in 2010. The resulting surge in electricity demand is already one of the most significant since the outbreak of World War II, said Julie Cohn, a research historian at the Center for Public History at the University of Houston.
If every permitted facility comes online, their electricity demand could reach between 149.6 terawatt-hours and 239.3 terawatt-hours annually, Business Insider found. The low end of Business Insider's estimate is roughly equivalent to the state of Ohio's electricity needs in 2023, and on the high end, is nearly as much power as the entire state of Florida used that same year. A 2024 federal report projects demand could reach levels at the higher end of Business Insider's estimates by 2026. Communities already overburdened by pollution are bearing the brunt of the impact.
Tech companies say their electricity use is driven by consumer demand. They also say the industry is directly incentivized to use electricity efficiently since power is data centers' most significant operating cost.
The tech giants have emphasized clean energy commitments when talking about their data center building spree. Amazon announced last year that it had invested billions of dollars into more than 500 solar and wind projects globally to power its data centers and other operations. Microsoft announced a deal estimated at $10 billion to build green energy infrastructure for its data centers. Google pledged $20 billion in a deal to do the same.
Despite such efforts, these cutting-edge computer farms are often powered by old-school energy sources that churn out pollution, Business Insider found.
If all data centers that have received permits are brought online, Business Insider estimates electricity generation for data centers could reach between $5.7 to $9.2 billion in public health costs. Expected health impacts include between 190,000 and 300,000 asthma symptom cases — wheezing, chest tightness, or coughing — and between 370 and 595 premature deaths each year.
To calculate these impacts, Business Insider used data from the backup generator permits for the 1,240 data centers it identified, including the amount of power and the maximum amount of pollutant emissions the generators could produce, an approach inspired in part by research from Julie Bolthouse at the Piedmont Environmental Council, who examined air permits in Virginia. (See more on Business Insider's methodology here.)
Guided by expert estimates on data center electricity consumption, Business Insider used the permit data to assess what share of emissions generated by power plants on their electrical grids were attributable to the data centers.
Business Insider then estimated the public health burden from those emissions using an Environmental Protection Agency tool that assesses the costs to avoid outcomes like premature deaths, asthma attacks, heart attacks, and missed school or work days.
Amazon's 177 data centers are on pace to command the highest electricity demand at between 30 and 48 terawatt-hours a year, with the midpoint of the range about as much electricity as 3.6 million US homes based on average use. Microsoft's 44 data centers would consume about half that.
A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company's reliance on fossil fuels was tied to their use by utilities, and that it invests significantly in carbon-free electricity wherever it operates.
An Amazon spokesperson stressed the company's commitment to increasing the availability of renewable power sources, but didn't address Business Insider's estimates of public health costs or provide figures for electricity consumption. Another Amazon spokesperson said Business Insider's methodology for estimating consumption "oversimplifies complex data center operations and is based on assumptions that do not account for important differences in how companies build and operate data centers."
Google and Meta did not respond to Business Insider's queries about our approach to estimating data center power use, and QTS declined to comment. A Microsoft spokesperson acknowledged that its data centers "do not always run at 100% of their installed capacity."
Toxic generators
Data centers' backup generators provide occasional emergency power and are tested monthly, usually for less than an hour. Permits show that these generators emit harmful air pollutants that can trigger asthma diagnoses, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations.
A report last year for the Virginia legislature said that in 2023, data center generators in the state emitted 7% of the pollutant totals allowed in their permits. Based on that, Business Insider estimated that if all existing and planned generators nationwide emitted at similar rates, they would collectively emit about 2,500 tons of nitrogen oxides a year. That's equivalent to over 2 million passenger cars making round-trip drives between New York and California.
Using the EPA tool, Business Insider calculated that data center generators alone could trigger nearly 20,000 asthma symptom cases a year and cost $385 million in annual public health burden.
Spokespeople for Google and QTS said Business Insider's generator emission methodology relied on assumptions that overstate backup generator use. Microsoft told Business Insider its backup generators run "significantly fewer hours per year than the industry-wide average used in the EPA estimates." Amazon said further research was needed to validate Business Insider's findings.
A representative from the Data Center Coalition, an industry interest group, said data centers were "actively evaluating alternatives that can provide similar reliability, fuel availability, siting flexibility, and workplace safety protections" as traditional, diesel-powered generators.
The amounts of individual pollutants emitted annually by different generator models vary. QTS estimated in one air permit that a facility's generators would annually emit as low as 2% of permit limits for sulfur dioxide and as high as 32% of permit limits for nitrogen oxides.
More than 230 data centers nationwide — nearly one in five — are in communities already highly overburdened by environmental pollutants, according to a Business Insider analysis that mapped all 1,240 data center locations onto a separate EPA tool. The tool combines census demographic data with data on 13 tracked pollutants present within a mile radius.
Increased pollution burdens on these communities can have devastating effects: Children there are found to have asthma at higher rates. Mothers experience more preterm births.
Amazon has the most such data centers, with 29 locations in areas with extremely high pollution burdens.
Cogent, a rapidly expanding developer with 13 permitted centers by Business Insider's count, sited nearly half of its facilities in overburdened communities; Google and QTS each located nearly one in five of their centers in overburdened communities.
An Amazon spokesperson said Business Insider's analysis was based on a defunct tool, pointing to its removal from the EPA website under the Trump administration. QTS said its facilities were designed to meet international green building certification standards. Cogent and Google declined to comment on the specifics of Business Insider's reporting.
Clean energy, on paper
By 2028, data centers are expected to account for at least 6.7% — and as much as 12% — of all electricity used in the United States, up from 4.4% in 2023 and less than 2% in 2018, according to the 2024 federal report. The US electricity grid sources 60% of its power from fossil-fuel-fired plants, per federal data.
To offset their impact, big data center developers are committing to invest heavily in renewable projects such as solar plants and wind farms, and funding the development of more nuclear power. Last year, Amazon invested more than $500 million to develop nuclear power with power purchase agreements in Virginia and Washington state, and Microsoft plans to purchase 100% of the power generated by Three Mile Island should regulators approve that shuttered nuclear plant's revival.
In all, the amount of carbon-free power capacity that Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google contracted to use grew 69% in the 12 months that ended in February, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Big Tech companies also buy renewable energy certificates, which involve compensating someone else for each megawatt of electricity they deliver to the grid using renewable sources.
"Data center owners and operators stand out for their leadership and commitment to decarbonization through clean energy," Aaron Tinjum, an energy policy official at the Data Center Coalition, told Virginia regulators last year.
At the same time, data centers' demand is causing utilities and regulators to scrap planned renewable projects — and instead keep using coal power plants and building more natural gas power plants.
In 2024, Dominion Energy, Virginia's largest electricity utility company, told regulators that transitioning entirely to renewable electricity generation, as mandated by state law, was "infeasible" and instead proposed using increasing amounts of fossil-fuel-fired power alongside additional renewable energy sources to meet power demand driven primarily by data centers.
Aaron Ruby, a Dominion Energy spokesperson, told Business Insider that the utility's proposals to meet historic power demand were compliant with state law and that the utility was still working to increase clean energy.
In Louisiana, Entergy, the state's largest electricity utility, told regulators in late 2024 it would need to build three natural gas plants to serve power demands from a recently announced Meta data center.
Similarly, representatives of Mississippi Power told regulators early this year that data center demand would necessitate the continued use of the state's largest coal power plant, previously scheduled to close in 2028. A single Amazon data center in Mississippi, once fully online, is expected to demand 2 to 3.3 terawatt-hours a year, according to Business Insider's estimate. On average, that's the same amount of electricity used by 240,000 US homes.
A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that it had over 15 gigawatts of new renewable energy under contract. An Amazon spokesperson said the company was committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions across all operations by 2040.
Entergy and Southern Company, the parent of Georgia Power and Mississippi Power, didn't respond to queries.
Waterways threatened
River ecologists and urban planners warn that even before data centers go online, their construction imperils habitats for vulnerable species.
Last year, an environmental impact report performed by Virginia's Department of Housing and Community Development determined a proposed 11-building Amazon data center campus would permanently affect nearly 6 acres of wetlands.
An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the company would conduct a wildlife management study and planned to explore opportunities to limit impact on wetlands and species of concern.
In 2022, the National Parks Conservation Association commissioned a report that estimated the construction-related soil erosion from two data centers set to be built in Virginia would cause up to 1,350 tons of sediment to be dumped into Quantico Creek, a Potomac River tributary, clogging fish gills and reducing their disease resistance. Sediment increase would risk changing the waterway itself, the report said, potentially disrupting habitats and harming amphibians, turtles, and other aquatic species.
The report also raised concerns about data centers' discharge of massive amounts of contaminated water used for cooling. That discharge, the report said, would risk increasing concentrations of metals, petroleum-based chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides, which could cause deformities and sores in aquatic wildlife.
Data center violations
Business Insider identified 56 civil penalties totaling at least $1.4 million issued by state and federal environmental regulators to data centers across nine states over the past 20 years. These included violations of the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act resulting in fines of $100,000 or more.
CyrusOne and Equinix, which run so-called colocation data centers that lease computing power to other firms, top the list with seven and six penalties, respectively, followed by QTS with four and Amazon with three.
One of the biggest colocators, Digital Realty, engendered the largest dollar amount of penalties in Business Insider's review. In 2018, a Virginia environmental inspector found nine unpermitted emergency generators at a Loudoun County Digital Realty data center. The inspector noted in an enforcement recommendation plan that data center developers "have an economic incentive to construct facilities quickly" and said that by installing generators without a permit, Digital Realty "made a business decision and enjoyed the economic benefit." After additional violations for exceeding permitted generator limits and unauthorized generator use during peak pollution periods, the company eventually agreed to pay $317,913 in 2020 to resolve all violations. Digital Realty declined to comment on Business Insider's reporting.
Meanwhile, water contamination risks persist. In 2023, a QTS data center in New Jersey's industrial "Chemical Belt" paid $179,000 to settle claims of failing to adequately monitor pollutants discharged into Ambrose Brook. During the winter, the facility continuously releases water containing corrosive antibacterials, chemical descalers, and algaecides.
QTS settled with no admission of fault. A QTS spokesperson said the Piscataway data center was in full compliance with all monitoring requirements and the permit issued by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The spokesperson added that QTS addressed three other environmental regulation violations at data centers and was in full compliance with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
The Amazon spokesperson said the company has a track record of complying with environmental regulations.
A spokesperson for CyrusOne told Business Insider it complies with environmental regulations and is committed to environmental responsibility. An Equinix spokesperson told Business Insider that in limited circumstances, the company hadn't fully complied with requirements related to permitting, timing and tracking, and emissions, but that "we aggressively work to ensure that our facilities are in full compliance with all applicable regulations."
Series credits
About the data: Business Insider used air permits issued to data center backup generators to identify facility location and ownership, and estimate facility power use. We received permits from all but four states, plus Washington, DC. BI also used 2020 US census data and data from the Environmental Protection Agency's COBRA, AVERT, and EJSCREEN tools. Read more about how we investigated the impact of data center growth here.
Editing: Jeffrey Cane, Rosalie Chan, Jason Dean, Esther Kaplan, Jake Swearingen