Yes, the Data Center Next Door Can Be a Good Neighbor [Podcast]

Data centers hold computers and equipment that are the backbone of the digital age. They make possible the computational power and data storage needed to train AI models, store content, and operate the cloud-based services that many of us rely on. Some say that data centers and the innovations that come from them are key to solving huge issues facing the world right now, while others note major environmental concerns related to how they operate.  However, a new report says data centers run by huge companies like Google called hyperscalers could actually be good for the environment in a key way - they could become mobilizers of clean energy and updated grids. 

The report’s authors are Merritt Cahoon and Ian Hitchcock from the Deep Tech at Duke Initiative. 

Conversation Highlights

Responses have been edited for clarity.

On how data centers are putting pressure on the environment

Merritt Cahoon

Take Arizona and Texas. They're in places that do not have enough water to support data centers, but they're in areas of land that are cheap. So, companies are buying plots of land in these cheap areas where they can build this infrastructure, but they're taking up water resources from communities - 40% to 50% of the water they use is for cooling these data centers. You can do the cooling through electricity and air, but it's more efficient to use water.

On how big data centers could be an environmental catalyst 

Merritt Cahoon

A lot of these hyperscaler companies have massive sustainability goals, looking towards 2030. Ideally, if we move towards these sustainability goals, the demand for sustainability can increase private investment for clean firm power. So, if hyperscalers go one way, hopefully a lot of private investment and some of these smaller companies will also move more towards these sustainable goals too.

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Ian Hitchcock

Just a fraction of the billions of dollars going into data centers might help solve some of our climate clean energy problems. It's not just data centers that could benefit from advanced geothermal. It's not just data centers that could benefit from getting small modular nuclear reactors going. It's not just the fact that data centers could be creating micro grids or islands of resilience.

There's an avenue, theoretically -- I'm not seeing it happen per se, but when I look at the landscape, I could see that if you have a data center in your community and you're dealing with power outages from say more extreme weather exacerbated by the climate crisis, and you've got a lot of onsite battery generation - which all data centers have 100% backup generation. They're often diesel-powered right now, which is awful from an emissions and health standpoint. So low-hanging fruit is to replace those with electric battery storage and that can help a lot. But if that happens and these can be thought of as hubs for community resources, then that is a way in which hyperscalers can be contributing to the wellbeing of their communities and not just taking resources rapaciously to serve a broad global demand for digital services.

And it's that kind of creative thinking that won't happen in isolation, won't happen unless there's collaboration and creativity, and that we think there is tremendous pressure for it.

In the absence of federal policy can change happen locally?

Ian Hitchcock

This is something that companies and communities can choose to do absent of a push from the federal government. The reason that we focused on hyperscalers specifically in this report was because their sustainability goals are ambitious, and to the hyperscaler's credit, they seem to have some teeth. They have put more money toward procuring renewable energy, for instance, than they could have for gas-fired energy, in part because they want to meet those renewable goals. And that's an example of ways in which the desire by these hyperscalers to be seen as good corporate citizens when it comes to environmental sustainability gives us an opening - an opportunity to try to come to them with a solutions-based framework that acknowledges their resource needs but also presents some opportunities for collaboration and community empowerment. I think there is a lot of potential there and our hope was that our report can have some small role along with many other efforts to try to make those collaborations happen.