BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — A group made up of environmental and green energy advocacy organizations held a community session in Bloomington to talk about the downsides of data centers.
These large industrial buildings store data but have been increasingly built across the world to support AI development. It’s become an issue, because data centers can cause people’s utility bills to go up.
That’s because data centers require vast amounts of energy to run. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows energy costs could increase by $900 billion nationwide by 2050 to meet data center needs.
Scott Allen with the watchdog group Citizens Utility Board said this is causing chaos in the electrical grid market.
“This is driving the markets crazy just on the threat that this might happen,” Allen said. “If you have a two-gigawatt data center come online, we’re going to see these problems get really, really real, really quickly.”
These groups are looking at statewide surveys to see if the public supports data center regulation.
Andrew Rehn, climate policy director for Prairie Rivers Network, said water is the top concern from residents. Data centers use water to cool computer servers to prevent overheating. Rehn said people don’t like the idea of more people needing water.
This comes after Bloomington has come out of a roughly four-month-long drought.
Water, however, isn’t the only concern for residents, said Rehn.
“Noise is another big one, especially for people who have actually experienced this. They’re really worried about being next to the data center and having that noise constantly 24/7,” Rehn said.
This group of advocates is trying to drum up support for the POWER Act. It’s a state bill that would add new regulations to data centers, which would include:
• Requiring data centers to pay for any utility rate increase they caused.
• Build their own renewable energy.
• Report how much water they use.
A poll of 800 Illinois likely voters, conducted from March 16–19 by Global Strategy Group, shows 70% of those polled support the POWER Act.
“Among that remaining 30, you have half that would probably take the power act over nothing,” said Rehn.
It wasn’t made immediately clear where those polled live in the state.
The bill is in the Senate AI and social media committee. Lawmakers could pass the proposal sometime before May 31. If it fails to pass before June 1, they’ll have to wait until October to have a second crack at passing the legislation.
WMBD first reported on this story. The original story can be found online at CIProud.com.
