Energy generated in the Keystone State will power data centers in state and out of state, a new report found.
"Pennsylvania has a lot of data center proposals, but so do the states around them, and Pennsylvania will be exporting electricity to surrounding states to support the data center load growth,” said Eva Morgan.
Morgan is the project manager for the Clean Energy Group. She and her organization worked alongside Clean Air Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania to produce the report, “The High Cost of AI: How Data Centers are Reshaping Pennsylvania’s Energy Landscape.”
Representatives from the organizations discussed the report and answered questions from local residents, Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan and state Rep. Kyle Donahue, D-Scranton, during a discussion on the report at the University of Scranton Monday.
READ THE DOCUMENTS
● Physicians for Social Responsibility monitors air quality throughout the region. To find that data visit map.purpleair.com.
● To read the full report, visit cleanegroup.org/PAdatacenters.
“The rapid pace of this load growth, combined with a lack of data to get an accurate picture of projected demand and an energy system designed around fossil fuels, has contributed to Pennsylvanians footing the bill for data centers not only with their wallets, but with their air quality,” the report found.
In the audience were many Archbald residents who are opposed to the six proposed data center campuses in the borough.
Josephine Gingerich is health advocacy outreach coordinator for Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania. Towards the end she asked for a round of applause for the residents who have been fighting the developments since last year.
Pennsylvania’s energy beyond state lines
Morgan spoke first about PJM, a private, nonprofit corporation that runs the electrical grid that generates and distributes electricity across a large section of the country including Pennsylvania.
In the United States, the grid, which could include gas-fired power plants, solar and wind farms, and nuclear power plants, is broken up into 10 regional energy markets.
PJM covers Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, DC.
“PJM is the largest regional electricity market in the country, managing electricity delivery for 67 million people,” according to the report.
Of all those states and D.C., only Pennsylvania and West Virginia export energy.
"The PJM states are counting on Pennsylvania to provide the needed energy to meet this data center demand, including Virginia, which has the highest concentration of data centers in the country,” Morgan said.
Virginia is home to 35% of the world’s hyperscale data centers, which are large-scale facilities used for artificial intelligence and other industries that require large amounts of data storage.
Virginia has the most data centers in the United States, according to the report, and is he top importer of energy in PJM.
“The massive energy demand from data centers in Virginia is being met by imports of natural gas and coal from Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., along with parts of other surrounding states,” the report found.
The groups who produced the report say emissions will rise from the energy generated to power data centers.
"And as we learned in the report and as we can see every day, PJM and Pennsylvania are doubling down on fossil fuels to meet this predicted energy demand,” Morgan said.
Health concerns
Gingerich said since large-scale data centers are fairly new, there is a lack of long-extended health studies on the industry’s impact.
"But what we do have long-extended health studies on are diesel pollution, gas fired power plant pollution and pollutants from the generators and the infrastructure around fracking,” she said.
Morgan said a recent study found that data center demand is estimated to add an additional 24 to 44 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere by the end of the decade.
"It's estimated that this increased local air pollution will add $20 billion in public health burden across the country in the year 2028," she said.
Gingerich elaborated on that.
"Based on the projections, data centers can contribute to roughly 600,000 asthma cases a year nationwide, and 1,300 premature deaths from that condition,” she said.
Questions from the audience
An audience member who lives in Pike County asked the panel if the Lackawanna County data centers could impact the environment in neighboring counties.
"Your air quality could still be impacted. We are working with other groups that are doing air impact maps, where they're looking at the motion of the air currents and figuring out, where will that pollution go, where will it settle,” Gingerich said.
Residents in Northeast Pennsylvania will “likely” see an impact on their electricity bills, she added.
"You have the supply charge, and then you have the distribution charge, and those charges are socialized out across all of the rate payers,” she said.
PPL Electric Utilities has said in the past that the company does a study and analysis for every large load customer, like a data center.
That study determines what upgrades are needed on the system and what is needed just for the customer versus what upgrades benefits the system as a whole. The portion that benefits the entire system is allocated to all customers.
"Even if you know, a data center pulls out, if a power plant still gets constructed, if the transmission lines still get constructed, you could still be on the hook 30 years down the line for that construction,” Morgan added.
Breslin said that during the construction period for the data centers truck traffic could increase on roads.
Archbald Borough council recently voted to hire an environmental engineer. A resident from the borough asked the panel what questions they should ask that engineer.
"Get your mine maps, like see if they can look at the mine mapping and what's going on there. Look at the watershed as a whole. Look at what kind of rare, Class A trout streams and other types of sensitive species that might pop up in a PNDI (Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory) permit,” Gingerich suggested.
The panel also discussed the power of local elected officials and zoning and as well as informed residents, which many in the audience know well. They also support state Sen. Katie Muth’s three-year moratorium on data centers, which state Sen. Rosemary Brown, R-Monroe, is co-sponsoring.
"AI is poised to drive [a] 160% increase in data center power demand. And I'm here to say right now, we do not need all of these hyperscale data centers. We are not benefiting from this proposed AI boom,” Gingerich said.
