Residents in Philadelphia and other U.S. cities are resisting new data centers, citing pollution and health concerns, as the AI industry's energy demand is projected to surpass Germany and Japan's combined natural gas usage by 2035.

Shawmar Pitts, managing co-director of Philly Thrive, grew up near a former oil refinery that shut down in 2019 after an explosion, and witnessed the health impacts on his family and neighbors. 'My mother has this, my sister has that, my next-door neighbor suffers from this' – every house, someone has something on that list,' Pitts said at a rally.

Philly Thrive board president Sonya Sanders, whose husband died of rare bone cancer in 2020, said she believes refinery emissions caused his illness. 'In my eyes, they killed him,' Sanders said at the rally. 'The pollution killed him.

I believe he would be here today if he wasn’t silently murdered, because it was the pursuit of profit that killed him.'

BloombergNEF predicts U.S. data centers will consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035, a projection almost double from nine months ago.

Burning natural gas releases 60 grams of carbon dioxide per cubic foot, and additional data center demand is expected to generate 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution daily, which is about 12% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

'Progress shouldn’t arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted water supply, or noise pollution,' said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who signed an executive order temporarily halting new permits for large projects. Data center moratoriums have also been approved in cities like Denver, Indianapolis, and Reno.

Residents like Donna Greenberg, who attended the rally, worry about pollution, surveillance, and the use of resources that could otherwise benefit their communities. 'I’m worried about surveillance and the fact that they’re going to have access to information they have no business knowing,' Greenberg said. Over 100 people attended the rally, chanting for city council members to hear their concerns.

Source: techcrunch