Local Sierra Club Chapter, Friends of Rappahannock Host Information Session on Data Center

Approval of projects needs to pause until impacts have been studied, presenters say.

By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Local, state, and national legislators should “press pause” on approving and facilitating new data center projects until the results of a comprehensive study authorized by Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which conducts research for the General Assembly, is released this fall.

Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash

That’s the approach Tim Cywinski, communications director for the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter, recommended to the audience at Wednesday’s meeting on “The Impact of Data Centers on our Community.”

Hosted by the Rappahannock Sierra Club and the Friends of the Rappahannock, the event was so well-attended that it exceeded the capacity of the meeting room at the downtown Fredericksburg library branch and had to end after one hour.

Virginia is the data center capital of the world, with more than 300 already operational or approved throughout the state—and five more were approved in the last week, Cywinski said.

The most intense concentration of data centers—which are simply large buildings used to store computer systems—is in northern Virginia, especially eastern Loudoun County, but the industry has been marching south in recent years, with projects approved in Stafford and Spotsylvania.

At the last Fredericksburg City Council meeting, Mayor Kerry Devine, with Council support, directed staff to explore bringing a data center to Celebrate VA South, citing the fact that data centers have been approved in surrounding jurisdictions and are poised to bring in tax revenue.

Cywinski said data centers are often described as a “necessary evil.”

“That may have been true when we were talking about providing internet access,” he said. “But this new wave of data centers has nothing to do with getting online, and everything to do with Artificial Intelligence—which is an industry gamble.”

A “traditional” data center draws power in pockets, when users need internet access or streaming services, but an AI data center runs “100% of the time, drawing power 100% of the time,” Cywinski said.

AI is power-hungry. A peer-reviewed study published in October estimates that by 2027, AI servers could use between 85 to 134 terawatt hours annually, which is similar to what a small country uses in a year and is about 0.5% of the world’s current energy use.

The energy needs of AI data centers—which could account for up to 9.1% of the country’s total energy demand by the end of the decade, according to a May 2024 report cited in Popular Science—may be met by non-renewable natural gas and will require utility companies to build new infrastructure, Cywinski said.

Virginians already have some of the highest electricity bills in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Customers pay for the cost of new infrastructure through surcharges and are poised to pay more for utility companies such as Dominion to meet the energy needs of data centers.

The amount of water used by data centers to cool their servers is another area of concern, said Brent Hunsinger, advocacy director for Friends of the Rappahannock.

“No doubt water is a big issue—both quality and quantity,” Hunsinger said.

It’s difficult to know exactly how much water individual data center projects use because the information is usually subject to nondisclosure agreements, he said.

The projects that have been approved in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties will use treated wastewater for cooling in a closed loop system, but rural counties such as Caroline and King George, which don’t have public water, will have to withdraw water from the Rappahannock River, Hunsinger said.

Whether or not the water is treated and returned to the river depends on the project.

Additionally, how much water is used depends on the type of cooling systems used by the data center—and localities don’t have any control over that, Cywinski said.

The environmental and health effects of data centers—especially from the multiple large diesel generators that are in place for backup power—also need to be studied and protective policies need to be put in place, he said.

Protecting citizens, especially children and the elderly, should be “the floor of public policy,” Cywinski said.

He said localities are understandably nervous about missing out on the potential tax revenue from data centers, but that it might be a better strategy to seek tax revenue from a diversity of sources—such as by encouraging small businesses, which are a direct economic benefit to a community.

Loudoun County, for example, derives 67% of its tax revenue from data centers, Cywinski said.

“What happens if they go away?” he questioned.

City Councilor Jon Gerlach and Planning Commission members Adam Lynch and Carey Whitehead attended Wednesday’s meeting.

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