The Data Center Capital: Growth, Land, and Local Consequences
open.spotify.com · 2026-04-17
Julie Bolthouse, Director of Land Use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, joins In Our Backyard Podcast to discuss Virginia's rapid expansion of data centers and how these facilities are reshaping landscapes, straining resources, and raising tough questions about energy consumption, water usage, and air quality.
open.spotify.com. 2026-04-17. The Data Center Capital: Growth, Land, and Local Consequences. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6OQDRUgyEhVDS1gNwGIl2Q (AI & Environment Resource Hub; record pod-0192; collection snapshot 2026-09-15).
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Rapid growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based services has accelerated data center development, creating new pressures on electricity systems, water resources, land use, and local governance. Largely ignored by citizens and policymakers in the past, data centers are now highly visible, energy-intensive facilities whose siting and operation raise significant community and policy challenges.
Oxford Open Energy
Shared topics: Cross-cutting sustainability; Energy and electricity; Water; Land use, heat, and noise; Built environment and infrastructure
In the Environmental Impacts of Data Centers 101 course, you will learn to analyze the environmental impacts of data centers using a life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective that goes beyond what you see in the news. This will include energy, water, land use, carbon emissions, global supply chains, e-waste concerns, ecological impacts, and environmental justice case studies. Whether you work in tech, sustainability, policy, or are just curious about how AI systems operate behind the scenes, this course gives you the clarity and frameworks to understand these impacts from end-to-end.
Nathaniel Burola
Shared topics: Cross-cutting sustainability; Energy and electricity; Water; Land use, heat, and noise; Built environment and infrastructure
AI data centers are becoming grid-scale flexible loads whose siting and operation affect electricity demand, carbon emissions, cooling energy, water use, and regional infrastructure adequacy. This paper presents GAIA-DC, a feasibility-first framework for sustainable AI data centers that couples facility energy performance, grid flexibility, regional environmental carrying capacity, and workload placement.
SSRN
Shared topics: Cross-cutting sustainability; Water; Land use, heat, and noise; Air pollution; Built environment and infrastructure
This session breaks down the strongest possible policy interventions to protect water, air, and public health from the data center buildout, and creative ways to use these protections to stop or slow data center development when bans aren't an option. The discussion covers water ordinances and moratoriums, diesel generators, and noise protections, with on-the-ground campaign and legal strategies from Ypsilanti, Memphis, and North Carolina.
