An Oklahoma House of Representatives committee plans an interim study hearing later this month to explore the impact of data centers in the state.
Entitled, “The Real Impact of Data Centers: Pros and Cons,” the hearing was requested in June by Broken Arrow Rep. Mark Chapman (R) and will be held, Tuesday, September 29 at 8:30 a.m. in Room 206 of the state capitol building.
EXPLANATORY COMMENTS ON THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY PROPOSAL:
- How should proposed data center developers communicate with the City Council, County Commission, Planning Commission, and boards
- What are the Tax Benefits and what are the cost
- Electricity, Water and Noise- Separating fact from Fiction
Rep. Chapman is vice chairman of the Utilities Committee and also sits on the House Energy & Natural Resources Oversight Committee. His web site advertises that he helped protecting electric bills when he “Stopped Big Tech data centers from passing costs to your family (HB2992). The bill became law on July 1.
Studies have been conducted nationwide on the impact of data centers. While Oklahoma is not one of the top ten states for data center projects, it has felt the impact of proposed projects as well as expanded efforts of some major firms.
The World Resources Institute did one such study:
As technology advances and computing demand grows, data centers are becoming increasingly energy hungry. A single modern AI data center can use as much power as 100,000 homes; many of the larger ones now being built are expected to consume up to 20 times that amount.
Estimates of total future power demand from data centers vary significantly. One study from the Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data centers could represent up to 12% of all U.S. electricity consumption by 2028. Another analysis, by Grid Strategies, says that up to 90 gigawatts (GW) worth of data centers could come online by 2030. That’s about 9 times New York City’s peak summer demand joining the grid in less than five years.
Another similar study was conducted by the Yale School of the Environment:
AI also poses significant risks related to growing electricity demand that could cause a spike in greenhouse gas emissions as well as air and water pollution if the new power requirements are met by fossil fuels rather than clean power generation and improved energy efficiency.
What has become evident is that society needs a more clear-eyed approach to the potential losses from AI as well as a strategy for sharing the benefits. Simply put, only with ongoing policy-guided investments and concerted effort can we be confident that AI will move society toward a sustainable future.
Wharton Magazine did another and pointed out that “Data centers aren’t solely to blame for rising electricity prices. Utilities are complex, as anyone who has ever tried to interpret an electric bill knows.”
Sanya Carley, who leads Penn’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and is an affiliated scholar of the Wharton Climate Center, and Vishrut Rana GRW27, a Wharton doctoral student in operations management, found that as a potential bright side of the controversial topic “the data-center boom could increase public awareness about energy use.”
