In 1808 English poet William Blake wrote of “dark satanic mills,” the infrastructure of the Industrial Revolution, which by then had become a blight on the English landscape. It was a protest against unchecked development.
Fast forward nearly 220 years and a new version of this is inflicting another blight on the environment, both natural and human. At a rally the other day, a speaker referred to them as the “concretisation of the data cloud.” She was speaking of data centres, which are springing up all over the planet. Ostensibly to prevent the internet from overloading, their main function is to handle the terabytes of information needed to process the demands of the Artificial Intelligence (AI). This high-tech industry is luring trillions of dollars from investors, hoping to rake in enormous profits.
The arguments for these super massive installations are largely bogus. While it is true that non-AI internet traffic does require upgraded networking power, it is a small fraction of the capacity currently under construction or in development. The need for capacity is driven almost entirely by AI, and the reason for that is because it is not, in fact, intelligent, but super fast data retrieval. Humans possess intuition, ethical standards and the ability to reason. AI, on the other hand, needs active “thought,” that is constant data processing. The more complex the issue or task, the more data is needed and hence bandwidth. This means larger computing arrays needing more infrastructure. Data centres are where AI meets the physical world.
Communities disrupted. Data centres are big and need lots of land. The facility proposed near Plumpton, in Melbourne’s Western suburbs, will span 350 hectares. By capacity it will be the largest in Australia. Over 500 hectares of land will be swallowed by one in Western Sydney — the largest by area. So there’s a competition for space with housing, manufacturing, agriculture and nature. Yet that’s not the worst detriment. Plumpton will demand 2.4 gigawatts of electricity — more than the output of Victoria’s largest power station, Loy Yang A. Based on similar, already operating data complexes, it will require around 20 million litres of water per day. That’s one and a half percent of the entire daily consumption of Melbourne — a city of more than 5 million people! Melbourne Water Corporation estimates that data centres will use around 4 percent of the city’s water supply by 2030.
Then there is the constant noise. Plumpton is around a kilometre from the nearest house, so it will be around 40 decibels, which is the sound of a fridge. Fine, as long as you’re living that distance away. But consider the people living across the road from the NEXTDC “hyperscale” data facility in suburban West Footscray. It was foisted upon residents with no meaningful consultation. There is a round-the-clock, loud drone making it impossible to sleep soundly for streets around. It gets worse once a week, when the backup generators are tested. These rival the noise of overflying aircraft landing at Melbourne Airport. Another blow to tired residents across the adjoining narrow suburban streets are the harsh security lighting. And there’s a real risk of explosion and fire from the thousands of litres of diesel fuel stored onsite, coupled with the air pollution from diesel exhaust.
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the energy released by thousands of stacked servers, together with that of the required cooling equipment, creates a heat island, raising temperatures for kilometres around.
Before this behemoth was imposed on the neighbourhood, the neighbours were warehouses and small manufacturing. Now there is a proposal to quadruple the size of NEXTDC. Residents believe that the state government and local council will simply rubber stamp this expansion, just as they did with the existing facility. They’re not making that up: the Victorian government, along with that of every state and territory, has vowed to make data centre construction as easy as possible, despite the wishes of neighbours. The Reserve Bank governor has also warned that the focus on getting data centres built takes tradespeople away from housing construction.
Ecological impacts. Many of the human impacts also affect livestock and wildlife, which are also impacted as global temperatures soar and water resources, especially river flows, are depleted. Microclimate disruption through excess heat threatens endangered flora, which in urban areas, tends to exist in tiny remnant pockets — like the grasslands at suburban Laverton North and Cobblebank, where two huge data centres are proposed. Another driver of environmental degradation is unsustainable resource extraction. Building AI hardware requires extensive mining for rare earth elements, critical minerals, and metals, which triggers deforestation, soil erosion, and biodiversity loss. On top of all this, accelerated technological advancement cycles cause equipment to become swiftly obsolete. This generates tons of toxic waste for each site, overwhelming recycling programs or filling landfills with toxic waste.
There is also the effect on the planet. A study by two former Microsoft employees, Will and Holly Alpine, found that AI allows oil and gas extractors to find and exploit resources previously out of reach. It also speeds up existing fossil fuel production. AI is therefore driving a carbon bomb generating 13 times its own carbon footprint. So much for the “net zero” policies touted by world leaders. Climate scientists are clear that, faced with the current emergency, CO2 emissions need to be drastically cut — not increased.
Peter Murray. Photo by Alison Thorne.
Resistance grows. In the US, New York state has put a one-year moratorium on AI centre construction. New Jersey has enacted energy restrictions and in other states, AI tax incentives have been scaled back. On top of this, over 170 local communities have introduced zoning restrictions or moratoriums. Here, the New South Wales government has enacted strict energy requirements and air and water quality standards. Meanwhile the Albanese federal government has announced proposed national standards. However these will not apply to installations currently in operation, under construction or already approved. In any case, neither proposal does much to mitigate most of the negative effects of large-scale data centres.
In Victoria, the state government is barracking for the AI sector, describing Melbourne as “key destination for data centre investment.” Communities across the city are banding together to demand a moratorium on data centre construction until their concerns are addressed. These communities, and others around the country, must be supported. History shows exactly what can happen when unchecked profit-driven development is tolerated. Indeed it is the cause of the climate emergency itself!
The internet is essential infrastructure in the twenty-first century. Of course it must be regularly upgraded to meet society’s needs. The current data centre bonanza is driven by the needs of tech giants and their shareholders, and are permitted to the detriment of both the human and natural environments. Data centres, as they are now, are unsustainable. It’s time to stop building more until they are!
