The University of Illinois Springfield is hosting a presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 21, focused on the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence and data center development. The talk is free and open to the public.
Mary Willis, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health, “will investigate the local effects of data centers built in the United States and propose policy solutions to help mitigate environmental impacts and protect local communities,” according to a promotional annoucement. The event, at 6 p.m. in Brookens Auditorium, is a part the UIS Engaged Citizen Common Experience speaker series.
Earlier this year, Willis, who previously studied fracking, told Illinois Times research on animals could reveal more information about the effects of hyperscale data centers on surrounding residents, animals and land.
“The first study that really linked tracking to adverse health outcomes was on horse or cattle,” she said. “That’s how we kind of figured out that there was even something going on here, and so I would be 0% surprised if local animal studies are what help us actually figure out the effects of data centers faster than we will in humans.”
The most immediate concern regarding the CyrusOne data center project planned for rural Sangamon County, according to Willis, is likely going to be the 420 backup emergency generators. While they will only need to run for 15 hours per year for maintenance, they would run for longer if the data center needed emergency power.
“This fine, particulate matter can very quickly become a regional problem,” Willis said, though she noted it’s more of a concern for those near the site. “If you live near a coal-fired power plant, that’s probably a far more important source to consider than the data center if that’s not right near you – but this is likely contributing overall to regional air pollution.”
Almost half of all Americans are living in areas with heavily polluted air, according to the American Lung Association. Sangamon County and the surrounding counties, according to the American Lung Association, rank middle of the road in particle pollution when compared to more than 200 more metropolitan areas.
Polluted air is “associated with increased risks of mortality, asthma and preterm birth,” Willis said.
She said she was surprised that CyrusOne plans to install that number of diesel-powered backup generators, a sentiment echoed by another researcher.
In March, Max Zhang, a professor at Cornell University who researches air pollutants produced by diesel-powered generators, told Illinois Times that was the largest number of backup generators he’d ever heard of for a data center.
Rising land temperatures
Researchers at The University of Cambridge published a study in March that used remote sensors to observe temperature increases around active data centers. Data centers located in non-urban environments resulted in “heat islands,” where surface temperatures can rise as far as six miles away.
Illinois Times asked CyrusOne about the study’s conclusions in July and whether the company had previously sampled land surface temperature around its data centers.
“At CyrusOne, our facilities are designed, developed, and operated in accordance with applicable health, safety, environmental, and land-use requirements, while following established industry practices for site design, cooling, energy efficiency, and environmental performance,” wrote Blair Felter, vice president of communications. “We do not have surface-temperature data to share.”
It’s unclear how nearby farmland might be impacted by the CyrusOne data center and the heat it gives off from running continuously; farmland is assessed by soil quality, which then affects the sale price and, ultimately, the tax assessment.
Byron Deaner, the county’s chief assessment officer, told IT in July even if that study bears out in Illinois, farmland values wouldn’t change much until parcels of land are actually sold and the market potentially adjusts.
“You really wouldn’t see any impact to those values until you started to see some farmland with those different productivity indexes sell at different rates,” he said. “Maybe that would force the Illinois Department of Revenue to revisit the values associated with those soils, if they could contribute the environmental impact of the heat to those particular soil types within the particular distance.”
