Data Centres
I had never heard of data centres until I started to see a lot of news about communities in the US putting a halt to their construction. This sparked my curiosity and I decided to find out more.
A quick search in Google (no, not using AI), and I arrived at Global Action Plan’s website. And they have a huge amount of info on data centres. My mind was boggling by the time I’d read it all. (The UK Government has information on them here.)
Global Action Plan is the only established climate charity in the UK with a well-developed work programme on, expertise in and insight into the online ecosystem and the threat it poses.
So data centres, Global Action Plan says, are essentially warehouses for computers. They have lots of servers, storage devices and networking equipment and cooling equipment. Lots of cooling equipment. And the number of these facilities are growing. You can find out more about what they do on Global Action Plan’s FAQs, but they need massive amounts of energy to power, and they need back up generators and they need cooling systems to stop the technology from overheating.
Global Action Plan say that AI data centres are expanding in the UK, driven by big tech companies who are investing billions in their expansion. They need planning permission, normally granted by Local Authorities – but the UK Government has overruled some local rejections of data centre applications. It’s classing data centres as ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects” in an attempt to bypass local planning and centralise and streamline decisions.
Global Action Plan is challenging one of these cases in court at the moment – the grounds being, that the Government’s decision isn’t taking the environmental impacts of the data centre into account.
In a bid to bypass local planning, the Government is classing data centres as “Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects” in an attempt to centralise and streamline decisions.
These huge data centres jeopardise our water security and our climate action. The scale of their construction will outstrip the growth of renewables and increase fossil fuel consumption and emotions.
Global Action Plan says:
“The National Energy System Operator has said national power use by data centres could reach 71 TWh every year by 2050. That’s equivalent to the energy use of millions of households, and more than the entire commercial sector today.”
Many claims that many data centres are powered by “100% renewables”, but the experience from other countries is that additional power demand from data centres is being mostly met by fossil fuels. This is the last thing this planet wants. The extra electricity needed by data centres will outstrip the construction of new renewables. Climate commitments from large tech companies seem to have been scaled back or abandoned.
But that’s not all. These places need HUGE amounts of water - again, Global Action Plan:
“By 2027, AI-related data centres alone are expected to withdraw between 4.2 and 6.6 billion cubic metres of water globally – that's roughly equivalent to half the UK’s annual water use.”
With all this summer’s droughts and wildfires, there will be more competition for water supplies from data centres and people. Global Action Plan say that “a single hyperscale facility consuming a similar amount of water to a small city.”
That’s not all. The making of the millions of chips required for data centres will create a huge demand for minerals and other natural resources.
I keep asking myself questions
We managed without all this stuff in times past.
How come we need it so much now?!
Are we any happier for it?
Is the quality of our lives any better for it?
What would life be like if no water came out of the tap?
We can all take action
The video left is from PBS Terra and Floodlight News. Please have a look. There is a lot of opposition to these centres. Tap into Google your county or state and AI centres (or proposed AI centres) and see what you find and what people are doing to stop them. There are petitions against these centres in Kent, for instance, one for Broad Oak in Canterbury and Google is planning a data centre on land which hosts 530 invertebrate species in Essex. Find out more about that and the petition here. The Cornwall Times also have news of a petition demanding a pause on AI data centre approval which has already attracted thousands of signatures.
“A single ChatGPT query can consume up to ten times the energy of a standard web search.”
So what to do?
In the UK, there’s a petition calling for the Government to put a framework together for data centres. It would include:
How many data centres are needed? Where? What would their purpose be?
How other areas of the economy will still have access to clean power and water?
What level of cumulative emissions and other environmental hard from data centre build out is acceptable – how will developers work to mitigate that?
What measures will ensure industry reports power and water usage transparently. We all need to be able to assess their environmental impacts and weight those against benefits.
The petition calls for a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centres until that framework is in place. You can sign the petition here.
Buglife are involved in the campaign to stop a new one in Essex on a 52 acre wildlife haven which Google want to put up - they have a petition here. Please read what they say about it.
Other things you can do
Keep up to date with Global Action Plans’ news
Read their three reports: AI Threats to Climate Change, Big Tech’s Dirty Secret and Not a Drop to Drink.
Spread the word about Global Action Plan’s website and campaigns
Use normal search facilities instead of AI ones
Email your MP and explain to them why you don’t want data centres near you
I don't use AI and am working through everything I've got stored everywhere online to get as much as I can deleted.
Find out where new data centres are being proposed in the UK (Scroll down the page when you click through)
You can find out which US states have moratoriums on data centres Data Center Moratoriums.
Why are communities pushing back against data centers? Take a look at this article from The Harvard Gazette, USA, in April 2026
Read all about it! Stop Data Centers - The NAACP has been working with communities across the US to help protect them.
The planet is in enough trouble as it is. We don’t need to make things worse!
The photo at the top of this blog is from Nahrizul Kadri on Unsplash - thank you, Nahrizul.
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