Since Trump’s return to power, we’ve been talking more and more about data centers as a point of linkage between big tech, fossil fuels, and fascism. Data centers are growing like a second coal industry. Each one may consume a city’s worth of water and electricity – mostly generated by fossil fuels.
So far Data centers haven’t exploded energy demand in New England like they have in other Electrical regions (known as RTOs). But in Lowell Mass the problem has been spilling into community conflict sparking meetings, protests and lawsuits. That’s why the ISONE Consumer Liaison Group is holding our next meeting in Lowell, with a topic of Data Centers and Democracy.
Join us on June 2 in Lowell or online to join the conversation!
Communities across America, and around the world, are fighting back against digital colonization and data centers in many forms. For example, people in Memphis are breathing polluted air thanks to Elon Musk’s Colossus data center and his Grok AI. In the climate crisis, vulnerable people worldwide will die because of data centers. And the uses AI and big data are being put to aren’t benign – like helping students write papers or making funny pictures online: DOGE, Pallantir, and OpenAI promise to surveil us, deport us, and send drones to kill unwanted humans. Just a few weeks ago our friends at Third Act and BXE led a protest at is the Data Center World Conference, where industry executives and political enablers met to wheel and deal.
On June 2 we’ll be joined by experts like Victoria Rojo, ISO NE’s Supervisor for Load Forecasting and Maryland People’s Counsel David Lapp. Lapp has fought and won local and federal dockets to protect ratepayers and consumers from skyrocketing prices caused by Data Centers. And Rojo is in charge of forecasting the kinds of big electricity users, like data centers, that we can expect to move into the regional grid in the next few years.
We’ll also hear from community advocates and pipeline fighters, because too often big data centers are powered by fossil fuels, and are permitted by FERC and local regulators over the objections of local consumers and climate advocates. We’ll be welcomed to Lowell by Jake Fortes of Honest Future for Lowell, and we’ll hear from Cathy Kristofferson of the Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast and Rosemary Wessel of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team who’ve been fighting regional fossil fuel pipelines and projects.