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Big Tech data center buildouts have led to $5.4 billion in public health costs. Cancers and asthma among illnesses linked to air pollution from powering data centers.
Cancers and asthma among illnesses linked to air pollution from powering data centers.
The analysis does not account for the purchase of market-based instruments that are meant to represent investments in new renewable energy in the US and that tech companies buy to offset the pollution from their electricity consumption. “Unlike carbon emissions, the health impacts caused by a data center in one region cannot be offset by cleaner air elsewhere,” said Shaolei Ren, associate professor at UC Riverside. Ren said there was an opportunity for tech groups to reverse the trend of a “growing public health threat” by strategically placing their data centers in less populated locations to have less impact.
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