By Mavis Bates
Sierra Club Valley of the Fox, We Can Lead Change, and Sustainable Aurora Mayor’s Advisory Board will present Data Center Impacts: Protecting Our Water, Energy, and Ratepayers with The Illinois Power Act, a panel discussion by local experts about The POWER Act Monday, Sept. 14, 7 p.m. at Santori Aurora Public Library, 101 S River St, Aurora, For the Zoom link, please register on our website: https://www.sierraclub.org/illinois/valley-fox.
For many years, Illinois has been a leader in clean energy and energy efficiency. Thanks to energy-efficiency goals and new clean energy, we were on track to meet those goals. Then the data centers came to town—literally. Data centers have been appearing in our towns and counties with little warning, little transparency in the permitting process, and no accountability for how much energy, water, and land they are using. Our energy production and greenhouse gas emissions are rising, threatening our clean energy goals.
The POWER Act, SB 4016/HB5513, has three pillars. The first pillar will make sure that data centers pay their fair share to protect consumers and our climate from rising energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. It will ensure that big tech data centers pay their fair share for their energy use and not put that burden onto residential ratepayers. It calls for them to provide renewable energy to offset their ravenous hunger for more power, sometimes the equivalent ofa mid-sized city for a single data center.
The second pillar is about limiting pollution, especially in vulnerable neighborhoods. Data centers use diesel-powered backup generators, the size of a semi-trailer truck, in case of power outages. They test these diesel generators regularly, causing the noise and vibrations that the neighbors say sound like a helicopter hovering overhead day and night. This has to stop. This pillar also includes transparent public engagement and community benefit agreements preventing these huge projects from appearing almost out of nowhere, with little input from the community.
The third pillar protects our precious water supply and aims to establish sustainable water use by the data centers. One data center can use the water equivalent of approximately ten thousand homes. The new closed-loop technology uses less water but more energy, creating a hot-air column over the data center 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding air. The POWER Act will create water-efficiency requirements, ensure data centers pay their fair share for our water, and protect our drinking water supply.
What can we do about it? At the end of the meeting, we will have postcards ready for you to send to your Illinois State House and Senate members asking them to support the POWER Act. Lobby Day is coming this fall. We will provide information on how to hop on the bus and join us in Springfield.
By learning about important issues and taking action, working with environmental advocates, labor, and economic development, we can keep Illinois a leader in innovation, environmental sustainability, and consumer protection.