The Front Line between AI and Climate Action – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Virginia, the data center capital of the world, could become the next Silicon Valley if they play their cards right. But local green activists are determined the rein in the Data Center “Behemoth”.

Governor Glenn Youngkin just vetoed a climate bill which would have driven up the cost of energy.

Virginia governor vetoes more energy storage despite data centers roaring for more power

Virginia has the largest data center market in the world but imports more energy than any other state. A bill to increase energy storage buildout was unanimously passed by the Senate, but then vetoed by the governor.

MAY 19, 2025 RACHEL METEA

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin used his last veto powers to eliminate most of the General Assembly’s efforts to meet the state’s energy demands and regulate the state’s energy-intensive data center market, the largest data center market in the world. According to Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), Northern Virginia constitutes 13% of all reported data center operational capacity globally and 25% of capacity in the Americas.

The legislation would have tripled the amount of energy storage capacity the state requires its two public utilities to procure under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The bill required Appalachian Power to petition for at least 780 MW of short-duration capacity by 2040 and 520 MW of long-duration energy storage capacity by 2045 and for public utility Dominion Energy to petition for at least 5,220 MW of short-duration energy storage capacity and 3,480 MW of long-duration energy storage capacity by 2045.

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“The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is failing Virginians,” the governor said in a statement. “Adding in requirements for the petitioning of additional storage technologies will not change the fact that the law is misguided and does not work. Long-duration energy storage is an expensive technology and if utilities believed it to be the best technology to meet demand, they would be actively seeking permission to build them.”

Dominion, however, has been actively seeking permission to build more energy storage. Dominion’s proposed construction of long-duration energy storage facilities was approved by Virginia’s utility regulator in 2024. In April, Dominion was approved to purchase electricity from third-party storage suppliers. Dominion said its plan for a combination of solar and the storage projects would “result in fuel savings of approximately $6.6 billion over the period of 2022 through 2035. Fuel savings for the full lives of all resources in this Development Plan, which extend through 2073, are approximately $118.5 billion.”

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Read more: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/05/19/virginia-governor-vetoes-more-energy-storage-despite-data-centers-roaring-for-more-power/

Despite Governor Youngkin’s support for keeping energy costs down, there is significant opposition to further expansion of data centers in Virginia.

Report highlights community pushback stalling $64 billion in data center development nationwide

In Virginia, the globe’s largest concentration of data centers, and nationally, local opposition has coalesced into a powerful, bipartisan force.

BY: CHARLES PAULLIN – MAY 21, 2025 5:21 AM

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Then, a couple of years ago, when people began to learn much more about the warehouse-like server farms proliferating at double the earlier rate, the fight strengthened with a meeting in Warrenton.

“That was where we all just started saying, ‘OK, in order to fight this behemoth, we have to have some organizational process,’” Schlossberg said. “We have to be able to communicate. We have to be able to support each other. We have to have a clearinghouse for all the information.”

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At the state level, dozens of bills were introduced in the Virginia General Assembly this year to enact development safeguards, but only a symbolic one about utility costs was signed into law by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

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But many elected officials are approving data centers.

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“They’ll go in somewhere,” Wheeler said, adding her county had resources for responsible planning. “I would rather have that tax revenue in Virginia.”

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Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have had localities require a description of substation needs and a study on the noise the facilities close to homes and schools generate, which can come from their air conditioning units, and onsite power generators. House Democrats killed a requirement for state regulators to review data center power contractsto ensure that electricity generation and transmission lines could support the need.

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Read more: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/21/report-highlights-community-pushback-stalling-64-billion-in-data-center-development-nationwide/

I’m sympathetic to community concerns, because there are genuine issues mixed in with the green dogma. Data centers can have a substantial negative community impact, at least in the short term. They can drive up electricity and water bills (large amounts of water are required for cooling), and starve other industries of access to land and resources, industries which cannot match the spending power of data center operators.

But the part which really seems to upset greens is that the gargantuan energy demands of data centers are crushing their dreams of a renewable energy powered future.

For data center sustainability in Virginia, state regulation is a must

Spreading out from Northern Virginia, data centers are being proposed in communities across the Chesapeake Bay region. They promise big bursts of local revenue, but they also consume huge amounts of energy and can sometimes negatively impact neighborhoods and natural areas. When data centers come knocking, what should local environmentalists do?  

Given the inevitability of new development, perhaps the best that local advocates can do is push for greater data center sustainability. But regulation and transparency of this industry is sorely lacking in Virginia. This, along with data centers’ tremendous energy needs, raises the question: What does sustainability in this industry even mean?

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I know that leaders in my city care deeply about the environment. But officials ignored recommendations from the General Assembly’s data center report because, it would seem, the potential new tax revenue was just too big to pass up. This experience indicates that, before we can talk about data center sustainability, communities in Virginia need state lawmakers to set limits that restrict these industrial facilities to land that is appropriately zoned for such use.

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The reality is that this industry is highly dependent on fossil fuels. There is only so much area in Virginia that we can cover with solar panels, and there are only so many wind turbines that we can build. Energy consumption in Virginia is set to double in the next 15 years, mostly because of the proliferation of data centers. Consequently, this industry is a major obstacle to achieving our climate goals, despite the renewable energy claims of individual companies.

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Eric Bonds, PhD, is a sociology professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. The views expressed here are his own and not reflective of positions taken by UMW.

Views expressed by opinion columnists are not necessarily those of the Bay Journal.

Read more: https://www.bayjournal.com/opinion/forum/for-data-center-sustainability-in-virginia-state-regulation-is-a-must/article_053c830f-d4d4-44a1-a1bd-2c2b1659962c.html

Will Virginia pass up their opportunity to become the next Silicon Valley?

Solar power for data centers isn’t going to happen, the energy demands are too great, as is the requirement for reliable, dispatchable energy. If you owned a football field scale computer installation where equipment costs exceed $10,000 per square foot, the last thing you want is for all that capital investment to sit idle because the sun went down. Nor would you be keen on large, highly flammable lithium batteries being sited on the campus, next to all those expensive computers.

Virginia has a rich endowment of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, which is probably what initially drew the data centers, but the data center industry has outstripped local capacity. Virginia now imports around 37% of its electricity.

More nuclear power would solve the energy crisis without increasing emissions, though more nuclear might put pressure on water access. Governor Youngkin pushed for nuclear earlier in his term of office, but demand still appears to be outstripping supply.

There is an obvious way to defuse community tension, aside from building more infrastructure to alleviate pressure on electricity and water supplies.

In 2023 Amazon AWS donated $300,000 to Northern Virginian Community College to help fund high tech training.

My suggestion is build upon and expand such programmes. Instead of importing IT talent to run Virginia’s data centers, hire local.

If Big Tech companies hoping to expand in Virginia were to offer lots of education scholarships, so Virginia’s best and brightest could fully participate in Virginia’s data center AI revolution, it is pretty hard to organise a protest against the company which is paying for your kid’s education, and providing a path for your kids to enjoy a well paid and secure financial future.

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