What’s the Situation?
Lancaster, PA city hall was noticeably more tense on the night of June 22nd as the city council members addressed the news of plans for the construction of a new AI facility right outside of the city. Earlier that afternoon, the mayor, alongside representatives from Chirisa Technology Parks and Machine Investment Groups, made the announcement [1, 17:10]. Construction is underway for the new AI data center. The people of Lancaster and the surrounding area may have only recently heard the news a week prior in a statement made by senator Dave McCormick and championed by governor Josh Shapiro [2]. The message was clear. York and Lancaster County will be home to a recent push by the government and oligarchs to promote AI.
In recent years, AI has surged in use. From Google telling us to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge to Palantir surveillance in the Gaza strip [3]. The role of AI has more and more prominent usage in our lives than it ever has since the dawn of the computer. Alongside the prevalence of AI came a manufactured need for more computing power. Of GPUs (Graphical Processing Unit) and server computers needing to process information on a mass scale. As a response, more and more of these AI data centers have been constructed. Large industrial sized buildings lined end to end with computer racks filled with servers and GPUs constantly drawing energy and producing heat [4].
Why the Anger?
The problem with all this are the vast resources needed to sustain these data centers. Let’s start with the basics. AI centers need lots of energy. Each of those computer racks need to be individually powered to constantly compute and generate AI models. Furthermore, with the heat generated, more power is needed to cool the centers via fans. One LNP article estimates that the data center in Lancaster is estimated to consume 100 megawatts every day of the year [5]. Emma Burgess, with a masters degree in electrical engineering, laid it out clearly in the city hall meeting. “That is 70,000 MWH per month. The average Pennsylvania household, according to the EIA (Energy Information Administration) in 2022, consumes 854 KWH per month. Which means the data center would consume the equivalent of 85,000 homes. Adding a data center would use the energy equivalent of four times the entirety of Lancaster City houses on the low end”[1, 39:10].
Two big problems stem from this increased power draw: one economical and one ecological. The ecological problem is clear. An increase in power draw in an infrastructure still reliant on fossil fuels will increase our greenhouse gas emissions leading to our climate change demise. But a problem unique to Lancaster is the air quality. Resident speakers at the city hall meeting, such as Abi Haynie and Anne Torres, tend to be aware of the fact that Lancaster is the 22nd worst place in the country in regards to air quality [1,45:10, 54:37]. This is something that has plagued Lancaster since the 2023 Canadian wildfires and has had lasting impacts ever since due to the ongoing development of climate change [6]. The sentiment from the city hall residents is clear. There has to be a way forward that doesn’t sacrifice our health.
Economically, the effects of the increased power draw will attack the pocketbooks of Lancaster residents. You can’t simply put a heavy load on the grid without incurring cost. And the fear is that the cost will be met out on the residents themselves. As the infrastructure needed to maintain the level of power draw increases, the burden of paying for the increasing infrastructure and power spikes, in other words, will be laid out to the average homeowner and renter. Anne Torres pointed this out in her city hall speech, “AI data centers, while they get to privatize their profits, they get to socialize their operational cost. In areas of high data center growth, consumers can expect to see an additional estimated $450 dollars added to their yearly electricity costs” [1, 55:15].
Another major cost are the cooling fans. The city council has stated that these facilities would be air cooled [1, 19:53]. Those cooling fans generate a tremendous amount of noise. The impact of which is not lost to the Lancaster residents. Christine Kennedy, one of the attendees of the city hall meeting cited a Time Magazine article, We’re living in a Nightmare of a Texas Bitcoin Town, as an example of how harrowing these noise conditions can be leading to “Loss of hearing, fainting spells, debilitating vertigo and nausea [1, 49:25].
All of these issues point at a very glaring truth regarding this data center. That it is classified under an existing footprint as a storage facility. Tony Dastra, Lancaster Green Party candidate for city council and mayor, makes this dishonest designation clear, “Let’s be clear, data centers do not just store information. They process immense volumes of it, consuming vast amounts of electricity and water, often with serious environmental consequences” [7]. The consequence of this designation is that it does not need to go through the standard vetting that a facility as taxing this should go through. It’s not under as intensive of a regulatory scrutiny. Take the noise issues for example. The only assurance the data center complies with noise regulations is simply the developers said it would as stated by city council [1, 20:59].
And ultimately that’s why the people of Lancaster are angry. They don’t feel like they have control over something that will affect them. They understand that they’re being forced to take on a burden so the city can take on questionable economic gains via tax revenue. That the shortness of the notice prior to construction being underway, the dodgy way in which the developers avoid regulations and address concerns is a means to prevent any actual push back on this harmful project’s completion. At the climax of the city hall meeting regarding these data centers, Frank Arcoleo explains this in an impassioned speech venting out this rage, “We’re told. It’s too late to do anything. If you started in February, we could do a lot. Do you think we wouldn’t notice? Do you think we wouldn’t care? What we want is for you to stop this data center right now. We want control by the city over such properties” [1, 58:38].
What Next?
So what now? Construction is already underway but it’s not too late. The next Lancaster, PA City Hall meeting is August 6 at 5:30 PM. This is an opportunity to address the planning commission. This is a call to the residents of Lancaster and those affected in the region. We want you there. You don’t have to talk. You just have to come. Your presence is enough. If you live in Lancaster city and you’re against this data center, write a letter to the mayor, city council and planning commission. For those living in York County, and those in the region, we must similarly organize to oppose the AI data center they’re planning to build there.
AI is a means by which the CEOs of corporations displace workers. They are a means to weaken us by replacing us with more subservient machines whilst taking from our art, our behaviors and words to train their ever expanding AI models that we then fund through tax breaks and the maintenance of these data centers. But we have collective people power. We have the power to say NO. Let’s show them that.
References
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4mI4udbAfM
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/technology/google-ai-overview-search.html