Facts & Concerns

Communities deserve straight answers, not spin. Here are the real questions people are asking about data centers, answered with sourced evidence, including the ones where the honest answer is "it depends." When a concern is legitimate, we say so, and our standards are built to address it.

Do data centers hurt local water supplies?

Sometimes, and sometimes not. It depends heavily on cooling design and location. Air-cooled and closed-loop facilities can use little or no water; others have strained local sources. We publish real numbers project by project rather than blanket reassurances, and our water standard pushes operators toward closed-loop and reclaimed-water systems with independent verification.

Do data centers cause cancer or other illness?

No credible evidence links data centers to cancer or similar illness. We say that plainly. We also hold ourselves to answering every health question with evidence, including concerns that do check out, like noise and, in specific cases, on-site generation emissions.

Will a data center raise my electricity bill?

It can, in some regions, and those costs should be assigned to the project, not to households. The alarmist versions are often overstated (a widely shared "267%" figure was fact-checked as conflating wholesale and residential prices), but the concern is real where grids are tight. Our grid-and-ratepayer standard supports fair cost allocation and disclosure of a project's load impact.

Isn't all of this kept secret?

Confidentiality during site selection is legitimate: early disclosure would let speculators inflate land prices and kill deals. But once a project enters public permitting, water, emissions, and bill-impact data should be public. We defend the first and require the second.