It turned out to be difficult to protect the electricity speed in California from data centers

From Harry JohnsonCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

California MPs have begun the year signaling that they are ready to cope with data centers, striving to protect the environment and ligaments of electricity. Nine months later, they have something to show about it.

Of four data centers billing bills, two have never taken him out of the legislature, including one who would have required data centers to publish their use of power and other This would provide them with incentives to use more clean energy.

The other two are on the office of governor Gavin Newo, but in a significantly reduced form. Man The use of water by operators of the data center, although now in a way that can avoid public access. Another originally directed To protect energy customers from infrastructure infrastructure costs, driven by data centers, but now it just allows regulators to understand if this is happening.

Data centers have a seemingly secular job to store and transmit the content of the Internet. But windowless facilities largely become a growing concern for public policy. At least one participates every time you watch a video or shopping on Tiktok on Amazon.

In recent years, demand for artificial intelligence, and especially new general -purpose systems, such as Chatgpt, have caused similar servers farms. This means more water for the cooling of semiconductors used for training and deploying models of AI and more power plants and transmission lines, leaving state regulators increasingly concerned about stress on tanks and potentially higher power accounts for housing customers.

These concerns are not limited to California; Communities and regulators in several countries have made movements to transparency or efficiency standards. Michigan in 2024 adopted a law To require the disclosure of water and mayor of St. Louis enforceable New rules Earlier this month.

California is home to One of the largest concentrations of existing data centers in the worldAnd more projects are on the way. Pacific gas and electric, the largest energy supplier in the state, reported This spring, he saw a 40 percent jump in data search requests. In July, the Commission for Utilities in California voted to optimize the project applications for data centersS

Protect your electric account

One of the bills now with the governor, Senate Bill 57Authorizes the State Committee on Utilities to assess whether the load of data centers loads the cost of other customers such as tenants and homeowners.

Initially, the Democratic Senator Steve Padila’s Democratic Senator Padila from the Chula sought defenses as those recently approved in Oregon and Ohio To ensure that the data center costs are not transferred to households.

However, the amendments to the Committee on Budget Loans in the Assembly at the end of August changed the bill to remove the special payment structure for data centers. The requirement to evaluate how the data centers transfer the costs to the taxes paid has also been reduced to permission, effectively providing the utility authority he has already had. Commission officials told Calmatters that they were using this power.

“Data centers lobbyists have successfully eradied the bill.”

Adria Tinin, the usefulness reform network

The changes clung to at least one early Becker on the account. The utility reform network supported the proposal initially to protect small business and leafy payments. The group still believes that the governor should sign it in the law to trace the impact of data centers, but “unfortunately, data centers lobbyists are successfully eating the bill,” said Turn of Race, Equity and Legislative Policy Adria Tinnin. “This does not allow us to do something to protect the actually paid data centers.”

PG & E initially opposed the bill, but withdrew the opposition after changing last month. In August with the support of the California Commission for Utilities, PG & E adopted rule This requires new customers for large projects-two of which are data centers-to cover the initial cost of transmission lines instead of transferring those fees.

Large technological organizations such as the Coalition Center for Data and Silicon Valley Leadership continue to oppose the bill. It is said that the State Committee on Utilities is already evaluating future projects.

Touching water indicators

If signed by law, Assembly Bill 93 It will require the operators of the Data Center to share with the water supplier how much water they evaluate that they will consume when applying or renewing a business license or authorization. It also aims at government agencies to develop guidelines for the efficiency of water use and best practices for data centers, as well as to the business only to give them. It is written by Diane BoardDemocrat from San Mateo and Chairman of the Water Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife. Ecological Group last year filed a case against the city city of the Bay Pittsburg When developing the data center, referring to water concerns. A public group also raised the problem with a data center Near the sea of ​​SaltonS

The same large technological groups that fight the consumer cost bill are also against the water legislation, Telling water sharing data It can reveal trade secrets and harm the competitive edge of the business.

The use of water in the data center is in part as many of the facilities are located in more dry areas and can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a dayS From South California to San Jose in the area of ​​the Bay, approximately 17 projects for the data center planned in California since May, are in areas where water stress is tall or extremely high, According to Bloomberg reportingS

A Studford University Survey published in April Los Angeles and Northern California have been ranked among some of the most popular places in the United States for future data centers projects, along with land-affected areas, which fight over the rapidly draining Colorado River such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Water concern is a key cause of the recently opposed data centers in Arizona., Georgia., New Mexico., Pennsylvania., Texasand VirginiaThe University of Virginia’s assistant Lauren Bridges, who tracks the regulation of the local and state data center in the United States, “since we have no information from the industry for specific use of the site, this makes it almost impossible to know what is happening and how it can affect them,” she said.

It is unclear how much water is consumed by data centers and AI systems in them, said the University of California, a professor at Riverside Shaley Ren, a prominent researcher on the impact of AI on the environment and public health. Google and OPENAI They claim that their models use only a few drops of water per request. A exploration Meanwhile, co -authorized by Ren, concluded that AI could consume approximately 16 ounces of water in a series of requests from one user in one meeting.

Ren believes that the proposed regulation of water will help to shed new light on the issue, while enabling the technology industry in California to continue to flourish.

But it’s not that simple, said Masheika Algood, Silicon Valley water -activist who has spoken against a data center San Jose Project and created Online tool to calculate water consumption in data centerS

Amendment to the bill tells the operators of the Data Center to share their data for the use of water with water suppliers, not with civil servants. Allgood found that operators of the Data Center and most technology companies do not share details of how much water they take from local aquifers and are not sure that water suppliers will do so. Without such data, it will be more difficult for people who oppose the data center, ignite a public discussion or organize their community.

“I can look for the apps, this is a public record, but to give it to the water supplier, I have to go directly to them and ask for this information,” she said. “This is not transparency for people.”

Linda Gordon, a lawyer and climate researcher of the Center for Human Rights in Berkeley Berkli, said he supported the proposal and legislation, which increases transparency of all kinds.

In current work, Gordon conducts Allgood on the environmental impact of data centers, it is intended to access the water use data and that some water agencies refuse to share this data, Referring to a judgment He decided about a decade ago. Since nothing in Papan’s bill specifically deals with whether the data will be available to the public, it is unclear whether the opening in the bill will help to inform researchers, journalists and communities concerned about the consumption of water centers.

She hopes that the language in the law that requires the California Department of Water Resources to develop efficiency standards will allow local agencies to develop ways to evaluate the print of the water center water and whether they should approve or refuse a project.

“More disclosure is great, but how this information is used is also important to find out if it actually matters,” she said.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.