德州数据中心激增或抹去数十年空气质量成果，HARC 报告测算污染回到2000年代水平
Data centers could erase decades of air quality gains
- 1HARC 报告称，若德州规划数据中心全部按预期电网结构供电，五年内将抹去数十年空气质量成果
- 2该情景下细颗粒物污染增至三倍以上，NOx 增加136%，二氧化碳较2025年再增90%
- 3德州以26 GW 现有及在建容量居数据中心市场之首，开发者转向效率较低的燃气轮机加快建设
- 4若配套现场可再生能源，NOx 排放最多可降10倍，自建燃气机组则会推至最高污染水平
数据中心的环境代价并非扩张的必然结果，而是电力来源的选择问题，现场燃气与可再生能源之间污染相差可达10倍。
- 影响：在德州获取算力的企业将面临并网排队与自备电源的权衡，燃气方案上线快但排放最高；若污染回到2000年代水平，项目审批和社区接受度可能收紧，影响后续扩容节奏。
- 参考：选型或签约数据中心时可考虑把供电来源纳入比较，先算出电网接入、现场燃气和现场可再生能源三者的排放与时间差异；已有德州布局的企业值得跟踪当地机组审批动态。
- 依据：核心数字来自 HARC 报告的三种需求情景建模，属研究推演而非实测；自备电源四倍于其他州出自 Wood Mackenzie 3月报告，26 GW 为现有及在建容量口径。
A rush of new data centers could bring air pollution roaring back to levels not seen since the 2000s in Texas, which has become ground zero for the physical infrastructure behind generative AI.
New and proposed data centers are demanding a tremendous amount of electricity. How developers and utilities meet that demand — with gas turbines or renewable energy — will determine just how dirty things will get. So far, though, things are looking grim.
Tech companies and data center developers are devising new ways to get enough electricity, including building out their own power sources. But if all planned data center projects were to plug into the electricity grid in Texas and be powered by the anticipated grid mix, soot and smog-forming pollutants would skyrocket, according to a new report from the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC). In just five years, it would be enough pollution to wipe out decades of gains in air quality.
“There is a good chance that our children and grandchildren will breathe dirtier air than we did.”
In that scenario, fine particle pollution or soot from the power sector would more than triple, reaching its highest level since 2006. Smog-forming NOx emissions would increase 136 percent, approaching pollution levels from 2004. Planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution would climb 90 percent above what they were in 2025.
That’s not set in stone, of course. HARC modeled different outcomes based on three different projections for data center energy demand. Many proposed data center projects are speculative and could fall by the wayside. And developers can limit the environmental impact of a data center by building solar and wind farms onsite.
NOx emissions could be up to 10 times lower if data centers pair grid power with renewable electricity generated onsite. But if developers decide to build gas engines on site to power their data centers as a way to avoid long wait times to connect to the grid, the opposite could also play out, resulting in the highest pollution levels possible.
Data center capacity is typically measured by how much power they draw, and Texas has become the leading data center market in this measure with 26 gigawatts of existing and under-construction capacity. Texas is also bracing for four times more proposed data center capacity running on power generated onsite than any other state, according to a separate Wood Mackenzie report published in March. And in many cases, developers are turning to less efficient gas turbine technology in order to speed construction — another trend that’s making the data center boom more polluting than it needs to be.
“There is a good chance that our children and grandchildren will breathe dirtier air than we did,” John Hall, HARC CEO, said in a press release. “The transportation sector, the state, and other stakeholders have been working for decades to successfully bring these [emissions] numbers down, and that progress is now at risk.”
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
- Justine Calma
来源：The Verge · AI · theverge.com