The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water
In Wheatfield, Indiana, residents express significant environmental concerns over an Amazon data center and associated natural gas facilities. These projects are projected to consume billions of gallons of water from the Kankakee River annually, while state policies are criticized for prolonging the operation of old coal plants to meet data center energy demands. This development exacerbates existing issues with coal ash pollution and air quality, raising fears among the local community.
The proliferation of hyperscale data centers, notably Amazon's $29 billion investment in three campuses in Northwest Indiana, is driving increased demand for fossil fuel energy and water resources, particularly in Wheatfield, Jasper County. This expansion, described by Amazon as a new "Silicon heartland," necessitates the continued operation of the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station, a half-century-old coal plant, and the construction of new natural gas-fired turbines to power the data centers. Local residents, including Barb Deardorff and Chris Hunter, are deeply concerned about the environmental and health consequences, such as the estimated consumption of nearly 7 billion gallons of water annually from the Kankakee River by these power facilities, which exacerbates long-standing issues like coal ash pollution and poor air quality.
Community opposition is growing as residents, who have historically endured the health impacts of the Schahfer plant, fear that new developments will worsen existing contamination. The article highlights that NIPSCO, the plant's owner, has delayed coal ash clean-up efforts despite federal mandates, and recent proposals by the Environmental Protection Agency threaten to further weaken environmental protections. State regulators have also drawn criticism for granting utilities the authority to generate energy specifically for data centers and for revising energy policies to keep old coal plants operational indefinitely, contributing to a projection that data centers could account for over one-fifth of Indiana's energy needs by 2040. These combined factors present a high-risk scenario for a state already grappling with significant environmental challenges.