Abandoned Pennsylvania mines and waste-heat recycling could make the state’s massive new data centers far more sustainable

Pennsylvania's rapidly expanding data center sector is projected to require immense amounts of electricity, potentially twice the state's current residential power consumption, raising significant environmental concerns. Wangda Zuo, a professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, highlights the critical need to address the energy, water, and noise impacts of these facilities. Data centers consume substantial electricity, with about 40% dedicated to cooling, and use billions of gallons of water annually, often through evaporative cooling towers. Noise from cooling systems also creates friction with local communities. Zuo's research demonstrates that optimizing cooling through digital twins and AI can significantly reduce energy use, as evidenced by a 74% cooling energy reduction in a Massachusetts data center and ongoing work with the Alerify data center in Harrisburg. Innovative solutions for Pennsylvania include leveraging abandoned coal mines for geothermal cooling, as seen with Iron Mountain's underground data center. Additionally, waste heat recycling, which captures excess heat from servers for uses like heating buildings, agriculture, or aquaculture, presents a major opportunity for sustainability. Policymakers and residents are actively seeking ways to mitigate the environmental footprint as data centers become a larger part of the state's economy.