Data centers are real “heaters”. And they are settling in regions as hot as Aragón

The data centers They are a black hole in several senses. They are drinking the global NAND chip manufacturing capacity (what affects SSDs, to RAM oa SD cards), the companies that they make batteries they can’t cope and consume wateryes, but much more alarming is energy consumption. In this sense, they are insatiable and, in the end, thousands of pieces of equipment that generate heat are causing another unexpected effect: they are turning the facilities into heat islands.

And it is something that has the potential to affect 340 million people.

What’s happening. Andrea Marinoni is an associate professor in the Earth Observation group at the University of Cambridge. Also the coordinator of a group of researchers from both the center and the Nanyang Technological University who have published a study called “Heat Island Data: Measuring the Impact of Data Centers on Climate Change.” In it, they present the results of measuring more than 6,000 data centers located far from dense urban areas with the aim of identifying whether these facilities, by themselves, are a notable heat source.

The result? “An impact elderly than expected,” according to the researchers. They compared historical temperature measurements from the locations of those data centers over the last 20 years to compare how things have changed recently and identify whether those data centers have had any influence. And, as we said, the impact seems to have been strong: an average of 2°C, with maximums of up to 9°C in some cases.

Doesn’t matter the place. This generates a heat island effect, which is when a large amount of heat is concentrated in one area that should not be there. In big cities It’s something that usually happens and that’s why the most efficient urban architecture seeks to combat the phenomenon. And it doesn’t matter where the data center is. In the study they present several examples:

• Bajío region in Mexico: high data center density, stable climate, but a land surface temperature increase trend of 2 degrees Celsius in the last two decades. It is something that was not identified in nearby areas without data centers.
• States of Ceará and Piauí in Brazil: increasing trend of 2.8°C with a projection of reaching 3.5°C in the next five years when this is not observed in the rest of the areas.
• Aragon in Spain: an anomalous increase of 2°C in surface temperature that stands out compared to neighboring provinces.

Potential damage. Aragón is a worrying example because heThe region is consolidating as one of the ‘lungs’ of hyperclimbers in Europeas well as one of the regions of Spain key to the expansion of data centers and European technological sovereignty. And the problem is that, according to the study, the impact of this increase in surface temperature reaches up to 10 kilometers away from the hyperscalers.

They detail that in the surrounding areas that are about 4.5 kilometers from the data centers, an increase of 1°C can be measured, which seems little, but when we talk about these climatic effects, it is a lot. And, furthermore, they estimate that the impact of increased temperatures due to this broad heat island effect is something with the potential to affect 340 million people.

Yes, but. This research has not been the only recent one on the effect of data centers on the land on which they are installed. Researchers at Arizona State University they installed sensors on cars driving near these centers to capture measurements and noticed the same thing as the Cambridge researchers. But one thing to keep in mind: both studies show measurements, but they have not been peer-reviewed.

And there are experts, such as Ralph Hintemann, principal investigator at the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, who point out that, although the results are there and are interesting, some figures “seem very high.” In fact, it focuses not so much on the heat that is concentrated around data centers but on the big problem: the amount of energy they need and the return to fossil fuels to meet peak demand.

Image | Tedder

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