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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 1h

Water & sewer bills are on the rise due a confluence of factors. Climate change worsens storms & droughts and data centers worsen climate change. They also use enormous amounts of water & use public systems to clean up their discharges. Long overdue: industry disclosures and regulations.

themoneytrail.substack.com

The era of cheap water is over

Extreme weather events and aging infrastructure will make Americans’ water bills even more costly

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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 2h

An attempt to offer some context for the coming debate on permitting reform. billmckibben.substack.com/p/reform-or-...

billmckibben.substack.com

Reform or Regression?

A hard calculation at a hard moment

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 3h

This scandal should enter the national debate over data centers. Meta evaded $4B in taxes last year by using the "research" tax credit for its data center buildout. Tax accountants say it's highly questionable, the Congressional sponsor says buying supplies was never what was intended.

nytimes.com

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Four-byline alert: “.. Meta claimed that $4.1 billion of stock options exercised by Mr. Zuckerberg counted as a research expense ..” @nytimes.com $META www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 4h

Research scientist Rodriguez, who resigned from Google last year: “We’re doing this experiment on an entire generation on cognitive development, with no control group.” He says many of his former colleagues worry about how their own AI use is affecting their cognitive skills.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 4h

Google's "ubiquitous presence in American classrooms through Chromebooks and its software partnerships with schools have provided a critical launchpad for its AI tools to reach kids.." and "helped push many students to become academically and emotionally dependent on AI."

wsj.com

Google Pushed AI Into Schools—and Even Students Say It’s Gone Too Far

The risks of cognitive and emotional dependence, along with falling test scores, are fueling a backlash.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 5h

@naomibethune.bsky.social & James Barrata on the data center fight in Lowndes County AL. A predominantly Black community already suffering from poverty and a raw sewage crisis, it now must contend with a developer making "fantastical promises" and a secretive, conflict-ridden econ dev commission.

prospect.org

‘I Know I Couldn’t Live Here’: Standing Up to a Data Center in Alabama’s Black Belt - The American Prospect

Faced with little transparency about a mammoth facility, Lowndes County fights back.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

@michael-thomas.bsky.social Before the launch of ChatGPT, most data centers were built in blue states. Today, 60% of data center capacity under construction is in states Trump won by 5 points or more. This is mainly due to the shift of data center developers to rural areas....

Cleanview map of data centers relative to population density.

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Bob Berwyn @bberwyn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There were about 16,000 heat-related deaths in Germany last summer, about double the mortality during the first Covid wave in early 2020. Extreme heat needs to be treated as an ongoing public health emergency.

insideclimatenews.org

Mass Heat Wave Deaths in Europe Show Climate Extremes Are Outpacing Adaptation Efforts - Inside Climate News

As preparedness lags, many regions around the world could be overwhelmed by rising temperatures, climate experts warn.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There's a good reason why Fat Bear Week is trending...

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

@pkrugman.bsky.social on the political transformation underway due to AI and data centers. "Even the usual argument for pro-oligarch policies — job creation! — falls flat because hardly any jobs are being created even in the short run." Cites BLS stats on the job category including data centers.

BLS employment figures in the category that includes data centers

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Inside a Data Center Industry Conference

Corporate lawyer Deatheridge on communities rising up to challenge air pollution permits granted to data center projects: “This is the next big bomb ... Power plants and emissions are a big deal, and data centers may need to spend a whole bunch of money to severely limit those emissions.”

nytimes.com

At Data Center World last week, public backlash, and how to deal with it, was a popular topic.

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jessyewaxman.bsky.social @jessyewaxman.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

📊🌍 NEW Sierra Club report: How are U.S. public pensions managing climate risk through their investments—and are they directing capital to credible #climate solutions? This thread breaks down the key findings. 🧵👇 Read: www.sierraclub.org/reports/sust...

sierraclub.org

The Climate Solutions Gap: An Assessment of U.S. Public Pensions’ Investment Strategies

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Fossil Fuel Bonds in U.S. Public Pension Funds

@sierraclub.org reviewed portfolios of 40 U.S. public pensions and found that bonds worth $19B are financing companies pursuing fossil fuel expansion. Disclosure is incomplete, so this understates the problem. Time for pensions to get serious about systemic risk of rising GHG emissions.

sierraclub.org

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Which AI Models Use the Most Energy?

Sustainable AI Group: A typical agentic session uses 27 times more energy, on average, than a typical chat session conducted using the same AI model. BUT most models are proprietary, so evaluating how “big” proprietary models are requires lots of guesswork.

heatmap.news

A new dashboard from the Sustainable AI Group, founded by artificial intelligence alums, estimates the relative energy intensity of proprietary tools.

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AI Faces $6 Trillion Test to Justify Data Centers, Bain Says

Bain optimistically projects that today's AI applications will generate ~$1.8T revenue by 2031. But there's a problem: it also says $4.2T will be needed from "nascent" AI services not yet on the market for the industry to break even. #AIBubble

bloomberg.com

The global AI industry needs to earn $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify the capital being deployed to build data centers around the world, Bain & Co. said.

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AI hyperscalers are transforming debt

More talk needed about AI's crowding out of sectors we need for a sustainable economy. In addition to gobbling up energy and electronics supply chains (w big inflationary impacts), Big Tech is frenetically issuing bonds to finance its data centers, driving up interest rates for everyone else.

ft.com

The sector’s huge capital needs are forcing companies and countries to rethink how they borrow money

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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The war profits bonanza continues for Big Oil - TotalEnergies boosts buybacks and dividends as oil prices surge As does the misery for motorists and energy bill payers who are funding the bonanza 1/2 www.ft.com/content/1cd3...

ft.com

TotalEnergies boosts buybacks and dividends as oil prices surge

French energy company increases shareholder payouts as effect of Iran war increases cash flows

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A Commanders stadium at RFK will actually cost taxpayers $6 billion

"We're getting fleeced." DC has it tough enough thanks to Trump's depradations, so it's galling that our Mayor is celebrating her new stadium deal with the billionaire owner of the Commanders without mentioning she's forcing DC taxpayers to cover $6B of the costs. #freedc

ggwash.org

Mayor Muriel Bowser is asking the DC Council for $856 million in public funds to subsidize a new Commanders stadium. We think the real price paid by taxpayers will be more like…$6 billion.

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In global first, a next-gen geothermal plant goes live at utility…

The world's first utility-scale, next-generation geothermal facility is now online: Fervo's Cape Station project in Utah launched late last week with 33 MW for CA's electricity market, will eventually reach 500 MW, supported by a 400 MW deal with Google.

canarymedia.com

Fervo Energy is producing clean power at Cape Station in Utah. It’s a big milestone, but the industry must tackle high costs and other barriers in order…

scienceofsanctuary.substack.com

Darkness is something i treasure when i'm out in the woods, but I've come around to realizing it's even more important in my home, at and near bedtime.

Heart Specialists Are Calling for Clinical Trials of Blackout Curtains

A new study links light at night to structural changes in the heart.

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xAI's Colossus 2 data center in greater Memphis is currently the largest in the world, but Meta's Hyperion complex in Louisiana will soon overtake it - until it is overtaken in this insane race by 4 other larger proposed complexes.

Graphic showing the size of Colossus 2 and Hyperion data center complexes relative to Centrai Park.

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Exclusive | Is 3-D Printing the Answer to AI’s Gas Turbine Crunch?

The data center boom is breathing new life into the fossil gas power industry. Startup Parallax "aims to make smaller, gas-fired turbines designed specifically for on-site power for data centers, leaning on 3-D printing technology instead of the specialty supply chain for turbines."

wsj.com

The long wait for gas turbines has everyone from tiny California startup Parallax to Elon Musk piling into the power business.

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New analysis highlights the growing gap between AI cap-ex and AI revenues. Considering the rapid depreciation of AI chips, "AI needs to be widely and rapidly adopted and it needs to be valuable enough to the firms using the technology that they’ll spend increasingly large sums on it." But...

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Exclusive: AI giants, unions join forces for data center fight

Four major unions are participating in this new AI industry / private equity alliance aimed at overriding moratorium campaigns & convincing officials that data centers "can" be built responsibly. Wondering if any unions / union members will challenge industry's "secrecy & speed" biz model.

axios.com

New group aims to partner with governments to create standards and guardrails for centers.

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Erik Schlenker-Goodrich @riogranderift.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“Climate is out. Power is in,” is how Sophie Purdom, founder and managing partner of climate-tech venture firm Planeteer, put it in a presentation for investors at the firm’s annual general management meeting on Monday.” Delegating the climate crisis to tech, energy, & finance capital is suicide.

wsj.com

Climate Tech VCs Zero In on Powering AI Instead of Cutting Carbon Emissions

‘Decarb is dead for now,’ as one VC said, referring to decarbonization.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

On the risks & opportunities facing the building trades unions from the data center boom. The industry is choosing unionized labor because it is far more effective in winning social license than the industry itself. “It’s almost like we’re doing their advocacy and business development for them.”

phenomenalworld.org

Mark Erlich | Construction's Data Center Gamble

Is the data center boom the solution to the problems faced by buildings trades unions?

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

On the risks and opportunities facing the building trades unions from the data center boom. The industry is choosing unionized labor because it is far more effective in winning social license than the industry itself. “It’s almost like we’re doing their advocacy and business development for them.”

phenomenalworld.org

Mark Erlich | Construction's Data Center Gamble

Is the data center boom the solution to the problems faced by buildings trades unions?

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This report from NY Climate Week says a lot about the clean tech industry. A couple of leaders were asked to choose between the data center boom continuing at its current pace but fueled entirely by gas, versus slowing down and fueled by renewables. "They want it to continue at pace."

mail.latitudemedia.com

Techno-optimism and push-back at NY Climate Week

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

More evidence that data centers are driving a resurgence of local democracy: Across the country, first-time candidates for local office say they were inspired to run so they can help protect their communities from data center harms.

bloomberg.com

Data Center Opposition Spawns a Surge of First-Time Candidates

Activists who cut their teeth fighting data center projects in their towns are now riding a wave of AI tech pushback to seek office in local elections.

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Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“Y’all are going to need a bigger hospital.” Already burdened by petrochemical plants, Louisiana is facing a wave of gas-powered AI data centers—and their pollution. Dorothy Slater, an oncology nurse, writes for @dissentmag.bsky.social about nursing her patients at the frontier of AI buildout.

dissentmagazine.org

Death by Data Centers - Dissent Magazine

I’m an oncology nurse in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. My patients and I breathe the same polluted air, and we can’t afford the toxic exposure from the gas-fired plants set to power the state’s proposed A...

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm back from a really great NY Climate Week, catching up w old friends and meeting new ones, hearing many many takes on data centers. Key themes: the courage of the leaders on the front lines protecting their communities from data center harms, the urgency of enacting smart "guardrails" policy.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Cleanview on Amazon's data center strategy: In OR, climate policy blocks new gas plants, so it outbid the local utility for a 1.2 GW solar/battery project. In TX, transmission bottlenecks made grid-connected power unattractive, so it acquired a site for 7.7 GW of off-grid gas turbines.

cleanview.co

Amazon's Power Playbook — Cleanview Research

How Amazon is powering 44 GW of new data centers: 17.5 GW of new gas, 25.6 GW of clean energy contracts, two nuclear plants and the first power plants it will build itself.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The data center rebellion is an environmental rebellion.

Pew survey shows that the environment is the top-ranked reason why US adults say data centers have a negative impact. 54% say data centers are mostly bad for the environment.

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John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of the gems of the IRA … resuscitated?

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How China became climate-pilled—and what that means for AI

These days, climate policy folks need to understand AI, and AI policy folks need to understand climate. Here's a great @kyleichan.bsky.social piece reminding us how China became the global leader on clean tech: it came understand climate as a national security risk. With lessons for AI governance.

highcapacity.org

AI safety needs to be seen as a domestic priority for Chinese policymakers, not a foreign demand. Climate change offers a useful parallel.

Premium: The Hater's Guide To AI Debt (Part 1)

@edzitron.com distills the problem with the AI industry's investment thesis: AI chips are extremely expensive. AI data centers take a great deal of time to build and energize. AI services are expensive to run. AI services do not appear to generate much revenue. #AIBubble

wheresyoured.at

The year is 2026, and you are a hyperscaler CEO. You zip up your Patagonia vest, type UPDATE ME ON CALENDOR TOODAY into ChatGPT, and see that you have a meeting with your CFO. They tell you that while...

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US utilities get failing grade on clean energy transition

Thanks to favorable economics, he clean energy transition is inevitable. Thanks to politics, it's timing is not. 2026 was the first time since @sierraclub.org began tracking their climate progress that the volume of new clean energy being planned by utilities decreased from the prior year.

canarymedia.com

Too many utilities are keeping coal plants open, planning new gas plants, and building less renewable energy, the Sierra Club’s latest "Dirty Truth…

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 22/09/2026

Jaw-dropping documents from our lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI reveal how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”

motherjones.com

AI exec: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”

Documents from our lawsuit reveal how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening.

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Agree, it's a critical moment for Dems to show they won't bow before tech overlords. As @billmckibben.bsky.social said at today's excellent @selc.bsky.social Climate Week event, there's a simple way for politicians to show voters which side they're on: no more gov't contracts for Musk, Bezos et al.