Bill would address threat of data centers

Fourteen-hundred acres of swamp, forest and former farmland near Syracuse are about to be developed by chipmaker Micron.

Thousands of jobs will be created, our nation will be more secure, and Central New York will thrive.

What’s not to celebrate?

I asked Google about the effects of Micron’s plan to pour 2 million yards of gravel on 120 acres of wetland and got a detailed answer in less than a minute: 200,000 metric tons of stored carbon released into the atmosphere, at least 25% loss of biodiversity, flood risk, degraded water quality — I could go on.

So chips like the ones Micron will mass-produce allow me to learn about the disastrous effects of mass-producing chips.

Meanwhile, data centers that are enabling searches like mine will require tremendous amounts of energy, driving up costs for all of us.

Who asked for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is fueling the boom in chipmaking and the move for more power plants?

Fortunately,........

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