Oct 30, 2024 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Indiana consumer and environmental advocacy organization Citizens Action Coalition (CAC) has called for a pause on new hyperscale data center development in the state. The group this week called on the Indiana General Assembly to enact a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers used to power artificial intelligence and commence a task force to study what policies should be adopted prior to lifting the moratorium.
“Hoosiers must be fully protected from the rapacious resource needs, massive tax subsidies, and extraordinary utility cost burden associated with these facilities that could lead to skyrocketing utility bills across Indiana,” said Kerwin Olson, CAC’s executive director. “Keeping old, uneconomic, and dirty coal plants open longer, as has been heavily lobbied by an increasingly desperate coal industry, would only exacerbate the challenge. It would require large rate increases on existing customers, generate more pollution and toxic coal ash, threaten reliability, and scare away prospective economic development from companies looking to locate where they have access to affordable and clean energy.”
“Hoosiers must be fully protected from the rapacious resource needs, massive tax subsidies, and extraordinary utility cost burden associated with these facilities that could lead to skyrocketing utility bills across Indiana,” said Kerwin Olson, CAC’s executive director. “Keeping old, uneconomic, and dirty coal plants open longer, as has been heavily lobbied by an increasingly desperate coal industry, would only exacerbate the challenge. It would require large rate increases on existing customers, generate more pollution and toxic coal ash, threaten reliability, and scare away prospective economic development from companies looking to locate where they have access to affordable and clean energy.”
“Hyperscaler data centers are the single biggest threat to affordability, reliability, and environmental sustainability in Indiana this decade,” added Ben Inskeep, CAC program director. “We need to press pause on new data centers that pose enormous risks and develop policies that protect Hoosiers instead of throwing away billions in subsidies to Big Tech companies already worth trillions of dollars.”
