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There is an old saying, “Whenever you light a candle you also cast a shadow.” There are always downsides to any choices, changes or innovations. Computer chip technology, computers and the Internet have transformed everything and improved many things. 

But are we looking at the inevitable shadows?    

The Minnesota Center for Environment Advocacy (MCEA) recently had a webinar on the environmental impact of data centers which run the online world. They explain the environmental shadows many of us are not seeing. You can watch the MCRA webinar, or read a transcript, by searching for “Minnesota’s Digital Dilemma: examining the environmental costs of AI, data centers and cryptocurrency.” 

Data Centers are the infrastructure that provides the computing power to store and process all the online data and information on the Internet. This is where the websites, data, documents, videos and the “cloud” reside. This is what makes searches, emails, social media and streaming services possible. 

As demand for these digital activities has increased so has the demand for more data centers.

According to the MCEA , there are currently 10 proposals to build new data centers in Minnesota. The MCEA measures the size of data centers in Target store equivalents. The average “enterprise” data center is about the size of a Target store (100,000 square feet). Some of the proposed data centers are “hyper-scale” and are significantly larger. The one proposed for Farmington, Minnesota, would be 25 Target stores or 2.5 million square feet. It will use more water than an entire city of 24,000 people.

MCEA points out that data centers have significant environmental costs, including high consumption of electricity and huge amounts of water for cooling. Minnesota is debating the wisdom of allowing more of these developments. Proposals to regulate and restrict the industry are currently before the legislature.

The U.S. currently has 5,426 data centers, including about half of the world’s 1000 “hyper-scale” versions. In 2025, a record number of 4700 new facilities are expected to be under construction in the U.S. Artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency ”mining” both require more and faster computing power and are driving demand for new data centers.

 Other sources discuss other environmental damage from data centers. Many data centers use electricity generated with fossil fuels adding to greenhouse gasses and climate change. 

The average Google “enterprise” data center consumes approximately 450,000 gallons of water per day. The manufacturing of the computer servers and other digital equipment requires more mining and and processing of minerals and rare earths with significant environmental impacts. 

Computers, digital devises and equipment also contain toxic substances, creating problems for recycling. Nor are data centers silent. They generate significant “noise pollution” for local communities.

Data centers require redundant capacity to ensure continuous operation. The excess computing capacity continues to consume energy and water even when not being used. The hardware also requires frequent upgrades and replacement. The computer servers are typically replaced every four years. Data centers produce enormous amounts of e-waste.

Home computers also produce a lot of e-waste. The typical home computer is replaced  every 3- 5 years. Smartphones are really just small portable computers. Since the first smartphone in 2007, more than seven billion have been made. The average life of a smartphone is less than two years.

We think of computers as being efficient personal and business tools, but there is a lot of waste in the system.  It is estimated that there are more than one billion websites on the Internet. Only about 200 million of these websites are actively maintained or updated. The vast majority are inactive. A large percentage of websites have duplicate content with other websites. 

Even among active websites how many get seen by real people? When you search for something online how many of the millions of search results do you access? One or two pages at the most?

 In our economic system “efficiency” is defined as making money. Data centers generate good profits (as high as 50%) for the developers and owners. But they employ very few local people. They are a classic example of an extractive industry where outsiders reap the benefits while local communities pay the long-term environmental costs.

Computers and digital technologies have improved our lives in many ways. But there are many shadows being cast, and not just for the environment. 

There are the pathologies and social problems associated with online living. There are the smart phone addictions, video game obsessions, online gambling, social media impact on teenagers, the proliferation of hate groups, echo chamber silos, misinformation, spam, hacking, identity theft and ransom ware. 

The list of new scams and malware is endless.

The Internet was supposed to be a great tool for small, local businesses to compete on the global stage. But is this reality or marketing hype? 

Unless you search for a specific company by name, will anyone actually see the typical small business website? With a billion websites it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. Plus Amazon seems to be putting everyone out of business, including major big box retailers.

Being an old curmudgeon I come to technological advances with some perspective. Radio and television were hyped as revolutionary communications and educational tools. More often what we got was misleading advertising, mind rot entertainment, shopping channels, misinformation news, toxic talk radio and cable TV with “500 channels and nothing on.”

The Internet is a fabulous tool for communication, education and connectivity. It provides tremendous access to literally a world of information (assuming users can sort out disinformation). But the average user is gossiping on social media or streaming video entertainment. 

In 2023, roughly 65% of all internet traffic came from video sites. Once again the potential value to society has largely been lost.

Rarely have humans examined the downsides of any technological advancement prior to implementation. Numerous times we have opened Pandora’s Box and ignored what evils have flown out. But given all the numerous, serious, human-created threats to the environment and our survival as a species, maybe we should reconsider our unbridled desire for online convenience, entertainment, consumption and money making.

We should remember another old saying, “Only when the last fish is gone, the last river poisoned, the last tree cut down ... will mankind realize they cannot eat money” or cryptocurrency scams.