To Feed Data Centers, Pennsylvania Faces a New Fracking Surge

[Brenda]

Twenty years after fracking began to boost natural gas production in western Pennsylvania, residents are bracing for another surge in output as gas-fired power plants prepare to meet a big jump in electricity demand. At least five new energy-hungry data centers are planned in the region, most of which will power themselves by producing electricity by burning natural gas on site. The burst in activity is prompting predictions, by power companies as well as their critics, of drilling hundreds or even thousands of new gas wells to fuel the centers’ power demands.

Such concerns are not new in western Pennsylvania. For the last two decades, environmental advocates and researchers have accused the natural gas industry of polluting the air, polluting water through leaks and spills of chemicals used in fracking, and causing illnesses including cancer, asthma, and birth defects. The harms of fracking have been documented in a “compendium” of some 2,300 peer-reviewed studies from around the world published by the nonprofits Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, maintains that fracking for natural gas in Pennsylvania is safe, and that by replacing coal-fired generation it was responsible for a nearly 11 percent decline in the state’s carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023.

“Unconventional oil and gas development has led to the loss of water resources not just at the front end, with removal, but also contaminating aquifers to the point where communities have lost their potable water,” said Stolz. As fracking expands to meet data center power needs, he added, “conditions will get worse for the people of western Pennsylvania.”

This shit has been happening in Mexico and other countries in poor areas for years. Now it's here. Josh Shapiro is not on the side of the people of PA.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/pennsylvania-data-centers-natural-gas

[slightlv]

1. Anyone else tired of actual, living humans always being placed on the lowest rung of priorities?! n/t

[jfz9580m]

2. It is probably not even good science

I looked at this about a year ago and felt very pessimistic about any of this stuff being worth it. It looks like another scam CS is pulling off.
It would be very on-brand for that field:

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/just-2-hours-is-all-it-takes-for-ai-agents-to-replicate-your-personality-with-85-percent-accuracy

Just 2 hours is all it takes for AI agents to replicate your personality with 85% accuracy

How can two hours be enough to truly simulate human personality? Humans are complex creatures who interact with their environment.

[hatrack]

3. It's not even a good scam . . ..

AI certainly has useful applications - notably in medical and scientific work (gene expression, vaccine development and so forth) but what we're seeing now is nothing but the largest pump and dump in the history of money.

It's a stock bubble kept alive by Silicon Morons with all the money in the world. That money has convinced them that they're galactic super-geniuses and they'll breathlessly sell that to Finance Morons, a tribe equally convinced of their own god-like powers.

Their collective IV drip of Randroid bullshit has convinced them that we must "Win The AI Race", though I have yet to hear a clear or reasonable explanation of what that means.

And isn't it an amazing coincidence that the "need" for more more more (apologies to the Andrea True Connection) generating capacity dovetails so neatly with the desire of the Asshole-In-Chief and his Political Morons to destroy any alternatives to gas and coal?

And why support climate science - or any other scientific endeavors - when you can trot out Shiny Tech Thing Dripping With Other Peoples' Money in lieu of anything tethered to reality? So let's fuck the planet and destroy the electrical grid, because I want more money right fucking now.

[jfz9580m]

5. Right fucking now

I have however not called anyone, merely left various serial killer adjacent attempts to sound like a member of the community ;-/.

I vaguely feel asparagus were cast at me? Eeek

I was never in on any of the jokes..I have to go offline to get a brain..lol..