Residents I’ve spoken to express deep concern about the effects on local water bodies, like the River Torridge, famed in Henry Williamson’s novel Tarka the Otter, which depicts the fictional journey of an otter cub in North Devon’s “country of the two rivers.”
Consumption
Xlinks asserts that the site was chosen due to “North Devonâs mild year-round temperatures, winds, and sun,” which reportedly result in lower energy and water usage compared to other locations.
The company also plans to construct “attenuation ponds to reduce freshwater use.” However, the exact function of these ponds in the project is unclear, as they are typically used in drainage systems to manage stormwater runoff and mitigate flooding, rather than serving as reservoirs.
Data centre developers often vie for the title of the “UK’s largest.” An in-depth review of existing and planned data centre projects, conducted on behalf of Watershed Investigations, indicates that the North Devon proposal is indeed one of the largest.
Currently, there seems to be 12GW of capacity in the commercial data centre sector either operational or in the planning stages across the UK, with new projects being announced regularly.
The Devon data campus is projected to have a 1.5GW power consumption capacity for its servers (or IT load), which, according to the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is equivalent to the entire UK’s consumption in 2024.
Fuel
The Devon data campus will undoubtedly require significant water usage, whether locally, at the power generation site, or embedded within the supply chains for the equipment and cables used.
Professor Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), and co-author of a major report on the environmental impact of data centres and AI, stated: âThere is no AI infrastructure and data centre without an environmental impact. You can always improve the performance and reduce the footprint, but you can never fully eliminate the environmental impact.â
The UN report outlines that the new AI industrial infrastructure will consume vast amounts of land, use enormous quantities of water and power, and exacerbate the climate crisis, while benefits are unevenly distributed around the world.
Wildlife
Madani emphasized the importance of a “helicopter view of the whole landscape,” which involves not only examining the interaction of water, land, and carbon footprints but also understanding the global impact of AI infrastructure projects on both people and nature.
âThe fact that the Global South is the net loser in many ways does not mean that communities in the Global North would be immune to negative local impacts,â Madani said.
âWe also have injustice problems in the Global North where those benefitting from data centres often donât need to bear the local environmental costs.â
According to Madani, the environmental costs in other parts of the AI value chain, such as damage at critical mineral extraction sites, semiconductor manufacturing facilities, and electronic waste landfills, would largely affect communities and wildlife far from Devon.
This Author
Anne Alexander is a journalist and researcher. She is currently engaged in a project with Watershed Investigations examining the impact of data centres and the AI industry on the living planet.
