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Energy and AI: What It Means For Everyday Americans

  • Writer: Peter Maxwell
    Peter Maxwell
  • May 1
  • 6 min read



Energy and AI: What It Means For Everyday Americans 


Every time you ask generative AI to write your email, create an image, or summarize a document, something physical happens. Somewhere– most likely in rural Virginia, Texas, or Iowa– a warehouse the size of several city blocks hums to life. Fans spin. Cooling systems roar. And a small but meaningful quantity of electricity vanishes into the act of answering your question. At the scale the AI industry is now operating, it is becoming one of the most consequential energy stories of our time. 


The Illusion of the Weightless Internet 


We have spent the last twenty years believing that the digital world is somehow separate from the physical one. Specifically, that “The Cloud” is this magical place that stores all of our files with no limits or consequences. The reality couldn’t be more different. The servers that store our photos, stream our entertainment, train our AI models, and run our financial systems require continuous electricity around the clock without interruption. It’s not just electricity– these servers also require enormous quantities of water just to stay cool enough to function. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centers consumed roughly 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity globally in 2024, approximately 1.5% of all electricity used on Earth. In the United States alone, data centers consumed 183 TWh, accounting for more than 4% of the country's total electricity use. In other words: that is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand of the entire nation of Pakistan. And it is accelerating. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that data center energy demand has tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or triple again by 2028. The IEA's base case projects global data center electricity use will reach 945 TWh by 2030, growing at around 15% per year, more than four times faster than overall electricity demand from every other sector combined. 

The driving force behind this surge is artificial intelligence. Training a single large AI model has been estimated to use as much energy as it takes to power the city of San Francisco for three days. And that's before the model is completed and available for public use. Once in use by the public, the process of AI models responding to questions and prompts is even more energy intensive, using up to 9x more energy than the training stage. As more powerful models emerge and global usage expands, the baseline only climbs higher. 


Who Is Paying for This? 


When one sector's demand spikes dramatically in a concentrated geographic area, someone absorbs the cost. In this case, that someone is largely ordinary households and that sector is AI. In Virginia, where data centers consumed roughly 26% of the state's total electricity supply in 2023, a legislative watchdog report found that residents could see their monthly utility bills increase by up to $37 by 2040, not because individuals are using more electricity, but because the infrastructure needed to serve data centers is being partially subsidized by existing ratepayers. In the PJM grid region which stretches from Illinois to North Carolina, data centers contributed to rate increases of up to 20% in the summer of 2025. A Carnegie Mellon University study estimates that data centers and cryptocurrency mining could drive the average U.S. electricity bill up by 8% nationally by 2030, with increases potentially exceeding 25% in the highest-demand markets. 

There is also a quieter inequality embedded in where these facilities are built. Analysis using the federal Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) found that approximately 20% of U.S. data centers are located in communities already identified as disadvantaged– areas overburdened by pollution and underserved by public investment. Jobs promised by data center expansion rarely materialize at the scale advertised; in Ohio, data centers typically employ fewer than 150 permanent workers despite their enormous footprints and energy demands. The deal being offered to many communities, in other words, is this: accept the noise, the grid strain, the rising bills, and the industrialization of your landscape in exchange for a handful of permanent jobs and a tax arrangement that often benefits the company far more than the town. It is, to put it generously, a negotiation that communities are entering blindly, with little regulatory leverage and even less transparency about what this means for the future of their towns. 


What You Can Do 


Understanding the problem is one thing, trying to change it is another. In a moment when the political and economic forces behind data center expansion are formidable, it feels nearly impossible to challenge them. And honestly, no single habit-change can fully address these problems. Choosing to use AI tools less does matter in principle, but individual restraint alone will not redirect the trajectory of a multi-trillion-dollar industry. What can shift the trajectory is organized pressure: at the local, state, and federal levels. This, combined with small but meaningful shifts in how we move through a world saturated with digital infrastructure, can make a meaningful difference in the building of datacenters. 


  1. Use your tools more intentionally. 

This does not mean deleting your apps. It means developing a passing awareness of which activities are computationally expensive and occasionally choosing the lighter option. Asking an AI to generate a complex image or run multiple long reasoning chains many times a day, on trivial tasks, is different from using it to draft a document you actually need. It is the digital equivalent of leaving the tap running: not disastrous alone, but a significant change over the course of months or years. 


  1. Know your grid. 

Most Americans have no idea where their electricity comes from or what mix of sources powers their home. Tools like WattTime and the EPA's Power Profiler can show you the carbon intensity of your local grid in real time and help you shift energy-intensive activities, like running the dishwasher or charging an EV, to hours when more renewable energy is available on the grid. This matters more than most people realize. Electricity is not a static product; its environmental cost varies significantly by time of day and region. 


  1. Support transparency legislation. 

One of the most consistent complaints from researchers, regulators, and community groups is that data center companies disclose almost nothing about their actual energy and water consumption. Several states, including California, Illinois, and Virginia, have introduced or are considering bills that would require data centers to report their usage publicly. Supporting these measures and contacting your state representatives to advocate for them, is direct and meaningful climate action with a real legislative target. 


  1. Get involved with organizations pushing for accountability. 

Food & Water Watch launched a dedicated campaign in early 2026 calling for a halt to new data center construction until adequate environmental regulations are in place, and is actively partnering with grassroots groups fighting local projects. In December 2025,

more than 230 environmental organizations, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace USA, signed a letter to Congress calling for a national moratorium. Groups like MediaJustice, the Better Path Coalition in Pennsylvania, and the No Desert Data Center Coalition in Tucson are organizing at the local level and explicitly looking for people to join them. These organizations are not asking for perfection. They are asking for participation, and looking for your help. 


  1. Show up to local permitting hearings. 

This is perhaps the most underrated form of climate activism. Data center projects are approved at the local level, often in planning commission hearings and zoning meetings that most residents never attend. In Prince William County, Virginia, resident opposition successfully halted part of a multi-billion-dollar data center campus and helped unseat county officials who backed unchecked expansion. In Tucson, community pressure over a proposed Amazon hyperscale facility produced a new city ordinance requiring major water users to file conservation plans and use reclaimed water. These were not symbolic victories. They were concrete policy wins achieved by people who simply decided to show up. 



Works Referenced

1. U.S. Department of Energy. "DOE Releases New Repo

rt Evaluating Increase in Electricity Demand from Data Centers." Department of Energy, 2024. 

2. Rainie, Lee, et al. "US Data Centers' Energy Use Amid the Artificial Intelligence Boom." Pew Research Center, October 24, 2025. 

3. Lawson, Ashley J. "Data Centers and Their Energy Consumption: Frequently Asked Questions." Congress.gov / Congressional Research Service, January 23, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48646 

4. World Economic Forum. "How Data Centres Can Avoid Doubling Their Energy Use by 2030." World Economic Forum, December 2025. 

5. International Energy Agency. "Energy Demand from AI." IEA Energy and AI Report, 2024. https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from-ai 

6. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage       Report. U.S. Department of Energy, December 2024. 

7. Dalban, Lauren. "Environmental Groups Demand a Nationwide Freeze on Data Center Construction." Inside Climate News, December 9, 2025. 

8. Food & Water Watch. "Breaking News: Our New Campaign to Stop Data Centers!" Food & Water Watch, January 22, 2026. 

9. Hendrix, Justin. "Across the US, Activists Are Organizing to Oppose Data Centers." TechPolicy.Press, September 16, 2025. 

10. Clean Energy Forum. "Regulating the Digital Giants: Policy and Public Responses to the Data Center Boom." Yale Clean Energy Forum, November 12, 2025. 

11. American Council on Education. "The Debate on Data Center Development: Costs, Benefits, and Community Responses." ACE, 2026. 

12. Feridun, Karen, et al. "Grassroots Resistance to Data Centers Rises in Pennsylvania." Inside Climate News, March 3, 2026. 

 
 
 

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