Amazon/Anthropic/et al.'s Indiana AI Energy Footprint

I mentioned in my note on MIT Technology Review's article on AI's energy footprint that AI companies need to provide more data on energy usage.

NYT reports on an in-progress energy footprint story close to home:

A year ago, a 1,200-acre stretch of farmland outside New Carlisle, Ind., was an empty cornfield. Now, seven Amazon data centers rise up from the rich soil, each larger than a football stadium. 

Over the next several years, Amazon plans to build around 30 data centers at the site, packed with hundreds of thousands of specialized computer chips. With hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber connecting every chip and computer together, the entire complex will form one giant machine intended just for artificial intelligence.

The facility will consume 2.2 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power a million homes.

The compute capacity is expected to be rented to Anthropic for AI training.

Water impact:

Each year, it will use millions of gallons of water to keep the chips from overheating.

…

To bury the fiber optic cables connecting the buildings and to install other underground infrastructure, Amazon had to pump water out of the wet ground. One permit application showed that the company requested permission to pump 2.2 million gallons an hour, for 730 days. State officials are now investigating if the process, known as dewatering, is the reason some neighbors are reporting dry wells.

Where exactly does thirty-eight and a half billion gallons of pumped water… go?¹

On reshaping the energy landscape:

AEP has told regulators that new, large-scale data centers will more than double the amount of peak power it must provide Indiana, from about 2.8 gigawatts in 2024 to more than seven gigawatts by approximately 2030. Amazon's campus alone accounts for about half of the additional load growth.

“It will be the largest power user in the state of Indiana by a country mile,” said Ben Inskeep of the Citizens Action Coalition.

And the energy source for the new data centers (spoiler: not renewable²):

The utility told regulators in April that it expected to use natural gas plants to provide about three-quarters of the additional power that would be needed by 2030.

I do use Anthropic Claude for personal coding, questions, and brainstorming. I'm glad Amazon develops their own GPUs and has ideas to use less power and less water than full throttle Nvidia chips. But doubling a region's electricity production over 5 years (with half of the increase attributed to Amazon/Anthropic) using gas is a disaster. More renewables/storage, please.

Postsnark: And the $4b in sales tax breaks to Amazon over 50 years will mostly pass through to Indiana customers, right?

Hoosier Environmental Council, Wetland loss and data center clash at IDEM public hearing (4/30/2025): Hoosier Environmental Council's public comments on Amazon's New Carlisle development details wetland concerns and some solutions. Sigh, of course:

If the Applicant cannot avoid onsite wetlands, the only feasible alternative to ensure wetland and water quality protection is to create a mitigation plan prior to the approval of the Application.

South Bend Tribune, Crowd tells IDEM: Don't let Amazon take wetland for more data centers in St. Joseph County:

A total of 29 people spoke at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management hearing at New Prairie High School. Their messages generally followed two themes:

Wetlands, even these 9.7 acres in a farm field, are too valuable to lose.

And the mitigation that Amazon has pledged, they said — in the form of wetland and stream credits in northern Indiana — won't make up for the loss.

…

[M]itigation credits are like a “Band-Aid on a gaping chest wound.”

Public Hearing Notice IDEM ID Number 2025-78-71-ENH-WQC: the hearing transcript has pages and pages of informed and heartfelt public comments. Here's just one speaker with local historical perspective, Charlotte Wolfe, wetland scientist from Lakeville:

So they haven't suggested that they're going to pay us to gather the data, yet the burden is on us to prove this is harmful. I think that is ass backwards.

(Applause.)

Amazon has already been able to occupy (inaudible) high water table area of the former Grand Kankakee Marsh. We had an opportunity to form, through the Fish & Wildlife Service, the Grand Kankakee Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. Because Indiana is so backward and would not agree and said that it was a project of the United Nations, with black helicopters – I spoke at several meetings, 20 years ago – they moved to Illinois to buy their land because a couple people said they would sell the land, they were harassed by their neighbors. You are dealing with a very backward area in terms of the approval of projects that benefit fish and wildlife.

And as you can see from the comments, it's not that way anymore; 20 years later so many more people are concerned. Our country is at a crossroads. Our country right now – the only environmental protection, as Jen mentioned, is IDEM. The national wetlands protection underneath our protection agency was done away with during the Trump – first Trump administration, followed about a week or two later, I believe, by Indiana dismantling of wetland protection. We wouldn't even be here if those laws were still in effect.

So please deny this permit. You're the only people who can. Thank you.

I can't find an official plan or permit for New Carlisle data center water discharge. From South Bend Tribune, Are there enough protections to keep New Carlisle water clean as industries grow? (6/13/2024), "All of the wastewater from the GM and Amazon sites would be discharged to the city of South Bend’s wastewater utility." South Bend discharges to the St. Joe River (EPA) and ultimately Lake Michigan. Summing up: drain the wetlands that filter and feed the aquifer, drain the aquifer, feed the lake. This is not a self-sustaining system. At least it feeds a fresh water stock and doesn't mix back to the ocean, I guess.

IndyStar, Indiana's data center boom could be disastrous for health and environment, advocates say: IndyStar reports there are "more than 60 data centers across Indiana" and 26 proposed.

On energy sourcing (emphasis mine):

“Utilities looking to meet the load will use natural gas and other fossil fuels, extending the life of existing coal-fired plants that were otherwise set to retire,” [Ben Inskeep, Citizens Action Coalition] said.

A sweeping set of recent state and federal laws and executive orders have already set the stage to keep coal burning in Indiana, where ash ponds already leech toxic pollution into waterways. Indiana waterways were the most polluted in the U.S., according to a 2022 report.

Inskeep said he questions the wisdom of further degrading the environment for the benefit of artificial intelligence and for an industry that likely won't supply a large number of jobs compared to its demand for energy.

…

Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook and Instagram, currently is building an $800 million facility in Jeffersonville and plans to supply its own energy.

NIMBYs block renewable energy siting³:

The large energy requirements also appear to rule out solar and wind generation as viable options, at least for now in Indiana. Supplying data centers with a renewable source of energy is “not easy” [Stan Pinegar, president of Duke Energy Indiana] said. Compounding the problem, many county governments across the state have created roadblocks to building large-scale renewable projects.

“They’ve basically written ordinances that have made it very difficult to site those projects within counties,” Pinegar said.

This is one reason Duke has focused on burning gas at its Cayuga plant. It takes a lot of land and a lot of wind and solar to equal the capacity of a gas-fired plant, Pinegar said, and on top of that there needs to be a welcoming community.

“It’s something that we’re all working through, and the General Assembly has tried a couple times to provide more standardized requirements for these facilities, but it’s not made its way through the assembly,” Pinegar said. “So that is something everyone is still focused on and trying to figure out the best path forward.”

WDRB, Facebook parent Meta to build $800 million data center in Jeffersonville, Indiana (1/25/2024):

The data center will be fully powered by renewable energy, as all Meta data centers are, according to Holcomb's office.

I think the former governor glossed over relevant details there. If I'm reading between the lines of Meta’s Jeffersonville Data Center correctly, Meta is adding renewable generation in Indiana, but they ultimately mix generation sources and offset with renewable energy credits.

Our data centers’ electricity use is matched with 100% clean and renewable energy, and our global operations have reached net zero emissions.

Meta-supported projects are adding 409 megawatts of new renewable energy in Indiana.