A crash course on US air pollution - Andy Masley

Data centers and air pollution - part 1

In December 2024, a paper estimated that air pollution from US data centers could impose more than $20 billion in annual public health burdens by 2030. A later version moved that forward to 2028. The paper has other shocking estimates, perhaps most is that emergency backup diesel generators around Northern Virginia data centers alone create hundreds of millions of dollars in public health costs, with damages large enough to register as far away as Long Island. The shading on the map shows each county’s rank by modeled annual health cost from the Virginia generators. Each of Long Island’s…

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• Binit Maharjan

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