'It's hell for us here': Mumbai families suffer as datacentres keep the city hooked on coal

[highplainsdem]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/24/mumbai-datacentres-coal-air-pollution

Economic growth and the need for air conditioning in climate change-linked extreme heat have seen India’s electricity demand soar in recent years. But an investigation by SourceMaterial and the Guardian reveals the biggest single factor in the city’s failure to end its dependence on fossil fuels: energy-hungry datacentres.

Leaked records also reveal the scale of the presence of the world’s biggest datacentre operator, Amazon, in Mumbai.

In the city’s metropolitan area, Amazon, on its website, records three “availability zones”, which it defines as one or more datacentres. Leaked records from last year seen by SourceMaterial from inside Amazon reveal the company used 16 in the city.

-snip-

Even with the Tata plant kept running, Mumbai’s power grid is creaking under the strain of surging demand. To guard against blackouts, Amazon’s colocation datacentres in the city have bought 41 diesel generators as backup and are asking for approval to install more, documents show.

-snip-

Much more at the link.

I hope everyone here has by now seen the stories on the environmental and health damage Elon Musk's data center in Memphis is doing. This isn't just a US problem, though. The insane rush to build more data centers is doing incalculable harm around the world.

[newdeal2]

1. Agree but don't forget the consumers

There’s clearly demand for all of these data centers.

[highplainsdem]

2. The demand is from AI companies losing money, surviving thanks to a bubble, hoping there will be

enough paying customers soon, before the bubble bursts.

[newdeal2]

4. Data centers have other uses too

For example, streaming services.

There is an AI bubble and real people and companies are using AI quite a bit. Both can be true.

[highplainsdem]

5. Real people and companies aren't paying enough to make AI companies profitable. The bubble is

sustained so far only by deluded venture capitalists and circular financing, but the AI companies are trying to make sure the American taxpayer will be on the hook when this house of cards collapses.

Ed Zitron has written a lot about this.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/

[hunter]

7. They'll be used as giant government surveillance machines.

An Orwellian Big Brother will be watching you.

[DFW]

3. I can't wait for Trump and the Interior Secretary get active

Yellowstone and the Kilauea area will be decommissioned as National Parks, and the thermal energy beneath them will become the personal property of Jeff Bezos. Guess where the next two data centers will built?

[Mosby]

6. According to the weather channel

The air quality right now in Mumbai is very unhealthy, which is one spot below hazardous. High ozone (213) and high PM10 and PM2.5.

[leftstreet]

8. DURec