'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.

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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.

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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.