In what was once farmland, Amazon data centers were built just 50 feet from residential homes within the Loudoun Meadows neighborhood on January 20, 2023 in Aldie, Virginia.
Jahi Chikwendiu | Washington Post | Getty’s paintings
In January, Oregon lawmakers submitted a bill to the state legislature that sought to curb carbon emissions from latest data centers and cryptocurrency miners — facilities that sprang up quickly across Oregon due to relatively low energy costs and favorable tax incentives. This is able to require latest data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities to run exclusively on clean energy sources by 2040, according to state climate goals founded in 2021.
On Monday, the bill HB2816, died within the legislative committee. Supporters of the measure point to aggressive lobbying activities, e.g Amazonwhich works several data centers within the state because the important offender behind the collapse of the bill.
Amazon’s opposition to the clean energy measure runs counter to its broader drive to improve its environmental footprint. The corporate has committed to being carbon neutral by 2040 as a part of its climate commitment launched in 2019. Amazon says it’s on target to use 100% renewable energy across its operations by 2025 and is the biggest corporate buyer renewable energy.
“From the primary time we began talking about this bill, Amazon began organizing against it,” Oregon State Representative Pam Marsh, co-sponsor of HB2816, said in an interview.
Representatives from Oxley & Associates, a lobbying firm hired by Amazon, were spotted within the corridors of the capitol constructing speaking to members of the state legislature who will ultimately hear the bill, said Marsh, who’s a Democrat representing Oregon District 5.
Amazon Web Services spokesman David Ward declined to comment on the corporate’s lobbying efforts related to the bill, but acknowledged Amazon’s opposition to the measure, saying it had failed to address the infrastructure expansion needed to deliver more clean energy to the U.S. power grid. .
“Constructing latest renewable energy projects requires grid infrastructure investments, and there are currently obstacles in key areas similar to permitting and interconnections,” Ward said in an announcement. “Accelerating energy infrastructure permitting and interconnection for renewable energy sources similar to solar and wind would have a greater impact on reducing emissions, bringing more clean energy to the grid and helping to achieve our goal of accessing more clean energy energy in Oregon.
Experts say the country’s outdated electricity grid stays a hindrance to accelerating the transition to clean energy sources. Today, greater than 70% of US transmission lines are greater than 25 years old White House. Constructing latest transmission lines is a protracted and arduous process because it requires approval from the various stakeholders involved, from utilities and regulators to landowners.
See also: Wind and solar generators wait years to feed electricity into the grid after which incur huge fees
Data centers are extremely energy intensive. According to the Department of Energy, in 2014, US data centers used an estimated 70 billion kilowatt hours, or about 1.8% of total US electricity consumption that 12 months.
Amazon relies on massive server farms to power its vast cloud computing service, which is the corporate’s important driver of profits. Amazon has committed to making all of its data centers run on renewable energy, but has yet to completely phase out fossil fuels.
Amazon on Tuesday announced reached an agreement with Umatilla Electric Cooperative, a utility company serving its operations in Umatilla and Morrow counties, Oregon, to select the source of power for its data centers, including renewable sources. Amazon says the deal will help the corporate power the Oregon region no less than 95 percent with renewable energy.
The changes to the bill didn’t reassure Amazon, Marsh says
Amazon also says lawmakers didn’t involve operators and data center owners in Oregon once they created the bill.
But Marsh disputes this claim.
The commission removed a clause that would penalize firms that failed to meet clean energy targets and added a provision that would allow them to opt out of the bill. Marsh said each actions were an attempt to generate goodwill.
“We said, ‘OK, if it’s 2030 and there is some major disruption on the earth and you’ll be able to’t meet your clean energy goals, you’ll be able to file those papers and you’ll be able to quit because something might need happened outside of your control,’ said Marsz. . “So we made some good, strong changes to the bill, but that didn’t change Amazon’s objection in any way.”
Marsh said she was becoming increasingly skeptical of Amazon’s “commitment to clean energy,” when he said he plans to power some operations at his state’s data centers with natural gas fuel cells made by Bloom energy.
Amazon said fuel cells will run a small portion of the state’s data center operations. The hope lies in powering fuel cells with renewable energy similar to hydrogen or biogas.
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a bunch of Amazon tech staff who previously put pressure on the corporate to tackle its climate records, said they were disenchanted the bill had stalled. The group supported the measure, with Sarah Tracy, an AECJ member and former Amazon programmer, testifying at a public hearing on the bill.
The AECJ created a petition in 2019 to get then-CEO Jeff Bezos to rethink his environmental footprint. After Bezos announced the climate pledge, the group continued to leave because they felt the pledge wasn’t strong enough. Two employees who were heavily involved within the group, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, were fired after repeatedly speaking out about Amazon’s climate and workplace performance. Amazon later settled with Costa and Cunningham after the federal employment agency determined that Amazon illegally fired them for activism.
A spokesperson for the AECJ told CNBC: “The extent of hypocrisy here can be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing – naming a sports arena after your ‘climate impact declaration’ while lobbying to circumvent basic clean energy requirements that are maintained by utilities. that I feel bad for the sustainability team – they’re working hard because they know higher than anyone how little time now we have to switch Amazon and the remaining of the economy to renewables before disaster strikes. But then the corporate undercuts that mission by constructing dirty latest energy infrastructure.”
While the bill is dead for now, Marsh said talks are ongoing around convincing data centers and crypto facilities to meet Oregon’s clean energy goals. She added that the bill could come back in a special form in the longer term.