By EWTN News In Depth’s Mark Irons reports on “Data Center Alley” in the Diocese of Arlington in light of Pope Leo XIVʼs encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.
Data centers continue popping up across the country to fuel the growth of artificial intelligence in everyday life, and the Catholic Diocese of Arlington is home to the densest concentration of these facilities in the world, known as “Data Center Alley.”
“Itʼs absolutely in people’s minds to be thinking how to pastor and shepherd the flock,” Anna Knier, coordinator for the office of the peace and justice commission for the diocese, told Mark Irons on “EWTN News In Depth” on June 26.
“Itʼs coming fast and quickly, and itʼs kind of [like] weʼre building the plane as we fly a little bit in terms of all sorts of considerations, including infrastructure,” Knier said.
The hub, dubbed “Data Center Alley,” is located in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., just west of the city. There are more than 300 data centers in Northern Virginia and more than 100 in development.
Data centers have become a focal point of the broader AI debate. They often receive government tax subsidies while employing few people compared to other facilities that often get similar incentives, like factories.
Data centers also consume an enormous amount of energy. According to a report by the Electric Power Research Institute, about 4-5% of national energy is consumed by data centers, but that will increase to between 9-17% by 2030.
Virginia is the only state in which more than 20% of energy is consumed by data centers, but that could increase to 39-57% by 2030.
In Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, the Holy Father warned about a “tendency to overlook the environmental impact” of AI, mostly caused by the energy and water consumption of data centers.
Leo discussed broader concerns about AI development as well, such as preserving the dignity of work, building up human solidarity, and not concentrating power in the hands of a few, but instead ensuring all people benefit from the innovation.
“We need to be with those who are on the margins,” Knier said.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
These data centers consume huge amounts of energy, but employ few people. I would be wary of having them in my community.
While I find the energy appetite of the deceptively named “data centers” noxious. I have three objections:
1.) They are increasing demand when we lack sufficient generation and distribution capacity. I used to be able to buy electricity for 6-8 cents/ Kwh. My most recent contract was 12.75 cents/Kwh. Some suppliers offer near 20 cent/Kwh terms.
2.) There’s a bizarre twist in the public narrative. Until a recently, there used to be a radio commercial featuring one young girl chiding another about leaving a phone charger plugged in while not in use. Apart from the energy spent in broadcast, phone chargers are insignificant uses of electric power. Now suddenly we can devote megawatts to surveillance. Search “Flock cameras”.
3.) I live in Central Pennsylvania, and Microsoft and Constellation Energy are bringing back Three Mile Island, the sight of the infamous 1979 meltdown. The plant was shuttered in 1979 because it was no longer economical to operate. At the time, the utility that owned claimed corporate welfare at the state capitol was required to keep the remaining reactors operating. Somehow, five years later, it was not only economical to operate, but worthy of enormous start-up costs. Of course, Constellation is making the usual promises for dramatic increases in economic activity, employment and tax revenue.
Whether a data center employs ten or ten thousand or ten million is irrelevant. That’s not the measure of social utility. (How many people were “employed” by the Waffen SS, the Stasi or the KGB?).
About data and data centers, we in Washington State might be reminded of the ill-fated Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, or woops!) which went belly-up in the mid 1980’s. At $7.5 billion ($1985), the largest municipal bond default in the nation’s history at that time. WPPSS followed a projected and rising energy demand curve by beginning to build five nuclear reactors, but things didn’t happen as penciled out by political enthusiasts and bond attorneys.
Fired-up Wall Street was also misled by the so-called “hell or high water clause” (contained in a total of fourteen bond sales) which guaranteed that no one would lose money. The sordid tale includes a later state supreme court ruling holding that the involved and hyped-up 88 municipal and private utilities were not financially on the hook for the alleged fraud. And then the state legislature passed a law retroactively (!) exonerating the same utilities from possible legal accountability. In the end, the 70,000 small-guy bondholders receive 26 cents on the dollar from a revenue stream possibly still buried in ongoing household utility bills.
A story not exactly parallel to the emerging and complex data center saga, but it might be that both scenarios quack like a duck.