Google miscalculated carbon emissions of data centers in UK
What's the story
Google's developers have grossly miscalculated the carbon emissions of two planned artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in the United Kingdom, documents reviewed by The Guardian revealed. The tech giant plans to build these massive facilities in Thurrock and North Weald, Essex. As part of the planning process, developers are required to estimate how much carbon these projects will emit as a percentage of UK's total emissions.
Errors
Developers made a critical error in emissions comparison
The developers appear to have compared a single year's emissions from the proposed data centers with UK's total carbon budget over five years. This has resulted in an underestimation of their emissions by a factor of five, according to experts at tech justice nonprofit Foxglove. The same error was also seen in planning documents for another data center planned by Greystoke in North Lincolnshire.
Significant impact
Proposed data centers to contribute 1% to UK's carbon budget
Together, the three proposed data centers will contribute over 1% to UK's carbon budget in 2033. This is equivalent to the emissions of a mid-sized city like Bristol. Tim Squirrell, head of strategy for Foxglove, questioned Google's pollution figures and said they were making the environmental impact look five times smaller than it really is, by comparing one year of emissions with five years of UK emissions.
Emission estimates
Miscalculations in planning documents
Google's Thurrock data center, to be built on "gray belt" land, has claimed its emissions will amount to 0.033% of UK's budgeted carbon footprint between 2028 and 2032. However, the actual figure during that period will be 0.165%. The North Weald data center near Epping Forest has said it will emit 0.043% of UK's total carbon budget from 2033-37 but the actual figure will be five times higher at 0.215%.
Additional miscalculation
Elsham Tech Park data center also miscalculated emissions
Greystoke's Elsham Tech Park data center in North Lincolnshire has also miscalculated its emissions. In planning documents, it stated that its emissions will be 0.1043% of UK's carbon budget in 2033 when the actual figure will be much higher at 0.5215%. All three developments are classified as having a "minor adverse" impact on UK's overall climate goals but still contribute significantly to carbon emissions.