Community groups in Philadelphia are calling for a moratorium on building AI data centers after city officials named two potential sites: one in Northeast Philadelphia and one in the Grays Ferry neighborhood where longtime resident and activist Shawmar Pitts lives.
Local experience shapes opposition
For protesters the concerns are rooted in lived experience. Pitts grew up in Grays Ferry next to what was once the East Coast’s largest oil refinery, which closed after an explosion in 2019. Many people in his family and neighborhood have suffered chronic health problems; Pitts says he only began to connect those illnesses with pollution after encountering the environmental justice group Philly Thrive, which was tabling in his neighborhood in 2018 about a proposed refinery expansion.
Pitts is now the managing co-director of Philly Thrive and a leading voice behind the city campaign "No Data Centers in Philly." Opposition to data centers is particularly strong in communities that already bear industrial impacts.
"We don’t want data centers," said Sonya Sanders, president of the Philly Thrive board, at a rally on Monday at Philadelphia’s City Hall. "We don’t want the pollution, we don’t want the noise, and we know they’re not going to bring us more jobs." Sanders’ husband died of a rare bone cancer in 2020; she said he did not smoke or drink and believes refinery emissions caused his illness.
Environmental and health stakes
Organizers note that a Philadelphia data center would not necessarily match the environmental footprint of the now-closed Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, which once processed up to 335,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Still, the international race to dominate AI is projected to drive large increases in energy demand. BloombergNEF forecasts that by 2035 U.S. data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined, a projection nearly double the firm’s estimate from nine months earlier.
Natural gas produces fewer pollutants than oil in some respects, but it is not harmless: burning one cubic foot of natural gas emits roughly 60 grams of carbon dioxide. Additional data center demand is expected to generate about 1 million metric tons of extra greenhouse gas pollution per day — roughly 12% of current U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A 2021 Harvard study found that fossil-fuel-related air pollution accounts for about one in five deaths worldwide.
Annie Fox, an attorney with Clean Air Council, warned at the rally that a typical data center planned in Pennsylvania can include hundreds of diesel engines that emit air pollution. Even if generators are designated for emergency use, she said, government guidance has indicated data centers may rely on them rather than draw from an overstressed grid during heat waves — events that climate change is likely to make more frequent and severe.
Broader policy responses
Worries similar to those in Philadelphia have prompted policy responses elsewhere. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order temporarily preventing the state from approving new permits for large projects, saying these facilities should be built only where communities want them. Cities including Denver, Indianapolis, Asheville, Charlotte and Reno have enacted moratoriums on large data center projects to allow officials time to study their impacts.
More than 100 people attended the kickoff rally for No Data Centers in Philly, chanting in the hope that city council members would hear them from inside City Hall. Participants expressed additional concerns about surveillance, data access, and the possibility that data centers’ use of water and electricity could reduce resources available to neighborhoods with greater need.
What comes next
Philly Thrive and allied groups are pressing the city for a moratorium to give officials time to evaluate environmental, health and infrastructure impacts before any construction permits are issued. Organizers say sustained community engagement will be necessary to influence local decisions. While data center companies and their customers promise jobs and economic growth, local residents are urging that such benefits be weighed against potential harms and that adequate protections be put in place before projects move forward.
