The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) is calling for an 18-month moratorium on new large data centers across Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, so the region can proactively set the terms of this buildout instead of inheriting the costly risks. SACE‘s position is based on four cornerstone concerns:
- Community costs: Data centers lock in unwanted noise and air pollution, drain tens of millions of gallons of water a day, and are approved under agreements lacking transparency, often before residents know a project is coming.
- State & regional costs: Utilities profit from the buildout and pass the costs on to customers whether power demand materializes or not, locking in decades of new fossil fuel power plants. Bills in parts of the region could rise by up to 57% by 2030, even though the odds of these load forecasts materializing are low.
- Economic sector risks: The AI buildout needs about $2 trillion a year in new revenue to pay off — money that can only come from cutting jobs or from debt that could trigger a financial crisis.
- Existential AI misalignment: The same companies are asking the Southeast to bear multiple existential risks while having told regulators they aren’t fully sure they can control what they’re building.
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Executive Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said, “Any one of four levels of concern — community, states and region, sectors of the economy, and existential questions — is reason enough to pause. Together they represent an overwhelming need for a moratorium. The financial risk is Wall Street’s to gamble; the stranded fossil infrastructure is ours to pay for, and there is no giving it back. This is not a forever ban; it’s a moratorium to give us time to define rules on transparency, pollution, cost, and risk before the concrete is poured and the Southeast is bound to a gamble it never agreed to.”
Read the article about why SACE is supporting an 18-month moratorium on large new data centers here.
Media Contact: Amy Rawe, amyr@cleanenergy.org, 865-235-1448
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About the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Since 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has worked to promote responsible and equitable energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at cleanenergy.org.
