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1. Hello, and you are listening to Ecojustice Radio on KPFK Los Angeles, a project of SoCal
2. 350 Climate Action.
3. Our show presents environmental and climate stories from a social justice frame, featuring
4. voices not necessarily heard on mainstream media.
5. Ecojustice Radio acknowledges that we recorded this show on the traditional territory of
6. the Gabrielino Tongva people and all of their relatives in the place we call Los Angeles.
7. Welcome.
8. I'm Jack Ait on today's show, Water and Power Woes, how artificial intelligence data centers
9. threaten our future. We feature a conversation with Stephen J. Kung, co-founder of the grassroots
10. group No Data Center Monterey Park, just east of downtown Los Angeles. We also hear from
11. multiple activists and journalists reporting on data center projects from Arizona and Utah to
12. the California desert and out toward Louisiana and Michigan. Tech journalist Paris Marks weighs
13. in from the 2025 Bioneers Conference on the social and political implications of this data center
14. bubble economy. We even have Bernie Sanders calling for a moratorium and Stanford's Mark
15. Jacobson charting a way that they could be powered with renewable energy, but questions still remain.
16. Stephen J. Kung is a Chinese-American resident of Monterey Park
17. who lives 1,300 feet from the proposed data center site.
18. He's a writer-director who co-founded No Data Center Monterey Park.
19. this is sanaya brown saying stop using ai and save water this is from instagram for the love of god
20. stop using AI. We will not have drinking water. AI used more water than every single bottling
21. company on the planet globally in one year. They surpassed how much mother water every single,
22. every single bottling company used in one year. Water is a finite resource. You can't make no H2O.
23. We will not have drinking water. And y'all are playing with AI to watch Michael Jackson do a backflip or to watch yourself do something stupid. We will not have drinking water. This is bigger than anything. Like, I really need y'all to get it to your heads. Sora is not going to save you. Use your talent. Stop using AI for everything.
24. So this is Mark Jacobson on renewable energy options for data centers.
25. We've had him on the show.
26. We interviewed him a few years back.
27. If you look into our archives, Stanford University has written multiple books.
28. And here's what he thinks about how data centers could be powered, let's say, sustainably.
29. The use of data centers is growing.
30. To the extent new data centers cannot be avoided by better computer codes and more efficient computers,
31. how should we power them cleanly?
32. Hi, I'm Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
33. at Stanford University, to tell you how.
34. First, if a data center is not connected to the grid,
35. there are at least three ways to provide constant, clean, renewable electricity to it.
36. One is to build solar or wind, or both, nearby, and solar on the data center or rooftop,
37. together with battery and hydrogen electricity storage.
38. Excess solar and wind will be stored in batteries and hydrogen.
39. Batteries provide short and medium storage Hydrogen when coupled with a fuel cell provides long electricity storage A second method is to build a nearby enhanced geothermal facility With enhanced geothermal heat is extracted from three to eight kilometers deep in the earth to run a turbine to
40. generate constant electricity. The third method is to combine the first two methods. What if the data
41. center is connected to the grid? In that case, the data center owner can use any of the first three
42. methods just discussed or pay homeowners or businesses to build rooftop solar plus battery
43. systems to free up grid electricity for data center use. This is because people use their
44. own rooftop solar electricity first, reducing their need for grid electricity. In fact,
45. during the first 11 months of 2025, grid electricity demand on California's main grid
46. was down 2% versus 2024, largely because of the growth of rooftop solar, despite the growth of
47. data centers and electric vehicles in the state. What won't and shouldn't be used to power data
48. centers small modular nuclear reactors these are non-existent non-commercial technologies or
49. vaporware and can't even be built from planning to operation in less than 12 and up to 23 years
50. enhanced geothermal does the exact same thing as nuclear but faster cheaper and without weapons
51. proliferation risk meltdown risk or radioactive waste risk let's focus on what is useful and what
52. works. This is a video that came from Instagram. It's off the Lake Powell Burner data center.
53. Out of Page, Arizona, they're talking about this data center. They want to slap a $10 billion
54. project across the street from the Horseshoe Bend near Lake Powell on the Colorado River
55. near the Utah border. And this is a testament of what Mark Jacobson says about using sustainably
56. generated solar energy to do these data centers. It often doesn't make much sense. So I think it's
57. good to generate solar energy, but this puts in question how much that makes sense.
58. As we headed to our next destination, we noticed the valley floor was
59. blanketed in a dark field of something. You probably know what it already is. Let me give
60. some background anyway. Utah has become home to some massive data center projects, which are used
61. by some of the world's largest companies and government agencies, including Google, Meta,
62. and the National Security Agency. One thing we all know about data centers,
63. they consume a staggering amount of energy.
64. This happens to be one of the largest solar plants in the country with 1.2 million panels.
65. This project recently came online and can produce over 685 megawatts of electricity.
66. That is enough to power one out of every three homes in the entire state of Utah.
67. However, the entire output from this will go nearby to the data center for Facebook.
68. Welcome to EcoJustice Radio, Stephen Kung.
69. Thank you so much for having me.
70. I'm so glad to be here and tell everyone what's going on in Monterey Park.
71. Yeah, so Monterey Park is just east of downtown Los Angeles.
72. Maybe you could get in to give us the lay of the land.
73. Our audience is far and wide.
74. They're not necessarily local.
75. And what are the issues?
76. Give us the big picture to start off with.
77. Sure.
78. Monterey Park is a quiet ethnoburb in Los Angeles County.
79. It's actually the original ethnoburb.
80. It's 60% Asian American, mostly Chinese, and 30% Latine, and then 10% everyone else.
81. And it's beautiful.
82. It's bucolic.
83. It got a great food scene And it is right next to East LA and downtown Los Angeles So it in a prime location It highly residential and it it undergoing a period of transition
84. Right. It used to have a lot of retirees and now the retirees are moving out.
85. When I moved in four years ago, I was the youngest. My husband and I were the youngest people on our block.
86. Now we're in the middle. So new people are moving in. The houses are basically a million dollars plus now.
87. And it's a middle, it's a solidly middle class neighborhood for LA. And so imagine my surprise when I found out, like, two months ago, over social media, from a random Instagram post, that this Australian data asset manager was going to build LA County's largest data center in Monterey Park.
88. Now, data centers usually prey upon rural communities and unpopulated communities.
89. So it's really highly irregular that they're going for a middle class suburb.
90. Yeah, it really is.
91. I would agree.
92. I mean, what you just described is not, I mean, a data center is an industrial use.
93. So that goes against this sort of gentrifying, suburban, almost urban type of landscape that has a good food scene and places to walk and all that.
94. So it's interesting.
95. It is absolutely heavy industrial use.
96. In fact, the data center plans say they would build 24 diesel generators, which amounts to 66 megawatts.
97. Now, the legal definition of a power plant in California is 50 megawatts. So even though they're building an additional, SoCal Edison would be building an additional power substation to power the data center, they are building another power plant, these diesel generators, to act as a backup power plant.
98. But that would basically, you know, they would have to apply for the California Energy Commission to get an exemption.
99. And they haven't even done that.
100. So it is like heavy industry and it comes with all the air pollution and environmental waste hazards that come with heavy industry.
101. So give us a sense of how big, how much land, because this is this is a gigantic piece of land.
102. It's not I mean, there's there's those impacts and we'll get in.
103. I have more questions on the energy side, but give us a sense of the landscape, like how big this actually, how much land is it taking up?
104. Sure. Right. In their initial study, they were the applicant HMC Capital said that the data center would only take up 218,000 square feet, which is still a lot.
105. And then after a bunch of environmental groups gave comment, they're like, oh, I mean, to meet our needs, we actually need 250,000 square feet.
106. That's the size of five football fields.
107. And according to our calculations, it would be the largest data center in LA County.
108. So that is the data center that is currently on the books.
109. But what HMC Capital, the Australian management company, hasn't really told the public is that they've also bought the lot across the street at 1980 Saturn.
110. And so even though there's one data center on the docket, they're actually planning to build two.
111. So it's going to be at the end of the day, it's going to be much bigger than we can even imagine right now.
112. And so there's not so my when you look at this this trend towards massive upscaling of data centers
113. Which is happening nationwide and we we covering a lot of different proposals across the US in this show today But but for this one you know we had energy advocates saying look if you can have non fuel energy you know putting solar panels on the roofs or access to some sort
114. of generation, whether it's geothermal, is there any push towards that with this project? Or is
115. it just straight diesel generators, as you talked about? There are fans of the data center who are
116. pushing for a clean energy, like zero carbon emission data center, which I would actually
117. be okay with. But anyone who's read up on data centers knows that this is a pipe dream and that
118. these data centers consume too much energy and that a completely green, zero carbon emission
119. data center doesn't exist. It's completely utopian. When we arrive at the time where it
120. causes no human harm, I'll be for it. Well, we live in an era of fictionalized alternative
121. realities that are just being thrown out there as being, you know, something we all hope for,
122. you know, but when it comes down to actually what's going to happen, these data centers,
123. and what I'm trying to cover in this show is there's, you know, in theory, there's massive
124. geothermal from the Salton Sea that would be powering a data center out there. But it makes,
125. okay, they've got that localized energy source, but when it's 120 degrees outside, how much energy
126. does it take to power this thing sitting in the middle of the desert? And then the water that it
127. takes to cool because there's evaporative cooling. So it takes a massive amount of water. So that's
128. for that one. This one, it sounds like the company, which is a foreign company, this isn't,
129. you know, a US company. This is Australian company, you said?
130. That's also very strange, too. Like, why Australia? Why are they coming to the US? Like,
131. could they not get a data center built in Australia? It's very, very random.
132. The AI boom that's happening here, you know, at Los Angeles is, well, they're building them all
133. over the place. As you noted, they pick rural areas. There's one in Page, Arizona that's
134. really awful. They're all over the place. It's not just one place. But Los Angeles is a center
135. because there's the access to the amount of population and the connection to Asia from here.
136. You know, there's a lot of reasons. There's a big trend. But they've been focusing on areas like
137. Vernon, which is just adjacent southeast of downtown LA, where they have 200 residents.
138. It's a very different thing when you have so many local residents, a suburban community where
139. they're doing this. Yeah, I feel so badly for Vernon because not enough residents live there
140. and they're sort of defenseless. And what are they building the data centers for, right? You noted
141. that there is a proliferation of them, but the needs for the data center are all speculative,
142. Right. We can already check our emails and find things on the cloud and download things on YouTube.
143. So what do we need these AI hyperscale data centers for?
144. No one really knows. It's all a bubble.
145. And so you're willing to build this bubble of like for speculative use that will cause all this pollution and make our communities unlivable.
146. Like that's just unacceptable.
147. Yeah. So tell us about, there's been a significant movement of people coming together,
148. of your neighbors as well as generalized advocates, and there is a pretty strong pushback.
149. How's that going?
150. I've been so touched and moved by the community mobilization over this. We've started
151. a grassroots campaign that started with just lawn signs that say no data center. And
152. And people have come up to us and they're like, where can I get a sign?
153. And we're starting to sell them at the rallies now.
154. And because the HMC Capital tried to sneak in their data center without any fanfare,
155. without a full environmental impact report, the city hasn't notified people about it.
156. The applicant up until this week hasn't notified anyone about it.
157. So people are just finding out about the data center through this grassroots campaign, which
158. is crazy.
159. And so because people are finding out this way, they are really mad and ready to get the word out.
160. So we've energized our base and we've expanded.
161. We did a teach-in to tell people about the harms caused by the data center.
162. We held a rally before the city council meeting.
163. We started a petition that has garnered 5,000 signatures.
164. So we are getting the word out.
165. And through this process, I've been getting to meet my neighbors.
166. I mean, the one plus of this is it's hard to get to know your neighbors in suburbia.
167. But like now we are all bonded because we are all fighting together and we're having dinner with each other and drinks.
168. And it's going to each other's houses for meet and greets.
169. And it's just a lovely sense of community.
170. And I've actually fallen in love with my city all over again.
171. Wow. That's really encouraging, frankly, because that's what it takes is people to come coming together.
172. That's the only way because, you know, these faceless corporate entities have unlimited power.
173. They can buy out all of our certainly the statewide office holders, whether they're going after local office holders is a question and whether they have the ability to do that.
174. But when so many local people step up and and that's something I've seen with a lot of these projects, certainly out in the Imperial Valley, I've seen really just amazing organizing, local organizing where people's voice really matters because you're going to need a lot of power to stop these things.
175. So yes, it's a show of force. And I would also want to speak to the demographics of it all, right? Because when you're on the outside looking in, you see communities of color, you see Asians and Latinas, and you might have people might have stereotypes about what our community is, that there are a bunch of fresh off the boat immigrants who don't speak English, who are apathetic and apolitical.
176. But that's not the reality of what this town is. Everyone here is like overeducated. In my group, in my organizational group alone, we all have like graduate degrees and some of us have PhDs and like, and it's insane the amount of education we have.
177. And, you know, even our immigrant families, they fled war-torn areas for a better life where they've faced this type of like fascist regimes and people coming in with bad ideas. And so we have fight built into us.
178. And so especially like both Latinx and Asian communities, when we come to the USA, we're fleeing countries that are war-torn and sown with conflict.
179. So fight is in our blood.
180. And so if it's a fight the applicant wants, then that's what they'll get.
181. Yeah.
182. So could you tell us more?
183. Who are these?
184. You said there's some advocates of the project who are saying it should be net zero.
185. Who are these people?
186. Where do they come from?
187. That's a good question.
188. there's only really one of them who is the city clerk, Michelle Yee. She spoke up at the last
189. city council meeting talking about how we can get solar panels for the data center. And everyone
190. just sort of laughed her off because everyone knows that ridiculous and there no such thing So they a small vocal group I do want to talk about the applicant though and their offense at the community So
191. instead of engaging the community about what their data center is going to be and how it impacts
192. everyone, they've remained silent until this week, until after the city council is starting to
193. consider a data center ban. And they have hired the consulting services, the lobbying services of
194. Actum, which is Fabian Nunez's lobbying group based out of Sacramento. Yes. And so at the last
195. council meeting, they brought their vice president, Laziza Lambert, over who introduced herself as
196. the community engagement officer for the data center. But in fact, she's just a lobbyist. I
197. mean, she couldn't even tell the truth about who she was. Well, engagement is lobbying. It's just
198. a different word for it. Yeah, it's so deceptive. And so actually at today's meeting, there's going
199. to be a city council meeting today to vote on whether to draft a ballot proposal to ban all
200. data centers. And evidently the lobbying group is leveling up their efforts to sway city councilmen.
201. And rumor has it that Fabian Nunez himself is coming down for today's meeting. Yeah, he's got
202. quite a record. So you had sent me the environmental impact report, which came out as a negative
203. declaration, meaning nothing to see here, folks. We've done all of our background studies, and this
204. looks like no problem. How did that come about? Coming from someone who's written these things,
205. who's tried to uphold the California Environmental Quality Act, that doesn't pass the smell test,
206. so to speak.
207. Yeah, it was sort of amazing
208. because I'm completely new to this.
209. First of all, I didn't know you've written
210. some of these reports, but I love it.
211. I'm an urban planner, I come from this background.
212. Oh, okay.
213. So you know, it was crazy to me
214. because I don't know anything about this,
215. but you defer to experts who do.
216. You talk to your friends at Earth Justice
217. and they refer you to Environmental Integrity Project
218. and Friends Center for Biological Diversity,
219. and they read the reports and they sort of laughed at it.
220. And they're like, how is, does this pass any sort of muster or scrutiny?
221. And just like blatant violations, like not applying for that power plant permit.
222. And the threshold for having a full environmental impact report in California is so ridiculously
223. low.
224. Basically, it says that like, and you can correct me on this, Jack.
225. I think like if there's a case, any sort of case to be made that it could impact the public,
226. then you should do an environmental impact report.
227. Like it's that low. It's like if there's a case, you should do the report. And there's clearly a case and there's so much evidence on how they would impact the community. And there's so many shortcuts they took with the mitigated negative declaration as well.
228. I don't know how, well, I know how our city council approved it is because our planning commission is corrupt.
229. And our new planning commissioner, Tim Ho, worked for Amazon before he came here.
230. And obviously, Amazon is a real estate vampire and they're building data centers.
231. So that's how that happened.
232. And so at our last meeting, I actually called for Tim Ho to be fired.
233. And I still hope he gets fired.
234. Good job.
235. Yeah.
236. Well, we're going to take a break for our radio audience, Stephen Kung, so we'll be back in just a short minute here.
237. subscribing on all major podcast apps, and visit our website, ecojusticeradio.org,
238. to check out previous shows and guests, listen to extended episodes, and get connected with us on
239. social media. Today, you're listening to Water and Power Woes, How Artificial Intelligence Data
240. Centers Threaten Our Future. I'm your host, Jack Eid, and we feature a conversation with Stephen
241. J. Kung, co-founder of the grassroots activist group No Data Center Monterey Park, which is just
242. east of downtown Los Angeles. Also, we hear from multiple activists and journalists reporting on
243. data center projects across the United States. This is another clip from Instagram, CoachRJ242.
244. This speaks to the draining of the Owens Valley, the Owens Lake, the river, and the eastern Sierra,
245. all the water resources to go to LA. Of course, it's not only data centers that are causing this,
246. But I think making that connection is really important.
247. And of course, Governor Newsom's full support.
248. Want to be radicalized?
249. You want to make a man into a political radical really fast?
250. Take his favorite duck hunting hole, suck all the water out of it.
251. This used to have permanent water in it so much so that I caught largemouth bass in it.
252. Way to go, Los Angeles.
253. Behind me is one of the wetlands that Gavin Newsom and his tech bro buddies drained
254. and sent off to Los Angeles in order to feed the 72 operating AI data centers there,
255. as well as the multi-billion dollar plan expansion for AI in the city.
256. It's happening as we speak.
257. Breaks my heart because marshals like this one have been serving waterfowl for at least 110 years.
258. According to the headstamp, my boy Heinz57 here, dug up last time we checked out one of our spots.
259. That just goes to show it's not our world, it's just our turn to take a spin.
260. So how did Gavin Newsom do with his?
261. Well, while he was off in Davos trying to look presidential,
262. my boys and I conducted our second waterfowl survey of this local roost.
263. Exactly 365 days ago, we counted 22 species of waterfowl,
264. including sandhill cranes and king eiders that must have gotten lost on the way down from Alaska.
265. This year we counted four.
266. I'm an N of one study, I understand that.
267. But I know a crisis when I see one.
268. I've also seen what Gavin Newsom did with his spin on this earth.
269. I'd hate to see if we gave him a turn with the whole country.
270. This is Zero Waste Store on AI data centers and their consumption.
271. Your use of AI is killing the planet.
272. In 2025, the carbon footprint of AI was equivalent to the entire city of New York,
273. between 33 million and 80 million tons of carbon dioxide.
274. AI data centers that are being built today are expected to each consume as much electricity as 2 million households.
275. Because electricity in the U.S. is mostly powered by fossil fuels, data centers emit a lot of greenhouse gases.
276. AI data centers also used as much water in 2025 as the total amount of bottled water people drink globally in an entire year.
277. This is due to their evaporative cooling systems.
278. Although some of the water can be recycled, 80% of it evaporates.
279. So the next time you use AI to write an email, think about the impact on the environment first.
280. This is an excerpt from a presentation by Paris Marx at the Bioneers Conference in 2025.
281. I apologize for not having the actual recording, so I'm going to have to read for you.
282. I did attend the session, and it was pretty compelling, and I think their words really put an exclamation point on what we're up against.
283. So in terms of AI, they say, there may well be some positive outcomes from this technology,
284. but there's also the looming possibility of serious harm. The narrative goes something
285. like this We must develop AI even though it might destroy the world It could lead to the end of humanity This mix of hype sprinkled with warnings of existential risk doesn just shape public perception It influences how the media talks about AI
286. and how organizations begin to position themselves in response to it.
287. The tech industry benefits from these grand, speculative conversations.
288. They want us focused on how powerful AI might become someday
289. rather than examining how it's already being used right now.
290. It's more convenient to keep eyes on the future than on the real impacts unfolding in the present.
291. That's why it's so important to understand the foundations of this technology, where it comes from, and why it's suddenly everywhere.
292. Please give us how people can get in touch with what you're doing, how they can join your fight, how they can learn from what you're doing.
293. Yes, please join our fight. Go to nodatacentermpk.org.
294. That is the official website for No Data Center, Moderate Park.
295. And there you can view a video of our teach-in.
296. You can sign the petition and sign up for a lawn sign and sign up to get updates on what we're up to and when we're meeting.
297. Excellent.
298. Well, thank you again.
299. Hope to see you out there.
300. All right.
301. Thanks, Jack.
302. Hey, listeners, to check out the extended recording of this show or to explore our other shows, visit our website, ecojusticeradio.org and subscribe to our podcast.
303. This has been Ecojustice Radio and our show, Water and Power Woes, How AI Data Centers Threaten Our Future.
304. Thank you to Stephen J. Kung and thank you to our listeners for joining us.
305. Please connect with us on social media at Ecojustice Radio, SoCal 350 and Wilder Utopia if you like what you've heard.
306. You want others to be informed, subscribe and share the episodes.
307. A project of SoCal 350.
308. The show can be found on KPFK Audio Archives,
309. all major podcast apps,
310. and at ecogestusradio.org.
311. Executive producer, myself, Jack Ike.
312. Co-host, Carrie Kim.
313. and Engineer and Original Music by Blake Quake Beats.
314. And until next time, remember, the power is yours.
315. You're invited to tune in to The QR Code with your hosts, Ramses Jha and Q Ward.
316. The Q in The QR Code goes by the name of Q Ward.
317. The voice you just heard is the R in The QR Code.
318. He goes by the name Ramses Jha.
319. every Monday through Thursday at 6 a.m.
320. Be sure to join us next time as we share our news with our voice from our perspective.
321. And until then, peace.
322. Peace.
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