Lauren E Bridges

Press Release: New Study Finds On-Site Power at Virginia Data Center Could Result in $53 Million–$99 Million in Annual Health Damages - The Piedmont Environmental Council A new independent analysis finds that emissions from the Vantage Data Center’s permitted on-site power system in Loudoun County could result in $53 million–$99 million per year in health-related damag...

New study from PEC “Finds On-Site Power at Virginia Data Center Could Result in $53 Million–$99 Million in Annual Health Damages”

www.pecva.org/resources/pr...

Important commentary here regarding water use of data centers.
Data Centers Water Footprint: The Need for More Transparency - Privette - 2026 - AGU Advances - Wiley Online Library agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

as @ketanjoshi.co said, it’s remarkably difficult to find information on this topic

and this one on water blowdown: www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14...

There’s also the issue of rising salinity - though that’s not from data center effluents, more related to development.

Using life cycle assessment to drive innovation for sustainable cool clouds - Nature A life cycle assessment study is used to examine the impacts of advanced cooling technologies on cloud infrastructure, from virtual machines to server architecture, data centre buildings and the grid.

I’m working on a project on water & data centers where this has come up. Utilities I’ve spoken with don’t have specific studies looking at effluents but here’s a few sources I’m working with: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Chevron Is Ready to Burn Gas to Power AI The fossil fuel giant is building natural gas power plants specifically for data centers.

💀

I’ve heard those words though admittedly haven’t looked into it. Will do - thanks!

thank you! This mass migration is chaos & these lists are so helpful🙏

NET ZERO LAB ESTIMATED ACHIEVEMENT VARIES ACROSS PROJECTS HFC-23 destruction. Avoided deforestation SF6 destruction Cookstoves Improved forest mgmt Not significant Wind energy 68% 25% 16% 11% Not significant www.netzerolab.science →

quite a big study here showing that actual emissions reductions for a bunch of different offsets types are significantly lower than how they're marketed

This is exactly what you expect from a system that rewards maximum offset sales, not maximum climate action

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

thanks for making the list, I’d love to join it!

finally some news to celebrate

Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that, Crystal. I had a close call a few days ago with an aggressive driver who beeped me & was revving his car behind me, which has shaken me. Wishing you a speedy recovery & safe riding when you ease back in 🚲

Annika Pinch, Nathan Ryan, @thallitalima.bsky.social, David Gray Widder, Amiya Tiwari, Ly Xīnzhèn Zhǎngsūn, Jason S.Sexton,

by @dashapruss.bsky.social @hpullenblasnik.bsky.social @drnikki.bsky.social @shakeer.bsky.social
Clara Belitz, Logan Stapleton, Mallika G. Dharmaraj, Mizue Aizeki, @petramolnar.com …

what is carceral AI? | Carceral AI

stunning new report on Carceral AI “a growing class of algorithmic and data-driven practices designed to police, incarcerate, surveil, and control people”

with recommendations for divesting, blocking, resisting, and abolishing this oppressive & violent tech

www.carceral-ai.com/what-is-carc...

👋 would you mind adding me? Thanks for the list!

Geographies of Digital Wasting

Haven’t been here in a bit so for Bsky folks who may not know, @laurenebridges.bsky.social, myself, and a wonderful research team published this really cool multimedia project on e-waste called Geographies of Digital Wasting and y’all should check it out! www.geographiesofdigitalwasting.com

thanks Bilge!

Thrilled to share my new article on “competing digital capacities” & data center tradeoffs out today in Information, Communication & Society

as part of a special issue on “Platform, Power, & Friction” by special editors @ppopiel.sky.social & Krishnan Vasudevan

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NHB4H...

ICYMI, offsets are another arm of petrocapitalist business strategy, premised on enclosure & domination, and will not save anyone

One of the things I want folks to understand about the billionaires who forced the Penn pres to resign is they started all this before Oct 7 and among their complaints is that Penn “prioritizes DEI” is “too social justice focused” and is “unrecognizable” to what it looked like when they attended.

also not about digital waste but waste and labor - I highly recommend Kathleen Millar’s book “Reclaiming the Discarded” and Rosalind Fredericks’ “Garbage Citizenship”

indigo.uic.edu/articles/rep...

heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/...

lots of interesting work on automation in Amazon warehouses leading to injury but not explicitly through a waste framework. I have a chapter in my diss that applies a waste framework but it’s a ways off being published. Here’s a few articles that could be of use: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Roundup: The EU AI Act has some big holes Read to the end for a heartwarming thread

This week in the Disconnect Roundup: The EU AI Act has been finalized, but it has some big holes including those put there by OpenAI lobbyists. Plus, plenty of recommended reads, labor updates, and other news you might have missed!

The Labor Tech Research Network endorses DAIR's statement calling for a #CeasefireNOW and #NoTechForApartheid. Read the full statement here: www.dair-institute.org/blog/palesti...

Forensic Architecture event gets cancelled by Technical University Aachen, one of Germany’s largest and most prestigious STEM universities, ffs