Google sparks outrage over plans to build new data center in Uruguay: 'To use our natural resources with no benefit to us'

Environmental activists are outraged at Google's plans to build a new data center in Uruguay, according to the Guardian. Multiple academics and environmental groups say the Google site would significantly impact Uruguay's carbon footprint. 

What's happening?

Google broke ground on a new data center located in Canelones, Uruguay, the second data center in Latin America. Google acquired the land in 2021 in a tax-free zone. The project will take 26 months to complete construction.

The company planned to extract 228 liters of water per second to cool the data center. This would equal more than 7 billion liters of water annually, seven times more than the water used to cool Google's first data center in Chile. Environmental activists pushed back amid the country's biggest drought to date in 2023.

Uruguay's environmental authorities approved amendments to the project that would now use air conditioning to cool the data center.

However, multiple environmental activists are angry about the decision. Even without high demand for Uruguay's water, the data center will release an estimated 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year and generate 86 tons of toxic waste, according to Uruguay's environmental assessment report.

The report says that could raise the country's carbon dioxide pollution by 0.3% annually. However, according to Daniel Pena, a University of the Republic in Montevideo academic and environmental campaigner, this could be as much as 2.7% annually,

"For Uruguay, it will provide nothing except toxic waste and greenhouse gases," Pena said.

Why are the environmental impacts of the data center important?

 Uruguay is one of the leading countries in using affordable energy. About 98% of the country's energy is generated by renewable sources, such as solar power, wind farms, and hydropower.

However, the demands of the data center could put added pressure on Uruguay's power sources. The Google data center will require energy that is the equivalent of 222,898 households to run. In times of drought or extra demand on the grid, Uruguay has to rely on backup sources from fossil fuels, such as oil. 

"We feel that foreign multinationals come to use our natural resources with no benefit to us," said María Selva Ortiz of Friends of the Earth in Uruguay in the Guardian report.

"The environmental impact is uncertain as the studies requested by citizens have not been completed," Ana Filippini from the Movement for a Sustainable Uruguay (MOVUS) added. "Greenhouse gas emissions will increase, and we do not know how the waste from the plant will be disposed of."

Environmental groups have not had enough time to study the effect of new proposed plans for the data center, which is now under construction.

For Google, the project is part of their investment strategy to connect Latin America with the U.S. and provide more cloud services for rising demands.

"Data centers power products that help billions of people around the world, like search, YouTube and Gmail, and we're proud to keep investing in infrastructure in Latin America," a spokesperson for Google said.

"Once built, the data center will operate within the standards approved by the local authorities, and it will be part of Google's longstanding commitment to sustainability across areas such as accelerating the transition to a net-zero future and innovating to run the most efficient infrastructure," they added.

What's being done about the data center in Uruguay?

While Uruguay's environmental groups grapple with the impacts of the Google data center, the country remains a standard for investing in clean energy and reducing pollution from gas, oil, and coal.

"No one believed we could do it. We needed new solutions. We needed to do things differently," Ramón Méndez Galain, a physicist who helped redesign the electrical grid of Uruguay to rely on affordable energy, said in another Guardian report.

Community groups were a big force for change, showing the power of collective action. "Protests by civil society achieved important changes in the Google project, which was initially going to use large quantities of water," Filippini told the Guardian.

Using our voices to demand more studies into environmental impacts and phase out dirty energy can work to create change as it did with the Google data center.

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