Originally posted September 2, 2026

A majority of Americans worry about artificial intelligence killing jobs. They also distrust the information it generates and doubt tech leaders or politicians will responsibly develop the needed technology. Hmm? You have to admit, it seems like a lot to ask.

Opposition is being channeled to environmental concerns about data centers. More than 70% of Americans oppose their construction, and 10 times as many Americans told Pew Research that data centers are bad for the environment as said they are good for the environment,” reports Ted Nordhaus, writing in the WSJ.

Bandwagons

Jumping on a bandwagon are environmental groups:

• The National Wildlife Federation calls the AI boom “an environmental justice crisis.”

• Student activists from the Sunrise Movement stormed the Washington lobbying offices of OpenAI last month, insisting that AI threatened their job prospects and access to clean drinking water.

Mr. Nordhaus wonders if AI might not hold the key to a better environment. Yes, the focus is centered on the “dubious” concerns of water use, water quality, electricity prices, and (somewhat more credibly) short-term carbon emissions.

An Engine of Productivity

What if the environmental promise of this moment is being overlooked? AI and the build-out of data centers may offer a generational opportunity to clean up our electricity grid, improve water quality and water-use efficiency, and accelerate technologies to lighten the burden we impose on the planet, thinks Mr. Nordhaus.

Don’t forget, Nordhaus reminds readers, the golden age of nuclear energy in the U.S. in the 1960s and ’70s was a response to the rapid expansion of the grid in the postwar era. Rapid expansion of electricity grids in China, India, and other developing countries has supercharged the adoption of solar, wind, and batteries globally over the past 15 years. As new research suggests, this may be happening with the build-out of data centers in the U.S.

The economics of data centers are unique and promising for the commercialization of key clean-energy technologies.

• Data centers need large amounts of power around the clock, so reliable generation is at a premium.

• Data-center developers are uniquely able to pay high prices—data centers need a lot of electricity, and that cost is a comparatively small share of the total capital and operating cost of a large data center.

• Much of the investment in frontier AI computation, which accounts for 50% or more of the cost of a large data center, depreciates in a few years. Therefore, providing power to those high-powered chips so they are running all the time becomes an economic imperative.

Hyperscalers

Hyperscalers, besides introducing a new vocabulary, are also deploying a lot of natural gas-powered generation because it is the only technology available that can meet the demanding reliability requirements of data centers.

There is a backlog of orders for new combined-cycle natural-gas plants, provide good reasons to think that gas prices will rise in the future.

As a result, notes Mr. Nordhaus, “hyperscalers are making major commitments to next-generation nuclear, nascent geothermal and natural-gas plants that capture the carbon they produce.” Massive data center build-outs may prove to be the critical platform for commercializing clean, reliable, low-carbon electricity-generation technology that the world will need to tackle climate change.

The AI revolution also promises to accelerate environmental-technology innovation driven by AI’s revolution in computational capabilities. Whether it is by modeling the behavior of superhot plasmas in fusion reactors, developing better membranes to clean wastewater cheaply for reuse, or designing high-powered computer chips that use electricity more efficiently, notes Nordhaus, “the AI revolution is already seeding a revolution in clean technology.”

The transformation will likely go beyond the energy and water footprints of data centers or electricity generation, thinks Mr. Nordhaus, promising everything from affordable and palatable cultivated meats to lower-impact precision agriculture to hyper-efficient jet engines.

Whatever any of us thinks, continues Mr. Nordhaus, AI transformation will likely go beyond the energy and water footprints of data centers or electricity generation, promising everything from affordable and palatable cultivated meats to lower-impact precision agriculture to hyper-efficient jet engines.