How do you think that students and experts can be better at explaining their own work and telling their stories in a way that captivates audiences and brings them in?

Sure.

No, uh, thank you for having, uh, me here and for being here at Columbia.

Um, we are a different kind of school, the Columbia Climate School, uh, in that while we of course have our educational focus, and of course we have our faculty and researchers and students doing research in the maybe the more traditional sense, we also have this very deliberate focus on impact.

So a lot of our work, a lot of our students are connected to the real world in, in ways that require them to be able to talk to people who are maybe in different disciplines than they are, or to talk to the public as well.

So it is part of their sort of regular training to learn how to translate their work they're doing on the energy transition to how it impacts the electricity bill, or how flooding or extreme heat then is going to connect to rising insurance premiums.

And so that is part of how we train them, and the idea is we want to have as much impact as we can on the world in positive ways, and the, the best way I would argue to do that is to have students come through our university to help them be good communicators about climate change, and then there's that multiplier effect, 'cause they're at city council meetings, and they're talking to reporters, and that ability to connect to the person who doesn't really understand climate or energy or, right, but that ability then translates and then just gets multiplied even further.

[laughs]

Now, what are the top environmental concerns people have about AI data centers?

So the big concern is about electricity consumption and where that electricity is coming from.

We could choose as we build data centers to build them by powering them with solar and batteries.

The problem with that is that solar, the sun only shines during the day and you might not be able to have enough batteries around to store that clean energy to be used during the night.

And so many of these hyperscalers are turning to gas-powered power plants that therefore contribute to emissions.

The other area that people are concerned about is water, as was mentioned.

A single large data center can use millions of gallons of water a day.

Are there any environmental racism implications that officials should be considering here?

Now, what are the top environmental concerns people have about AI data centers?

The big concern is about electricity consumption and where that electricity is coming from.

We could choose as we build data centers to build them by powering them with solar and batteries.

The problem with that is that solar, the sun only shines during the day and you might not be able to have enough batteries around to store that clean energy to be used during the night.

And so many of these hyperscalers are turning to gas powered power plants that therefore contribute to emissions.

The other area that people are concerned about is water.

As was mentioned, a single large data center can use millions of gallons of water a day.

Are there any environmental racism implications that officials should be considering here?

Alexis, you've been working with experts in this field for a while, and c- any thoughts about how we both develop and deploy better technologies in this area in terms of water use?

Yeah.

I think Angela covered a lot of it.

I, I think, um, obviously every data center is different, uh, for a variety of different reasons based on how large it has to be, um, how f- you know, how, what kind of access to the grid an operator has, what kind of access to their own energy generation, hopefully renewable equipment they have, um, how often they can be, uh, do they have to run twenty-four/seven? Can they be off some of the time? All these questions kind of enter into how you design a data center and then also how you cool a data center.

And An-Angela mentioned siting, right? Siting that data center in a certain location that meets the needs is really critical.

Obviously, if water usage is part of that equation, then, uh, some of the recommendations are also to look at non-potable water usage, uh, that making sure that you're not competing with the public, um, water supply in that way.

And then also from the cooling perspective, there are kind of tweaks you can do to these liquid-based systems or these hybrid systems that make them more climate appropriate.

Alexis, you can wrap it up.

Ultimately though, when it comes to the environment, and in particularly climate change, how much of a difference would it make if everyone became more conscientious about unplugging devices that they don't use?

So with respect to climate change, every electron saved, um, is a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions usually that goes into the atmosphere and therefore that we have to worry about from a climate change perspective.

So if we can just avoid the use of the energy, then that is the best way possible in order to avoid the greenhouse gas emissions that fossil fuel power plants generate to provide electricity.

If everybody in the country could do just a little bit of something, uh, we would then be able to reduce that total energy consumption and thereby help mitigate the climate crisis.

And what are some basic steps that somebody can do right away to ensure that their fa- vampire devices in their homes are not sucking more energy than they need?

Probably the easiest thing that people can do is unplug devices when they're not in use.

This includes things like cell phone chargers.

Oftentimes, we leave those chargers plugged into the wall, and many of them can draw some electricity even when that phone isn't charging.