"Forever Chemicals" - PFAS Gas - Routinely Used At Data/AI Centers. No Testing Or Use Data Required
Datacenters’ electricity demands have been accused of delaying the US’s transition to clean energy and requiring fossil fuel plants to stay online, while their high level of water consumption has also raised alarm. Now public health advocates fear another environmental problem could be linked to them – Pfas “forever chemical” pollution.
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Advocates’ concern increased in mid-September when the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would fast-track review of new Pfas and other chemicals used by datacenters. The datacenter industry has said the Pfas it uses causes minimal pollution, but advocates disagree. “We know there are Pfas in these centers and all of that has to go somewhere,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the Earthjustice non-profit, which is monitoring Pfas use in datacenters. “This issue has been dangerously understudied as we have been building out datacenters, and there’s not adequate information on what the long term impacts will be.”
Pfas are a class of about 16,000 chemicals most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. The compounds have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down in the environment.
Environmental advocates say the datacenters increase Pfas pollution directly and indirectly. The chemicals are needed in the centers’ operations – such as its cooling equipment – which almost certainly leads to some on-site pollution. Meanwhile, Pfas used in the equipment housed in the centers must be disposed of, which is difficult because the chemicals cannot be fully destroyed. Meanwhile, a large quantity of Pfas are used to produce the semiconductors housed in datacenters, which will increase pollution around supporting manufacturing plants.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/04/pfas-pollution-data-centers-ai