Data centers will likely make Texas’s air less breathable by reversing two decades of progress on curbing air pollution, according to a report released this week by the Houston Advanced Research Center.
The Woodlands-based sustainability nonprofit predicted a range of data center-related pollution outcomes, depending largely on how many are eventually built and what power sources they use.
Most of the outcomes are bad for Texans, said Carlos Gamarra, a vice president for HARC and one of the report’s authors. The new data centers would roll back years of reductions in air contaminants linked to increased rates of asthma, heart attacks and cancer…