Local communities face environmental costs
Thousands of demonstrators assembled at the top of the Royal Mile and marched toward the Scottish Parliament to protest the construction of large-scale AI data centres. Protesters carried slogans such as "AI data centres threaten humanity" and "AI data centres: costing the Earth" to voice opposition to developments in communities like Cockenzie, Larbert, and Chapelcross. Kim Cairns, a campaigner for ‘Say No To Chapelcross AI Data Centre’, said the project would be a "monstrosity on the environment" that would cause air pollution and light pollution. She noted that current green fields containing sheep and cows would face construction noise, road closures, electricity, and access problems. Kim Cairns stated that the project "is not going to enrich anybody’s lives" and expressed concern regarding the sheer size of the facility. The planned Chapelcross site in Dumfries and Galloway has a capacity of 1,000MW, which far exceeds the 12MW capacity of the DataVita site in Airdrie. This massive jump in scale makes the Chapelcross project one of the largest data centres in the world.
Government planning and energy concerns
The Scottish government will publish new planning guidance on data centres before the end of the year and is developing a strategy to maximize "public benefit". A new planning direction requires authorities to notify ministers of new applications and mandates an Environmental Impact Assessment for any new data centre with a power capacity exceeding 50 megawatts. Innovation Minister Alyn Smith called data centres "the whisky bonds of the AI sector" but described some discourse as "wild" and argued that comparing Scottish plans to a bad data centre in the middle of the Utah desert does not track through. Kim Pratt, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth, stated that these energy hungry developments will cause a massive increase in energy bills and national-level climate impacts for the people of Scotland. She warned that big tech companies will make a lot of profit while Scotland faces the environmental consequences. The Scottish Greens and various campaign groups have called for a moratorium on large data centres because they could undermine climate targets and place additional pressure on renewable energy supplies. Kim Pratt noted that the Scottish government is only taking a few months to consider these impacts.
