AI fueled by burning trees is a predictably terrible idea.
See PFPI’s Project River analysis here.
“Project River” in Charleston, TN proposes a 500 megawatt (MW) biomass plant and a 1,000 MW gas plant to power a massive data center – the second data center proposed for a community that is located in one of the most polluted watersheds in the country.
The combined 1,500 MW represents an astonishing amount of electrical capacity that, if built, would emit huge amounts of air pollution and CO2 and consume massive amounts of resources.
Leveraging our years of work covering the biomass industry internationally, PFPI has produced an analysis of key claims by the Project River developers about the biomass proposal, which we find significantly underestimate the facility’s impacts. We show that if the plant were built, some of the main impacts would include:
- At least 6.7 million tons of trees consumed every year, more than what the developers claim.
- The equivalent of 51,000–77,000 acres of forest clear cut just for fuel every year, an area 2.5 to 3.8 times the size of the nearby city of Cleveland. More acres would be affected if biomass represents less than 100% of the total harvest.
- Pine logging within 100 miles could more than triple, adding more pressure to pine forests on top of what existing mills already cut.
- More than 1,000 loaded log trucks could arrive every weekday. Parked bumper to bumper, that’s a line 14 miles long, roughly from the site to downtown Cleveland, every day. This number could be lower if some wood arrived by barge.
- 6.1 million tons of CO2 emitted per year just from burning wood.
- Thousands of tons of air pollution, including air toxics and heavy metals, emitted in a watershed that is already among the most polluted in the United States.
- Potential for sound pollution, the stench of fermenting woodpiles, and industrial fires
See PFPI’s Project River analysis here.
