Activists demand accountability over Meta’s proposed Louisiana mega data center

Environmental activists have demanded that Meta provide more information about its proposed mega data center in Louisiana.

A notice published by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on 5 March says that Earthjustice has filed a motion asking Louisiana utility regulators to require Meta and its data center developer, Laidley LLC, to share critical information on the project with stakeholders.

The motion is also asking the regulators to dismiss a utility company’s application to power the data center with three new gas-fired power plants if such information is not provided.

Seeking transparency

Louisiana’s largest utility, Entergy, submitted an application to the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) to build three gas plants to power Meta’s largest proposed data center to date.

The motion filed on behalf of the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) claims that Meta and Laidley were not previously required to be parties to the gas plant application.

According to the activists, this has obscured essential information the commission needs to determine how the project will be for public good.

It therefore seeks to bring transparency to the multibillion-dollar project by requiring both Meta and Laidley to provide details such as anticipated energy demands from the data center, justification for the expedited timeline, and how many local jobs it will create, to the PSC.

The complainants are also demanding that  the application be dismissed if Meta and Laidley are not made parties to the application.

Meta announced plans to build a 4 million square foot, 2 gigawatt data center in Louisiana last year worth $10 billion for the training of its AI models, which led to this motion.

Against all odds

Commenting, Paul Arbaje, an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists said:

“Meta and its subsidiary are trying to hide behind Entergy so they can expedite their proposal to use costly and polluting energy sources to power a massive new data center. Louisianans deserve more transparency from Meta to better understand what’s truly at stake for their communities in terms of grid reliability, health impacts and ratepayer costs.”

The administrative law judge had deferred ruling on the merits of a previous motion filed by the parties seeking to deny Entergy’s request for an exemption from the state’s request for proposals process.