Environment & Energy

OREGON TECH
One of Oregon’s smallest utilities is suddenly among the state’s biggest polluters. Why? Amazon data centers

Updated: Feb. 18, 2024, 10:08 p.m.|Published: Feb. 17, 2024, 6:02 a.m.


Amazon has 10 data centers in Morrow and Umatilla counties and is planning 10 more. They're mostly powered by fossil fuels and transmission constrains mean it could take years to shift the data centers to renewable energy. Dave Killen / The Oregonian

By Mike Rogoway | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The rolling hills along the Columbia River in northeastern Oregon boast golden fields and farms, quiet valleys and rippling creeks — and very few people. ... Yet the region also bears an enormous, and growing, carbon footprint. ... The rural area’s power utility became one of the state’s big polluters beginning in 2018. By 2020 its carbon emissions had doubled. In 2021, it doubled again. ... The Umatilla Electric Cooperative is responsible for 1.8 million tons of carbon emissions annually, according to newly released state data, even though it has just 16,000 customers. It’s now the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases among all Oregon utilities because of one of those customers: Amazon.

The soaring greenhouse gases are a byproduct of Oregon tax policy and represent a profound setback for the state’s energy aspirations. Amazon has capitalized on hundreds of millions of dollars in local tax breaks to subsidize a constellation of enormous, power-hungry data centers around the cities of Boardman and Hermiston, areas where the regional power grid has little access to renewable energy. ... Data centers’ power demands have upended Oregon’s fight against global warming, exposing the limitations of the state’s electrical grid and the state’s hope to move toward clean power.

Oregon is many years away from meaningfully expanding its transmission capacity, and with Amazon planning at least 10 more data centers in the region, eastern Oregon’s carbon footprint is poised to continue soaring. ... “It is really concerning and emblematic of the broader issue that we’re seeing in terms of Oregon’s ability to achieve its climate goals,” said Nora Apter, climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council. She said Oregon regulators and lawmakers haven’t created policies and incentives that encourage economic growth powered by renewable energy.

Both Amazon and Umatilla Electric say they’re committed to fighting climate change and to finding clean energy to power the data centers. Just this month, Amazon announced a deal to start buying renewable power from a wind farm in neighboring Gilliam County. ... While that purchase will meet as little as 4% of Amazon’s existing electricity needs, climate advocates say the data centers might ultimately become powerful forces in the drive to upgrade Oregon’s transmission networks for renewable energy.

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