Science

Season three of Electric Futures, the USC energy transition podcast, takes listeners back to California’s Imperial Valley, a region explored throughout season one in connection with the county’s potential for lithium extraction. A lot has changed since then.  Plans for lithium extraction are stalled due to lawsuits and a new set of developers has come to town: hyperscalers. Host Charles Zukoski, the Robert E. Vivian Professor in Energy Resources and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering, has been tracking the news since last summer, when word began to circulate that one of the largest data centers in the country might tap into the region’s rich geothermal resources. Demand for data centers—the physical embodiment of AI —is growing so rapidly that their global electricity consumption will more than double by 2030. But pushback from communities is also growing. Concerned residents worry about rising electricity bills, environmental degradation, and AI itself. Does the benefit of data center development in places like Imperial Valley outweigh the costs?

The Story Collider, an award-winning podcast featuring true, personal stories about science, is launching a special series on urban climate change — exploring how the forces shaping our planet show up in the places most of us actually live: our cities.