US environmental groups urge EPA to reject new Pfas to cool datacenters

The Chemours Company's PPA facility at the Fayetteville Works plant near Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 2018. Photograph: Gerry Broome/AP View image in fullscreen The Chemours Company's PPA facility at the Fayetteville Works plant near Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 2018. Photograph: Gerry Broome/AP US environmental groups urge EPA to reject new Pfas to cool datacenters Coalition says Chemours downplayed health and climate risks in bid to fast-track the compound’s use A coalition of 17 environmental groups is demanding the Environmental Protection Agency reject a new Pfas that chemical giant Chemours is attempting to fast track for approval for use in cooling datacenters, and would almost certainly pollute regions around the facilities. In formal comments submitted to the agency, the groups accuse Chemours of using bad science to downplay the chemical’s toxicity and climate risks. Approving Chemours’ application as it is would violate the law, the Earthjustice legal non-profit, a lead author of the comments, wrote. Big tech has faced fierce opposition from across the political spectrum in communities where it plans to build datacenters, in part because some types of the facilities require huge quantities of water to cool. Datacenter developers, like Google, have touted its two phase cooling systems as an alternative that uses far less water, but few know that those typically use Pfas “forever chemical” gas instead of water. The new chemical, Opteon 2P50, is likely more toxic and more of a risk to the climate than Chemours claims in its application, public advocates warn. Opteon 2P50 is also the first chemical for which industry has asked the Trump EPA to fast-track approval under the president’s legally dubious executive order that calls for expedited review of datacenter chemicals. “The datacenter industry knows it is under fire for its enormous use of water so they cast themselves as the good guys by using alternative cooling, but they’re not telling [the public] that they’re using hazardous chemicals,” said Lenny Siegel, director of the Chips Communities United non-profit that works to rein in Pfas waste. “Some are toxic, some are greenhouse gases and some are both.” Pfas are a class of about 16,000 compounds dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in the human body and environment. The chemicals are linked to a range of serious health problems such as cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, high cholesterol, birth defects and decreased immunity. “Two phase” datacenter systems use Pfas gas, or f-gas, as a refrigerant coolant that is run through copper tubing. Chemours in a statement said the comment fails to acknowledge that the two-phase systems are a “closed loop”, meaning there are no emissions from a stack, and the amount of gas that escapes is low. F-gas is not intentionally released during use, though there are leaks, called “fugitive emissions” and it must be disposed of at the end of its li