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1. Konstantin F. Pilz, Yusuf Mahmood, and Lennart Heim, "AI’s Power Requirements Under Exponential Growth: Extrapolating AI Data Center Power Demand and Assessing Its Potential Impact on U.S. Competitiveness," RAND Corporation, 2025, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572-1.html.

2. Md Abu Bakar Siddik, Arman Shehabi, and Landon Marston, "The Environmental Footprint of Data Centers in the United States," Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 6, June 1, 2021: 064017, accessed April 20, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1.

3. Yuelin Han, Zhifeng Wu, Pengfei Li, Adam Wierman, Shaolei Ren, "The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI," arXiv, December 9, 2024, accessed April 25, 2025, https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06288.

Artificial Intelligence

1. Stryker, Cole, and Eda Kalvakoglu. “What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” IBM, April 16, 2025, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/artificial-intelligence.

2. “Introducing ChatGPT | OpenAI.” OpenAI, November 30, 2022, accessed April 20, 2025, https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/.

3. “James O’Donnell and Casey Crownhart, “We Did the Math on AI’s Energy Footprint. Here’s the Story You Haven’t Heard.,” MIT Technology Review, accessed May 20, 2025, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/.

4. “What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? | Google Cloud.” Google, accessed April 20, 2025, https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-is-artificial-intelligence.

The Lifecycle of AI

1. “Green House Gas Protocol,” ClimatePartner, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.climatepartner.com/en/knowledge/glossary/ghg-protocol.

2. “AI's Challenging Waters,” The Grainger College of Engineering Civil & Environmental Engineering, accessed May 28, 2025, https://cee.illinois.edu/news/AIs-Challenging-Waters.

3. Kate Crawford, "Earth. In The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence," 23–51, Yale University Press, 2021, accessed April 20, 2025, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1ghv45t.4.

4. Meijer, G. I, "Cooling Energy-Hungry Data Centers", Science 328, no. 5976 (2010): 318-319, accessed April 20, 2025, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40544557.

5. David Patterson, Joseph Gonzalez, Urs Hölzle, Quoc Le, Chen Liang, LLuid Miquel-Munguia, Daniel Rothchild, David R. So, Maud Texier, Jeff Dean, "The Carbon Footprint of Machine Learning Training Will Plateau, Then Shrink." Computer 55, no. 7 (2022): 18-28, accessed April 20, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3148714.

6. Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, and Shaolei Ren, “Making AI Less "Thirsty": Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models,” arXiv, 2023, accessed April 20, 2025, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271.

The Expansion of Generative AI

1. "GPT-4 | OpenAI." OpenAI, March 14, 2023, accessed April 23, 2025, https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-research/.

2. Sundar Pichai, Demis Hassabis, and Koray Kavukcuoglu, “Introducing Gemini 2.0: our new AI model for the agentic era.” Google DeepMind, Dec 11, 2024, accessed April 23, 2025, https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/google-gemini-ai-update-december-2024/.

Data Centers

1. George Spafford, "Greening the Data Center: A Pocket Guide," IT Governance Publishing, 2009, accessed April 20, 2025, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5hh5qx.

Data Center's Water and Energy Usage

1. Arman Shehabi et al., "United States Data Center Energy Usage Report"Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, December 2024, accessed May 28, 2025, https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/us_data_center_energy_usage_report_lbnl-2001637_0.pdf#page=5.09.

2. Union of Concerned Scientists, "Entergy’s Plan for Fossil Fuel-Powered Data Center a Bad Deal for Louisianans, Expert Testimony Says," UCS, 2025, accessed May 28, 2025, https://www.ucs.org/about/news/entergy-gas-plant-data-center-proposal-bad-louisianans.

3. Pilz et al. "AI's Power Requirements Under Exponential Growth Extrapolating AI Data Center Power Demand and Assessing Its Potential Impact on U.S. Competitiveness" RAND, Jan 28, 2025, accessed May 28, 2025, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572-1.html.

4. Nicoletti et al., "AI is Draining Water from Areas That Need it Most"Blomberg Technology, May 08, 2025, accessed May 28, 2025, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/?embedded-checkout=true.

5. Shelly Zargari, "How Much Electricty Does an Electric Car Use?" GenCell, November 12, 2023, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.gencellenergy.com/resources/blog/ev-charging-power-car-electricity-usage/.

6. Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, and Shaolei Ren, “Making AI Less "Thirsty": Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models,” arXiv, 2023, accessed April 20, 2025, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271.

7. Michael Copley, "Data Centers, Backbone of the Digital Economy, Face Water Scarcity and Climate Risk," NPR, August 30, 2022, sec. Climate, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119938708/data-centers-backbone-of-the-digital-economy-face-water-scarcity-and-climate-ris.

How Policy can Help

1. Sophia Falk, Aimee van Wynsberghe, Lisa Biber-Freudenberger, “The attribution problem of a seemingly intangible industry,” Environmental Challenges, no.16, August 24, 2024, accessed April 25, 2025, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667010024001690?via%3Dihub.

2. Srija Chakraborty, “Towards a Comprehensive Assessment of AI’s Environmental Impact,” arXiv, May 22, 2024, accessed April 25, 2025, https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14004.

3. Akshaya Jagannadharao, Nicole Beckage, Dawn Nafus & Scott Chamberlin, “Timeshifting strategies for carbon-efficient long-running large language model training,” Innovations Syst Softw Eng, December 19, 2023, accessed April 25, 2025, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11334-023-00546-x.

4. Data Center Watch, “$64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition,” Data Center Watch, 2025, accessed May 29, 2025, https://www.datacenterwatch.org/report.

Current Policies in the United States

1. CT. Legis. Assemb. S.B. No. 299. 2024 Session Year. (Connecticut 2024).

2. 132nd Maine Legislature. An Act to Limit the Amount of Electricity That May Be Provided to Data Centers on a Certain Commercial or Industrial Site. 2025 Regular Session. (Maine 2025).

3. 82nd OR. Legis. Assemb. H.B. 2816. 2023 Regular Session. (Oregon 2023).

4. Arizona Commerce Authority. Computer data center rules and guidelines. 2021.

5. "Data center investment tax exemptions and credits—Incentives," Ilinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, accessed March 3, 2025, https://dceo.illinois.gov/expandrelocate/incentives/datacenters.html.

6. Ducey, L. R., Sydney Brownstone, Karen, "Washington is giving tax breaks to data centers that threaten the state’s green energy push," ProPublica, ProPublica Inc., July 28, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.propublica.org/article/data-centers-clean-energy-washington-state.

7. GA. Legis. Assemb. H.B. 1192. 2023-2024 Regular Session. (Georgia 2024).

8. Idaho Information Technology Equipment, § 63-3622VV (2020), accessed April 20, 2025, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title63/t63ch36/sect63-3622vv.

9. Julie Bolthouse, "Joint legislative audit and review commission authorizes data center study", Piedmont Environmental Council, December 12, 2023, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.pecva.org/work/energy-work/joint-legislative-audit-and-review-commission-authorizes-data-center-study.

10. TX. Legis. Assemb. H.B. 1223. 2013 Session Year. (Texas 2013).

11. Wyoming Legislature. H.B. 0088. (Wyoming 2021), accessed April 20, 2025, https://wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2021/HB0088.

12. 136th OH. Legis. Assemb. H.B. 15. 2021 Session Year (Ohio 2025).

13. EPSA, “Ohio’s HB 15/SB2: A Model for Meeting Data Center Energy Needs Through Competition,” Electric Power Supply Association, February 12, 2025, accessed April 20, 2025, https://epsa.org/ohios-hb-15-sb2-a-model-for-meeting-data-center-energy-needs-through-competition/.

14. 55th NM. Legis. Assemb. S.B. 26. 2021 Session Year (New Mexico 2021).

15. Fla. Admin. Code. Rule 12A-1.108. (2022).

16. California. Senate Bill No. 253, Chapter 382: Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act. Approved October 7, 2023. Filed with Secretary of State October 7, 2023. Codified at California Health and Safety Code § 38532 (2023).

17. South Carolina Department of Revenue, "SC Revenue Ruling #13-5: Datacenter Computers, Computer Equipment, Computer Hardware and Software, and Electricity (Sales and Use Taxes)", June 7, 2012, accessed April 20, 2025, https://dor.sc.gov/resources-site/lawandpolicy/Advisory%20Opinions/RR13-5.pdf.

18. Kevin Hardy, “States Rethink Data Centers as ‘Electricity Hogs’ Strain the Grid,” Colorado Newsline, May 2, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/05/02/data-centers-electricity-strain-the-grid/.

19. Colorado General Assembly, “Sales & Use Tax Rebate for Digital Asset Purchases,” Colorado General Assembly, January 24, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-085.

AI Emission Calculator

1. Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, and Shaolei Ren, “Making AI Less "Thirsty": Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models,” arXiv, April 6, 2023, accessed April 20, 2025, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271.

2. Pranshu Verma and Shelly Tan, “the hidden environmental cost of using AI chatbots,” Washington Post, September 18, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://css.washingtonpost.com/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/.

3. Shaolei Ren, “AI consumes a lot of water -- but why?” TED, October, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.ted.com/talks/shaolei_ren_ai_consumes_a_lot_of_water_but_why.

Math Behind the Calculator

1. “Parameters in notable artifical intelligence systems,” Our World In Data, March 12, 2025, accessed April 20, 2025, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/artificial-intelligence-parameter-count.

2. “Environmental Report,” Google, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/sustainability/google-2024-environmental-report.pdf.

3. “2024 Environmental Sustainability Report,” Microsoft, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/msc/documents/presentations/CSR/Microsoft-2024-Environmental-Sustainability-Report.pdf.

4. “2024 Sustainability Report,” Meta, 2024, accessed April 20, 2025, https://sustainability.atmeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Meta-2024-Sustainability-Report.pdf.