Science

Explosion of power-hungry data centers could derail California clean energy goals

Published

5 months ago

August 12, 2024

Explosion of power-hungry data centers could derail California clean energy goals

Near the Salton Sea, a company plans to build a data center to support artificial intelligence that would cover land the size of 15 football fields and require power that could support 425,000 homes.

In Santa Clara — the heart of Silicon Valley — electric rates are rising as the municipal utility spends heavily on transmission lines and other infrastructure to accommodate the voracious power demand from more than 50 data centers, which now consume 60% of the city’s electricity.

And earlier this year, Pacific Gas & Electric told investors that its customers have proposed more than two dozen data centers, requiring 3.5 gigawatts of power — the output of three new nuclear reactors.

Vantage Data Center in Santa Clara is equipped with its own electrical substations.

(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)

While the benefits and risks of AI continue to be debated, one thing is clear: The technology is rapacious for power. Experts warn that the frenzy of data center construction could delay California’s transition away from fossil fuels and raise electric bills for everyone else. The data centers’ insatiable appetite for electricity, they say, also increases the risk of blackouts.

Even now, California is at the verge of not having enough power. An analysis of public data by the nonprofit GridClue ranks California 49th of the 50 states in resilience — or the ability to avoid blackouts by having more electricity available than homes and businesses need at peak hours.

“California is working itself into a precarious position,” said Thomas Popik, president of the Foundation for Resilient Societies, which created GridClue to educate the public on threats posed by increasing power use.

The state has already extended the lives of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant as well as some natural gas-fueled plants in an attempt to avoid blackouts on sweltering days when power use surges.

Worried that California could no longer predict its need for power because of fast-rising use, an association of locally run electricity providers called on state officials in May to immediately analyze how quickly demand was increasing.

The California Community Choice Assn. sent its letter to the state energy commission after officials had to revise their annual forecast of power demand upward because of skyrocketing use by Santa Clara’s dozens of data centers.

A large data center rises in an urban business district.

The facilities, giant warehouses of computer servers, have long been big power users. They support all that Americans do on the internet — from online shopping to streaming Netflix to watching influencers on TikTok.

But the specialized chips required for generative AI use far more electricity — and water — than those that support the typical internet search because they are designed to read through vast amounts of data.

A ChatGPT-powered search, according to the International Energy Agency, consumes 10 times the power as a search on Google without AI.

And because those new chips generate so much heat, more power and water is required to keep them cool.

“I’m just surprised that the state isn’t tracking this, with so much attention on power and water use here in California,” said Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside.

Ren and his colleagues calculated that the global use of AI could require as much fresh water in 2027 as that now used by four to six countries the size of Denmark.

Driving the data center construction is money. Today’s stock market rewards companies that say they are investing in AI. Electric utilities profit as power use rises. And local governments benefit from the property taxes paid by data centers.

Transmission lines are reflected on the side of a building.

Silicon Valley is the world’s epicenter of AI, with some of the biggest developers headquartered there, including Alphabet, Apple and Meta. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is based in San Francisco. Nvidia, the maker of chips needed for AI, operates from Santa Clara.

The big tech companies leading in AI, which also include Microsoft and Amazon, are spending billions to build new data centers around the world. They are also paying to rent space for their servers in so-called co-location data centers built by other companies.

In a Chicago suburb, a developer recently bought 55 homes so they could be razed to build a sprawling data center campus.

Energy officials in northern Virginia, which has more data centers than any other region in the world, have proposed a transmission line to shore up the grid that would depend on coal plants that had been expected to be shuttered.

In Oregon, Google and the city of The Dalles fought for 13 months to prevent the Oregonian from getting records of how much water the company’s data centers were consuming. The newspaper won the court case, learning the facilities drank up 29% of the city’s water.

By 2030, data centers could account for as much as 11% of U.S. power demand — up from 3% now, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.

“We must demand more efficient data centers or else their continued growth will place an unsustainable strain on energy resources, impact new home building, and increase both carbon emissions and California residents’ cost of electricity,” wrote Charles Giancarlo, chief executive of the Santa Clara IT firm Pure Storage.

Santa Clara a top market for data centers

Boys ride their bikes on Main Street near a large data center in Santa Clara.

California has more than 270 data centers, with the biggest concentration in Santa Clara. The city is an attractive location because its electric rates are 40% lower than those charged by PG&E.

But the lower rates come with a higher cost to the climate. The city’s utility, Silicon Valley Power, emits more greenhouse gas than the average California electric utility because 23% of its power for commercial customers comes from gas-fired plants. Another 35% is purchased on the open market where the electricity’s origin can’t be traced.

The utility also gives data centers and other big industrial customers a discount on electric rates.

While Santa Clara households pay more for each kilowatt hour beyond a certain threshold, the rate for data centers declines as they use more power.

The city receives millions of dollars of property taxes from the data centers. And 5% of the utility’s revenue goes to the city’s general fund, where it pays for services such as road maintenance and police.

An analysis last year by the Silicon Valley Voice newspaper questioned the lower rates data centers pay compared with residents.

“What impetus do Santa Clarans have to foot the bill for these environmentally unfriendly behemoth buildings?” wrote managing editor Erika Towne.

In October, Manuel Pineda, the utility’s top official, told the City Council that his team was working to double power delivery over the next 10 years. “We prioritize growth as a strategic opportunity,” he said.

He said usage by data centers was continuing to escalate, but the utility was nearing its power limit. He said 13 new data centers were under construction and 12 more were moving forward with plans.

“We cannot currently serve all data centers that would like to be in Santa Clara,” he said.

A data center rises many stories into the sky.

To accommodate increasing power use, the city is now spending heavily on transmission lines, substations and other infrastructure. At the same time, electric rates are rising. Rates had been increasing by 2% to 3% a year, but they jumped by 8% in January 2023, another 5% in July 2023 and 10% last January.

Pineda told The Times that it wasn’t just the new infrastructure that pushed rates up. The biggest factor, he said, was a spike in natural gas prices in 2022, which increased power costs.

He said residential customers pay higher rates because the distribution system to homes requires more poles, wires and transformers than the system serving data centers, which increases maintenance costs.

Pineda said the city’s decisions to approve new data centers “are generally based on land use factors, not on revenue generation.”

Loretta Lynch, former chair of the state’s public utilities commission, noted that big commercial customers such as data centers pay lower rates for electricity across the state. That means when transmission lines and other infrastructure must be built to handle the increasing power needs, residential customers pick up more of the bill.

“Why aren’t data centers paying their fair share for infrastructure? That’s my question,” she said.

PG&E eyes profits from boom

The grid’s limited capacity has not stopped PG&E from wooing companies that want to build data centers.

“I think we will definitely be one of the big ancillary winners of the demand growth for data centers,” Patricia Poppe, PG&E’s chief executive, told Wall Street analysts on an April conference call.

Poppe said she recently invited the company’s tech customers to an event at a San José substation.

“When I got there, I was pleasantly surprised to see AWS, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Equinix, Cisco, Western Digital Semiconductors, Tesla, all in attendance. These are our customers that we serve who want us to serve more,” she said on the call. “They were very clear: they would build … if we can provide.”

In June, PG&E revealed it had received 26 applications for new data centers, including three that need at least 500 megawatts of power, 24 hours a day. In all, the proposed data centers would use 3.5 gigawatts. That amount of power could support nearly 5 million homes, based on the average usage of a California household of 6,174 kilowatts a year.

In the June presentation, PG&E said the new data centers would require it to spend billions of dollars on new infrastructure.

Already PG&E can’t keep up with connecting customers to the grid. It has fallen so far behind on connecting new housing developments that last year legislators passed a law to try to shorten the delays. At that time, the company told Politico that the delays stemmed from rising electricity demand, including from data centers.

In a statement to The Times, PG&E said its system was “ready for data centers.”

The company said its analysis showed that adding the data centers would not increase bills for other customers.

Most of the year, excluding extreme hot weather, its grid “is only 45% utilized on average,” the company said.

“Data centers’ baseload will enable us to utilize more of this percentage and deliver more per customer dollar,” the company said. “For every 1,000 MW load from data centers we anticipate our customers could expect 1-2% saving on their monthly electricity bill.”

The company added that it was “developing tools to ensure that every customer can cost-effectively connect new loads to the system with minimal delay.”

Lynch questioned the company’s analysis that adding data centers could reduce bills for other customers. She pointed out that utilities earn profits by investing in new infrastructure. That’s because they get to recover that cost — plus an annual rate of return — through rates billed to all customers.

“The more they spend, the more they make,” she said.

In the desert, cheap land and green energy

The power and land constraints in Santa Clara and other cities have data center developers looking for new frontiers.

“On the edge of the Southern California desert in Imperial County sits an abundance of land,” begins the sales brochure for the data center that a company called CalEthos is building near the south shore of the Salton Sea.

Electricity for the data center’s servers would come from the geothermal and solar plants built near the site in an area that has become known as Lithium Valley.

The company is negotiating to purchase as much as 500 megawatts of power, the brochure said.

Water for the project would come from the state’s much fought over allotment from the Colorado River.

Imperial County is one of California’s poorest counties. More than 80% of its population are Latino. Many residents are farmworkers.

Executives from Tustin-based CalEthos told The Times that by using power from the nearby geothermal plants it would help the local community.

“By creating demand for local energy, CalEthos will help accelerate the development of Lithium Valley and its associated economic benefits,” Joel Stone, the company’s president, wrote in an email.

“We recognize the importance of responsible energy and water use in California,” Stone said. “Our data centers will be designed to be as efficient as possible.”

For example, Stone said that in order to minimize water use, CalEthos plans a cooling system where water is recirculated and “requires minimal replenishment due to evaporation.”

Already, a local community group, Comite Civico del Valle, has raised concerns about the environmental and health risks of one of the nearby geothermal plants that plans to produce lithium from the brine brought up in the energy production process.

One of the group’s concerns about the geothermal plant is that its water use will leave less to replenish the Salton Sea. The lake has been decreasing in size, creating a larger dry shoreline that is laden with bacteria and chemicals left from decades of agricultural runoff. Scientists have tied the high rate of childhood asthma in the area to dust from the shrinking lake’s shores.

James Blair, associate professor of geography and anthropology at Cal Poly Pomona, questioned whether the area was the right place for a mammoth data center.

“Data centers drain massive volumes of energy and water for chillers and cooling towers to prevent servers from overheating,” he said.

Blair said that while the company can tell customers its data center is supported by environmentally friendly solar and geothermal power, it will take that renewable energy away from the rest of California’s grid, making it harder for the state to meet its climate goals.

Science

Two Private Moon Landers Are Launching at Once: What to Know

Published

6 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Two Private Moon Landers Are Launching at Once: What to Know

A space twofer is scheduled to take place early Wednesday morning — two lunar missions for the price of one rocket launch.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 will lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying the Blue Ghost lander built by Firefly Aerospace of Austin, Texas, and the Resilience lander from Ispace of Japan.

When is the launch and how can I watch it?

The launch is scheduled for 1:11 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. Forecasts predict a 90 percent chance of favorable weather.

SpaceX will provide coverage of the launch on the social media platform X beginning about one hour before liftoff, or around 12:10 a.m. NASA will start a live video stream at 12:30 a.m. of Blue Ghost and the payloads it is carrying for the agency, which you can watch in the video player above. Ispace will provide coverage of its Resilience lander in English and Japanese starting at 12:20 a.m.

If needed, a backup launch time is available on Thursday at 1:09 a.m., although the weather is less favorable.

Why are two moon landers sharing one rocket?

That is the result of fortuitous scheduling by SpaceX and not something that was planned by Firefly or Ispace.

Firefly had purchased a Falcon 9 launch to send its Blue Ghost lander to the moon. At the same time, Ispace, to save on the costs for the mission, had asked SpaceX for a rideshare, that is, hitching a ride as a secondary payload on a rocket launch that was going roughly in the right direction to get its Resilience lander to the moon. That turned out to be Blue Ghost’s trip.

“It was a no-brainer to put them together,” Julianna Scheiman, the director for NASA science missions at SpaceX, said during a news conference on Tuesday.

After the Falcon 9 rocket reaches orbit, the second stage will fire again for a minute so that it can deploy Blue Ghost in an elliptical orbit around Earth about one hour after launch. Then the rocket stage will fire once more, for just one second, to adjust the orbit for the deployment of Resilience about 1.5 hours after launch.

What are Firefly and Blue Ghost?

Firefly Aerospace is one of the new space companies that have popped up over the past few years. It has developed and launched a small rocket called Alpha several times. In 2023 Firefly demonstrated that it could prepare and launch a payload for the United States Space Force within days — a capability that the Department of Defense is looking to develop so that it could quickly replace satellites that come under attack.

Blue Ghost — named after a species of fireflies — is a robotic lander that Firefly has developed to take scientific instruments and other payloads to the surface of the moon.

This mission is headed to Mare Crisium, a flat plain formed from lava that filled and hardened inside a 345-mile-wide crater carved out by an ancient asteroid impact. Mare Crisium is in the northeast quadrant of the near side of the moon.

NASA will pay Firefly $101.5 million if it takes 10 payloads to the lunar surface, and a bit less if it does not fully succeed. The NASA payloads include a drill to measure the flow of heat from the moon’s interior to the surface, an electrodynamic dust shield to clean off glass and radiator surfaces, and an X-ray camera.

The lander will operate for about 14 days — the length of a lunar day — until darkness descends at the landing site.

What are Ispace and Resilience?

This is Ispace’s second attempt to place a commercial lander on the surface of the moon. Its Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander tried to set down near the Atlas crater on the near side of the moon. But the landing software was confused when it passed over the crater rim, which is two miles higher than the surrounding terrain. The spacecraft ended up hovering far above the ground after thinking it had landed and then crashed when it ran out of propellant.

Resilience — also known as the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander — is essentially the same design as the Mission 1 spacecraft, but with different payloads. Ispace officials said they were confident that the mistakes that led to the crash in 2023 had been fixed.

The payloads on Resilience include a water electrolyzer experiment, which splits the hydrogen and oxygen molecules, from the Takasago Thermal Engineering Company in Japan, and a small rover named Tenacious that was developed and built by Ispace’s European subsidiary.

Although this is not a NASA mission, it will collect two soil samples — one scooped up by the rover, the other just soil that settles on the landing pads — and sell them to the agency for $5,000 each.

The transactions have no scientific value, because the samples will remain on the moon. Instead, they are meant to help strengthen the view of the United States government that while no nation on Earth can claim sovereignty of the moon or other parts of the solar system under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, nations and companies can own and profit from what they extract from the moon.

Resilience and Tenacious are also designed to operate for one lunar day, or 14 Earth days.

Which mission will arrive at the moon first?

Blue Ghost should get to the moon first on March 2. For the first 25 days, it is to circle around Earth as the company turns on and checks out the spacecraft’s systems, before heading on a four-day journey to the moon. Then it will orbit the moon for 16 days before trying to land, 45 days after launch.

Resilience will take a longer, winding path that consumes less energy and propellant, gradually stretching out its elliptical orbit until the farthest point of the orbit reaches beyond the moon. As a secondary payload on the Falcon 9, it will need to perform a flyby of the moon to get into the correct position to be captured into lunar orbit.

The vehicle is to land on a plain named Mare Frigoris about four to five months after launch.

Both Blue Ghost and Resilience might be beaten by a spacecraft from Intuitive Machines of Houston that is not scheduled to launch until late February. Despite its later start, it will take a direct, quicker path to the moon.

Intuitive Machines placed Odysseus, its first lander, on the moon in a trip sponsored by NASA last year. It was still successfully able to contact Earth despite tipping over.

Why are private companies landing on the moon?

By hiring private companies, NASA hopes to send more devices to the moon at a lower cost to perform experiments and test new technologies. A second aim of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or C.L.P.S., is to jump-start a commercial industry there that would not otherwise develop.

NASA officials expect failures along the way, and that is what has happened. The first C.L.P.S. mission by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh suffered a catastrophic propulsion failure soon after launch and never made it close to the moon. The tipping of the second Intuitive Machine lander during the second C.L.P.S. mission prevented the scientific instruments aboard from collecting the data they were sent to measure.

The American subsidiary of Ispace is collaborating with Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., for a C.L.P.S. mission that is scheduled to launch next year.

Science

What threats lurk in the smoke and ash of L.A.-area fires? New health warnings

Published

7 hours ago

January 14, 2025

Press Room

What threats lurk in the smoke and ash of L.A.-area fires? New health warnings

As Santa Ana wind conditions continue to stoke fears of resurgent wildfires across Los Angeles County, health officials are warning of yet another wind-borne threat: ash and dust from active fire zones and burn scars.

On Tuesday, the county Department of Public Health issued a windblown dust and ash advisory until 7 p.m. Wednesday.

During this time, ash may be dispersed from the Palisades and Eaton fire areas, as well as from the Hurst, Kenneth, Line, Airport and Bridge fire burn scars, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“Windblown ash particles may be too large to be detected by air quality instrumentation and will not influence Air Quality Index levels,” the advisory stated. “However, ash particles are typically visible to the naked eye either in the air or on outdoor surfaces.”

Experts say that wildfire smoke is unsafe for everyone and that all area residents should be worried about the potential health effects from this pollutant.

The cause for concern is, “the main component of smoke is particulate matter and that can penetrate deep into the lungs, which directly causes respiratory issues, but it can also enter the bloodstream where it can cause a range of other health issues,” said Anne Kelsey Lamb, director of Regional Asthma Management and Prevention.

Wildfire smoke can be extremely harmful to the lungs of at-risk people, who include children whose lungs are still developing, pregnant women, older adults, and those with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic heart disease or diabetes, according to the American Lung Assn.

Exposure to air pollution such as wildfire smoke can also lead to the onset of asthma in otherwise healthy people, Lamb said.

As wildfires have become more common researchers have been learning that wildfire smoke, depending on what it consists of, can be even more dangerous to public health than other types of air pollution.

Last year the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation published a study in the journal Science Advances that found an estimated total of more than 55,000 premature deaths in an 11-year span from inhaling fine particulate matter known as PM2.5, or soot, from wildfires.

Air pollutants from wildfires are dangerous to the immediate fire zone and surrounding communities, but the harm can reach out farther.

Lamb noted that during the 2018 Camp fire in Butte County, researchers found smoke with lead in it 150 miles away from the fire zone.

“Even people who aren’t in the immediate vicinity of the fire are likely still facing some of the impacts of the smoke from it,” she said. “I encourage everyone in the broader area to take the same precautions that we would recommend for someone who’s really right there in the midst of it.”

What’s possibly in the air? In the ash?

We know that wildfire smoke can include toxic materials such as lead, asbestos and arsenic, which can lead to additional health harms, Lamb said.

Part of the reason wildfire smoke from the Los Angeles-area fires is particularly concerning is because — in addition to PM2.5 — the smoke from this disaster can include harmful components that were part of houses, items inside the home, buildings and cars that burned.

Toxic chemicals from plastics, paint from the house and furniture are a few examples of what has been burned and is being released in the air, said Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis.

Researchers are still working to understand the relative toxicity of these specific chemical pollutants during a fire event.

“We’ve done some experiments, some early experiments in my lab showing that it’s more toxic, the building materials than burning wooded material,” Wexler said. “But again, we have just a little bit of data.”

In the face of uncertainty, he said, “people should protect themselves as much as they can.”

Local and regional public health officials are recommending that at-risk people stay indoors with the windows and doors closed — while keeping the indoor air clean.

“You have permission to be a couch potato, as long as you have electricity so you can watch the tube,” Wexler said.

The more you do outside the more you’re going to expose yourself to all the harmful air pollutants.

Wexler advises you whip out the protective gear that you had for the pandemic: air purifiers, N95 masks, gloves and protective eyewear in case you have to go outside.

If I have to be outside, what can I do to stay safe?

If people need to be outside, experts recommend wearing an N95 mask.

That’s because those are really the only masks that are going to filter out the damaging fine particles, Lamb said.

“The surgical masks allow too much air to get in, because it’s not the tight fit,” she said. “It doesn’t filter out as fine of particles as the N95 does.”

Researchers have looked into wearing cloth masks during wildfire smoke and found that it “led to more exposure because some of the smoke sort of settled in the material and then it was continuously breathed in,” Lamb said.

There are a lot of Los Angeles residents who are out in surrounding communities volunteering their time to local disaster relief efforts, providing essential services and working.

“We want people to volunteer and help out, because we need that,” Wexler said.

But there are further safety steps that men with beards should take, he said.

Bearded men need to shave or at least cut back facial hair as much as possible so that a protective mask makes a firm seal around the face, keeping pollutants out.

Experts also urge everyone to remove clothes worn while working outside, including shoes, before entering home. Put the clothes in the wash right away, because some of the particulate they carry can come inside the home and affect other people, Lamb said.

One thing to remember, Lamb said, is that the components of the pollutants, including ash, will settle on the ground and can be aerosolized again when disturbed as part of the cleanup efforts.

“There may be no way to avoid that happening, but to avoid exposure, make sure you’re wearing a mask, and I would even have on eyewear, gloves and change clothes,” she said.

I have pets. How can I protect them?

As irritating as smoke can be for people, it can cause health problems for your pets too.

Animals with cardiovascular or respiratory disease are especially at risk from smoke and should be closely watched during all periods of poor air quality, according to the American Veterinary Medical Assn.

Experts share the following information to keep your beloved animals safe during a poor or unhealthy air quality event:

Keep pets indoors as much as possible, and keep your windows shut.
Smoke is especially tough on your pet birds. Keep them inside when smoke is present.
Let dogs and cats outside only for brief bathroom breaks if air quality alerts are in effect.
Avoid intense outdoor exercise during periods of poor air quality. Exercise pets when dust and smoke have settled.

When can I stop wearing a mask and safely open my windows?

In regards to the current windblown advisory, experts advise you check for updates from local officials and follow their safety guidance.

How can I check the air quality in my area?

Even though windblown ash particles may be too large to be detected by air quality instrumentation and officials warn it will not influence Air Quality Index levels, you should still keep an eye on the air quality in your area.

When you are looking at the air quality reading, keep in mind the harmful particles that are not being recorded.

You can do so with the following tools:

AirNow, the website and the app, created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency includes information from its permanent air quality monitors as well as temporary air quality monitors that will be put in place in incidents like this. It has an updated “Fire and Smoke” map, or you can enter your ZIP Code and check the air in your community.
Purple Air is a company that helps monitor air quality by selling easy-to-install sensors with real-time data on various particulate matter levels. Purple Air has a free online map with real-time air quality data.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District issues advisories, guidance and warnings in regards to air quality impacts. It has a current hourly air quality index map and a dedicated webpage to news releases of such advisories.

All resources will provide a number for the air quality index. If it’s greater than 100, that is considered unhealthy for sensitive and at-risk groups. If it’s greater than 150, it is considered unhealthy for all people.

Where can I find free N95 masks in Los Angeles County?

Here is a list of locations where you can pick up free N95 masks.

This list will be updated as more organizations, local agencies and others post their offerings.

L.A. Care Health community resource centers. There is an extended list of locations and contact information online.
All Los Angeles Public Library branches. The branches will be offering free masks while supplies last. Check online for branch address and hours; it’s encouraged you call ahead to check on supply inventory.
Los Angeles city recreation and senior centers, aquatic facilities, golf courses, museums, and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium will all be providing free masks. A complete list of locations and contact information is online.

Science

Moderate Drinking Raises Cancer Risks While Offering Few Benefits

Published

14 hours ago

January 14, 2025

Press Room

Moderate Drinking Raises Cancer Risks While Offering Few Benefits

Among both men and women, drinking just one alcoholic beverage a day increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, oral cancer and various types of injuries, according to a federal analysis of alcohol’s health effects issued on Tuesday.

Women face a higher risk of developing liver cancer at this level of drinking, but a lower risk of diabetes. And while one alcoholic drink daily also reduces the likelihood of strokes caused by blood clots among both men and women, the report found, even occasional heavy drinking negates the benefits.

The report, prepared by an outside scientific review panel under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services, is one of two competing assessments that will be used to shape the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which are to be updated this year.

The government has for several decades recommended a limit of two standard alcoholic drinks per day for men and one for women.

In December, a review of the data by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine supported this advice, finding that moderate drinking was linked to fewer heart attack and stroke deaths, and fewer deaths overall, compared with no drinking.

But some experts fear that the harms of moderate drinking have been understated, particularly the risk of cancer, which is the leading cause of death among people under 85, according to the American Cancer Society.

In 2020, the last time the dietary guidelines came up for review, scientific advisers suggested lowering the recommendation to one drink daily for both men and women. That advice did not appear in the final guidelines.

The analysis from the National Academies tied moderate drinking in women to a small but significant increase in breast cancer, but said there was insufficient evidence to tie alcohol to other cancers.

This month, however, the U.S. Surgeon General, citing mounting scientific evidence, called for labeling alcohol with cancer warnings similar to those that appear on cigarettes. The report issued on Tuesday found that the increased cancer risk comes with any amount of alcohol consumption and rises with higher levels of drinking.

Drinking is linked to a higher risk of death for seven types of cancer, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer as well as cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx and esophagus.

Men and women are both vulnerable to these health harms, but women are much more likely to develop a cancer linked to drinking, the report said.

“Among the U.S. population, the risk of dying from alcohol use begins at low levels of average use,” the report said. “Higher levels of alcohol consumption are linked with progressively higher mortality risk.”

Those who consume more than seven drinks per week have a one in 1,000 risk of dying from a condition related to alcohol. The risk increases to one in 100 if consumption is more than nine drinks a week.

This article will be updated.