Enviro groups say Microsoft's data center could be a threat to clean air and green energy goals.
In an open letter to Microsoft on Thursday, the groups, including Sierra Club Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, and Action for the Climate Emergency, called on the company to power its planned data center with local clean energy.
"Right now, We Energies is planning to meet energy demand for the Microsoft data center by spending billions of dollars to build new methane gas power plants and pipelines. It's a massive buildout that will push our state's climate goals out of reach, locking us into 30 more years of fossil fuels at a time when we all know we must rapidly transition to clean energy," the letter notes.
"It will also harm the same communities who have been suffering with coal plant air pollution and dangerous ozone for decades," according to the letter.
The data center is one of the largest facilities of its kind now under construction in the United States. Each center is a collection of thousands of computers connected to the outside world by fiber-optic cables crisscrossing the country and the globe.
Microsoft has said it expects about 300 people to be working at the Mount Pleasant site by 2026 — a mix of contractors and permanent staff. The company has said the number of jobs could ultimately grow to about 2,000. Permanent jobs at data centers include a variety of roles from security guards to technicians and engineers.
The environmental groups say that while they appreciate the jobs, too much will be left on the table unless Microsoft prioritizes clean, homegrown energy.
The company's recently announced plan to help fund a currently unspecified 250-megawatt solar energy project in Wisconsin is a good start but would only represent a fraction of the data center's energy needs, according to the groups.
"There must be more. Other plans to buy out-of-state carbon credits to offset energy use in Wisconsin may technically meet your company's climate goals, but they do nothing to support the badly needed transformation to clean energy here in your new home," their letter says.
"This data center project represents a critical opportunity to help drive change in Wisconsin and put us on a path to clean wind and solar...the window to make meaningful progress in the fight against climate change is closing, and the decisions we make right now matter," it says.
In a statement to the Journal Sentinel regarding the environmental groups' letter, Microsoft said, "As Microsoft works to expand our cloud and AI infrastructure in Wisconsin, we look forward to working with community leaders and stakeholders on achieving our collective sustainability targets. We welcome the opportunity for dialogue on what we appreciate is a critical local need."
There also are deep concerns about water demands tied to the Microsoft project.
When there are thousands of servers packed into a warehouse-like building, it's important to keep equipment cool so that it continues to work. For some data centers, that means industrial-sized fans or air-cooling technology. Other data centers use evaporating water to cool the interior of the warehouse, much like a giant swamp cooler. The Mount Pleasant data center will use both air- and water-based cooling systems, although Microsoft has declined to provide details about the design of the system.
The plan has stirred new tension between Mount Pleasant and the City of Racine, which originally collaborated to assemble more than 1,000 acres of land into the Foxconn industrial park and build crucial water and sewer systems
Lindsay Muscato, a 2023-24 fellow with the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at Marquette University contributed to this report.
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