There was plenty of opposition to data centers in general at a Tuesday public hearing over the costs to power the facilities. Speaking to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, IT professional Ben Humbert says the state already can’t handle its own energy needs. “What freaks me out is that we already import as a state 30… somewhere between 32 and 37 percent of our energy is imported from coal from Utah I believe.”
State senator Chris Larson, a Milwaukee Democrat, says there isn’t enough capacity on the state’s power grid. “The scale of the proposed development is unprecedented just two of the announced data centers would require more electricity than all current residential customers in Wisconsin combined.”
UW-Madison professor Johnathon Patz says the new natural gas power plants needed to power data centers will worsen the health of Wisconsinites. “Air pollution emissions from Foundry Ridge and Red Oak Ridge would lead to elevated fine particulate matter exposure across the Upper Midwest and Eastern United States”
We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service are asking for the changes. Several massive data centers are already under construction, and Wisconsin would have to drastically increase its power generation to keep up.
Hear Senator Larson’s full testimony here: