More than 100 rally against data centers at Michigan Capitol

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2025/12/16/lansing-state-capitol-data-centers-rally-michigan/87792001007/

by rmason • 7 months ago

81 92 7 months ago

lansingstatejournal.com

rmason2• 7 months ago

If I could give any advice to the people planning those data centers, they've got it all wrong. They assume that since they're noisy that we will plop them smack in the middle of some good farm land, surround them with corn fields and it solves the noise problem.

In Michigan cities there is plenty of vacant land. Thousands of acres of vacant land. Here in Lansing the old GM owns two large plots where factories stood stamping out Oldsmobile's. There is all the power you would ever need. They're surrounded by other factories making possibly more noise than even a data centers fans. A small business community that has been decimated by the GM employees business in the neighborhood leaving.

So where do they ask to put a small data center? Right in the city's entertainment district! Makes less sense than putting it on farmland. Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.

itake• 7 months ago

Can someone correct me if I am wrong?

The noise problem is caused by fans (air cooling). Data centers cooled by water do not have noisy fans. My understand is modern data center designs use close loop water systems, eliminating noise and water table issues.

xnx• 7 months ago

Closed loop water requires air fans.

rmason2• 7 months ago

You are correct the one that I referenced in Lansing's entertainment district is water cooled. They do not point out in newspaper accounts one of the reasons for its location there is they're supplying the heated water to the towns steam district. That heated water could possibly migrate chances of a electricity rate increase.

But as several data center engineers I have spoken to agreed with me that if it was put on one of the many empty parking lots West of the Capitol it would be surrounded by mostly empty government buildings where a majority of state workers are working from home. They would still be able to access the steam district.

zamadatix2• 7 months ago

If it's true closed loop (i.e. no water evaporation to cool the loop) then how are they cooling the radiators without fans?

Honestly, if there is a place it would have made sense to do evaporative cooling it was probably Michigan anyways... but I hope the closed loop option ends up working out just as well.

quickthrowman2• 7 months ago

Most data centers use evaporative cooling towers, actually. Adding them into a cooling loop almost doubles the efficiency, it’s a no-brainer.

Narkov• 7 months ago

Nothing in the article talks about noise pollution. Their concern is about resource usage - water and electricity.

vondur• 7 months ago

Is water an issue in Michigan? I thought they have plenty of water.

cebert• 7 months ago

As a Michigan resident, I can’t agree more. Also areas like Flint and Pontiac are in need of jobs and economic development.

SoftTalker• 7 months ago

Data centers create some construction jobs while they are being built but not much after that. A few people to keep an eye on things, swap out failed equipment, accept deliveries.

futuraperdita2• 7 months ago

These things don't really supply "jobs" in any sort of way that is noticeable to the surrounding community. A couple hundred people. The idea that DCs produce jobs is basically a false hope given these communities.

yellow_lead• 7 months ago

Only the xAI ones are noisy because they (illegally?) used mobile generators to meet electricity needs

eru• 7 months ago

Are you suggesting the people who plan data centres are stupid and/or not profit maximising?

danans3• 7 months ago

Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.

There will be few jobs created after construction is complete, and the ones created won't pay anything like typical tech comp.

esseph• 7 months ago

Maybe you should calibrate your definition of what "typical tech comp" means and what roles that applies to, and at what companies.

Median US Salary for a Data Center Technician is around 80k.

Median US Salary is $63,360.

Median household income is around $75,763 (Detroit CSA #s).

There's a lot of people out of work right now.

vjvjvjvjghv2• 7 months ago

Most people will be very happy with a fraction of the typical tech comp if they have a job.

PunchyHamster2• 7 months ago

I'd imagine it's because dragging the fiber to middle of nowhere can be pretty expensive

namibj2• 7 months ago

Worry about the leg-thick power cable not the pinky-thin fiber. The cost of the fiber itself basically doesn't matter relative to a data center itself.

ekropotin• 7 months ago

Genuine question - are DCs really that noisy from outside? If so what is the source of the noise?

VTimofeenko• 7 months ago

Anecdata, but I was once on a tour of a colocation DC. Located in Vegas, near the old town in a basement of some office building. Completely unassuming from the outside. Inside it was a little loud, but not terribly so. Busy street level noise maybe.

WalterBright• 7 months ago

Cooling system.

al_borland8• 7 months ago

I worked in a small DC (I think it had about 10k servers at its peak). The only time there was noise outside was if the generators were running due to an extended power outage or maintenance. We had a few trailer generators that were added on as capacity increased. Where I worked was right on the other side of the wall to one of the computer rooms and I don’t recall hearing anything. It only got loud when the door was physically opened to walk in the room, that noise was mostly from fans.

I also toured one of our larger data centers, and even inside the small cube farm area it felt like a normal office. The noise only picked up once inside the room with the servers.

Noise during construction would probably be worse than noise during operation.

100pctremote• 7 months ago

The real estate is usually purchased only after the following requirements are assured, and there are many: Local and regional power grid robustness which includes: ability to service long-term capacity commitments, whether the developer will need to invest in and build substations themselves, and the legality and availability for on-site power generation (natural gas or electric). All of those requirements generally come after an assessment of local and state government appetite and willingness to cut red tape for such deals and provide favorable environmental policy.

lovich• 7 months ago

Why would any company making data centers care about where they put them if the worst push back they get is less people than the company they employed to make sure janitors aren’t real employees of theirs, show up to protest?

They have no reason to change their behavior because no one has caused them enough pain to change their behavior.

dakna• 7 months ago

So where do they ask to put a small data center? Right in the city's entertainment district! Makes less sense than putting it on farmland. Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.

The site of the old GM Fisher Body plant is a sixty acres brownfield. The proposed downtown data center location is a one acre unused parking lot. It is close enough to LBWL, Lansing's utility company for water/electricity, to reuse the generated heat [1].

I don't think this really compares to the 270 acres data center for OpenAi/Oracle planned in Saline Township, which will be connected to one of the few 345kV transmission lines in Michigan. [2]

[1] https://www.lbwl.com/community/newsroom/2025-11-05-deep-gree...

[2] https://openinframap.org/#11.64/42.1244/-83.8008

gweinberg• 7 months ago

How is "more than 100" people "rallying" even remotely newsworthy? What's the threshold, three?

nqzero• 7 months ago

there are dozens of us !

__float• 7 months ago

Three people could be a group of friends. More than 100 is clearly different.

Given that there are usually _zero_ people rallying in Lansing, this is notable enough for the local newspaper.

cramcgrab• 7 months ago

Since the population is around 112k-114k people that would be around 111,900 people didn’t rally on the low end.

DaSHacka• 7 months ago

Lol, I prefer that version of the headline:

"99.9% of residents did not show up to protest new datacenters in Michigan"

vkou• 7 months ago

What's the threshold, three?

The threshold is an organization organizing it. Getting 100 people out demonstrates your political power to your supporters and the people you seek to influence. Getting 1,000 people demonstrates that you have more of it.

evil-olive• 7 months ago

if you read the article instead of just criticizing the headline:

They listened to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticizing the lack of transparency with DTE, the utility that's associated with the Saline Township proposal, and legislators who protested tax breaks for data center projects.
...
"We're talking about 1.4 gigawatts, which is, of course, enough to provide energy to a city of a million people," Nessel said. "I think we should be taking this extremely seriously, don't you? Do you guys trust DTE? Do you trust Open AI? Do we trust Oracle to look out for our best interests here in Michigan?"

this wasn't just a random group of 100 people, they were organized enough to get the state AG as well as multiple state legislators to speak. seems fairly newsworthy to me.

sankyo• 7 months ago

It would be noteworthy if 100 people showed up to my 5 year old's piano recital.

not so much for a 300 acre noisy, water hogging data center.

topspin• 7 months ago

In Lansing, it was below freezing and windy most of the day. If I noticed 100 people standing around on the pavement for hours in that, I'd probably imagine they deserved at least some regard for their concerns. But then, I'm not a Michigan politician that needs to get gamer Johnny out of my basement and on to a cushy non-profit no-show kickback job, courtesy of whatever big tech outfit wants a data center.

ipnon• 7 months ago

There is very little common space in Michigan. There is a lot of private land, and a lot of public land, but very few spaces where people congregate. So when they do, it stands out quite a bit.

lingrush4• 7 months ago

It wouldn't be newsworthy if we could trust our representatives not give extra weight to the opinions of the people who yell the loudest.

al_borland8• 7 months ago

It’s not just this group. A co-worker of mine went to his town meeting about a proposed data center. When he showed up it was standing room only and they had to move the meeting to a bigger venue. I’ve heard stories like this from a few people now around Michigan where they have been trying to put data centers. No one wants them.

phantasmish• 7 months ago

It’s a movement at 50[1].

[1] A. Guthrie, 1967

zamadatix2• 7 months ago

https://archive.is/8uNAJ

t1234s• 7 months ago

I guess we have to build them in space.

wongarsu• 7 months ago

At least in space the local residents don't complain

deflator• 7 months ago

The NIMBYs would find a way to

kmoser• 7 months ago

The headline could be construed to mean the data centers will be installed in the Michigan Capitol. I would have written it as "More than 100 rally at Michigan Capitol against data centers".

canyp• 7 months ago

The "at" does the trick there and the headline seems fine. Yours leaves no room for that kind of parse confusion, but I think English prefers to leave space/time adverbs and adverbial phrases at the end.

jeffbee7• 7 months ago

I was recently reminded how easily the public can be whipped into a frenzy of ignorance when I happened to revisit the Guardian article from 8 years ago that claimed data centers would use 20% of global electricity by 2025.'

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/tsunami-...

mmooss2• 7 months ago

The article is about all internet-connected devices:

"Global computing power demand from internet-connected devices, high resolution video streaming, emails, surveillance cameras and a new generation of smart TVs is increasing 20% a year, consuming roughly 3-5% of the world’s electricity in 2015, says Swedish researcher Anders Andrae."

It's not crazy to think it might increase to 20%. How much is it really in 2025?

jeffbee7• 7 months ago

The normally cited estimate of 2-4% already includes all networks, wired and wireless, and all client devices, mobile phones, and whatnot.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 7 months ago

Amid polarization, opposition to Michigan data centers cuts across political lines

https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/12/amid-polarization-opposit...

Data center proposed for Downtown Lansing would be first of its kind in US

https://www.wilx.com/2025/11/05/data-center-proposed-downtow...

At least 16 sites eyed for data centers in Michigan amid AI boom. Here's where

https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/12/at-least-16-sites-eyed-fo...

"The man from Deep Green, who earlier repeatedly reiterated his intention to be a "good neighbor," responded by saying "I get it, you're Luddites."

https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/opinion,171738

Residents protest data centers outside Michigan Capitol as debates rage on

"One of the speakers, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, took the podium first."

https://www.wilx.com/2025/12/16/data-center-protest-outside-...

Michigan data center developments raise concerns over water and power use

https://www.9and10news.com/2025/12/12/michigan-data-center-d...

Activists seeking a statewide moratorium on new AI data centers to rally in Lansing next week

https://michiganadvance.com/briefs/activists-seeking-a-state...

At the same time, data center being proposed for Lansing, NY also drawing opposition from local residents

https://www.sierraclub.org/atlantic/finger-lakes/blog/2025/1...

More than 100 rally against data centers at Michigan Capitol

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