Overview
The enactment of tax breaks for new data center projects by the Michigan legislature in 2024 has led to a considerable uptick in proposals for these facilities statewide.
What are data centers?
Data centers are large windowless warehouses that store large servers, hardware, networking equipment, and other computing technologies. These facilities can range in size from smaller operations that are localized to meet specific needs to much larger ones that run cloud computing for industries such as Meta, Amazon, and Google. The latter type of data center can pose a serious threat to the environment as they require massive amounts of water and power to operate. You can learn more about data center facts and fiction in our myth-busting section below.
What is Sierra Club doing about it?
As more of these projects pop up across Michigan, we are focused on preventing unchecked growth without transparency and preserving our environmental safeguards. Data centers must not drive new fossil-fuel generation, strain water supplies, or shift infrastructure costs onto Michigan households and communities.
These are a few of our priorities in fighting for better data center regulation:
- Requiring data centers to fully pay for grid upgrades, disclose energy and water impacts, implement best water conservation practices, and be powered by new clean energy.
- Advocating for transparent processes in which communities and regulators have a clear, public role in approving data center projects to protect climate goals, affordability, and local resources.
Why are so many data centers proposed in Michigan?
Big tech companies are flocking to Michigan with their data center projects for a few key reasons. Our Great Lakes offer an abundance of water and a cooler climate that lowers operating costs, as well as an abundance of land near major infrastructure. Perhaps most enticing to these companies, however, are the generous tax incentives in Michigan that are aimed at attracting large-scale development. As hype for artificial-intelligence technology and cloud-computing drive explosive demand for energy-intensive data centers nationwide, companies are looking beyond saturated coastal markets to Midwest states like Michigan that can accommodate rapid growth. This surge is driven by infrastructure and cost advantages—not by local demand—and raises important questions about energy use, utility costs, and long-term public benefit.
Take Action
Sign our petition! We're calling on and local leaders to agree to a temporary moratorium on all large-scale data center approvals until Michigan has a comprehensive state plan that ensures these projects will not harm our environment, our communities, or Michigan ratepayers. Click the button below to sign.
We are consistently updating our campaigns and following various data center proposals statewide. You will find links to available actions and events below when they are available. If you'd like to bring something to our attention, please visit our contact form.
Data Center Facts vs Fiction
Data centers are coming online at such an alarming rate that it can be hard to keep up with what is false and what is true. We have gathered the most common misconceptions we have heard on the ground to keep you informed and aware.
🚫 Myth: Data centers will create jobs for our state.
✅ Truth: The majority of jobs come from construction. When online, data centers employ fewer than McDonald's does.
🚫 Myth: Closed-water systems help mitigate data center resource use.
✅ Truth: While closed-water systems use less water than evaporative cooling systems, they use more power. As long as data centers are not powered by renewable energy sources, closed-water systems do not mitigate our resource use.
🚫 Myth: Data centers and AI are the future of technology, and we should embrace them.
✅ Truth: A new report from SELC shows that the capacity of global chip suppliers cannot support the overbuilding of data centers. This means that some data centers being built right now may never come online.
🚫 Myth: Data centers will improve property values.
✅ Truth: While data centers can generate property taxes for local governments, they can actually cause nearby property values to drop due to more frequent noise pollution, grid outages, light pollution, and water contamination. These impacts can drive homeowners out, resulting in a drop in market and property values.
🚫 Myth: Data Centers can fuel Michigan’s economy.
✅ Truth: Most large data centers create very few permanent local jobs, often fewer than a few dozen once construction ends. Their economic value is largely tied to tax incentives and electricity consumption, not broad-based community growth. Meanwhile, their massive energy and water demands can raise utility costs for ratepayers, strain local infrastructure, and crowd out cleaner, more job-rich economic development opportunities.
🚫 Myth: We could just power them with small-scale nuclear reactors (SMRs).
✅ Truth: There are only two SMRs online and five under construction in the world. The two online SMRs are underperforming and took just as long to build as a large-scale power plant. Everything we hear on the effectiveness and efficiency of SMR’s is pure assumption. Research also shows that SMR’s can actually generate more nuclear waste than a large scale power plant.