Matt Doll, Minnesota Environmental Partnership
In March, we published a column on the energy and water costs of large data centers, the latest industry eager to plant itself in Minnesota to take advantage of our resources and infrastructure. At a February press conference, MEP and allies called out efforts in the Legislature to water down environmental protections and create new tax breaks to entice tech giants to build them in our state.
Senator Jen McEwen of Duluth noted that if every currently-planned data center in Minnesota is constructed, they will collectively use more electricity than every household in the state combined. Recent research indicates that data centers’ share of electricity use is expected to be larger in Minnesota than in any other Midwestern state, and that increase could be a major obstacle to reaching 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040.
The Legislature ultimately passed a compromise bill with both tax break extensions and a few regulatory changes governing data centers. It included some new regulations relating to water and energy usage, but left plenty of room for data centers to wiggle out of strict enforcement.
The new law hasn’t deterred Big Tech companies from their data center plans, which continue to advance in communities from Mankato to Rosemount. Local governments have frequently been accommodating toward the development companies, even signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in the early stages of proposals in the hope of drawing the companies in. The companies tout benefits like tax revenue and jobs, though these facilities provide few permanent jobs and can cause residents’ power bills to increase. The great majority of the spending on a data center project is on IT equipment, not construction.
Residents, however, don’t all agree that data centers are good neighbors. In Hermantown, a local group called Stop the Hermantown Data Center has teamed up with MEP member Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy to sue the city to make it redo its environmental study of a proposed data center. The city has known about the data center proposal since last fall, but would not acknowledge it publicly for months. Several county commissioners even signed NDAs for information relating to the proposal.
In Farmington, area residents have sounded the alarm about the planned hyper scale data center in their community, which also enticed city officials to sign NDAs. The Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development was founded in Farmington to work for policies that mitigate the impact of data center operations.
The call for transparency around potentially community-changing projects has found success in at least one city. The Mayor of Superior, Wisconsin recently implemented a policy requiring city council approval and increased transparency before the city can sign an NDA.
As much as tech giants and their boosters celebrate the dubious “AI revolution,” these data centers are not inevitable for Minnesota. Ordinary Minnesotans can still make their concerns about water and energy costs heard at the community, state, and federal level. We’re glad that so many have done so, and we urge all those concerned to speak out as early and as often as possible.