Data center moratorium
Power outages in Detroit are common. I have experienced some disruption in electricity every winter for the last 50 years. Like many Detroiters, we have candles, flashlights, blankets, firewood, and emergency water tucked in corners, knowing they will be needed. This is just part of winter in Michigan.
This year, we almost made it to spring. But on Thursday, our neighborhood woke up to no power. Fortunately, this was a brief outage, and we quickly recovered.
But the reality of living in a city with an aging electrical grid, neglected water and sewer lines, and roads made treacherous by harsh weather is clear. As a state and a country, we have done too little to care for the things that make life safe and secure.
This reality was on my mind as the Detroit City Council took an important step in encouraging Mayor Sheffield to announce a two-year moratorium on data centers. We as a people need to talk seriously about what kind of future we want and what role we see technologies playing in it. In spite of propaganda efforts to encourage us to embrace AI, there are ethical, social, and ecological concerns that we need to talk about together.
We welcome the wisdom of our Council in requesting a moratorium. Cities, towns, and townships are raising concerns about the ecological impacts of these centers, their demand for energy and water, and possible health effects.
We know little about the long-term impacts of these centers. We do know they are central to the development of A.I. and managing internet data. They provide the infrastructure for processing, storing, and distributing vast amounts of data. They are massive sites, requiring vast tracts of land and significant power and water to operate.
Currently, the US holds one-third of the world's data centers, and these sites give us some idea of what they mean to local communities. A recent study by Bloomberg News reported that in communities near these centers, there has been a 267% increase in monthly electricity costs over the last five years. The costs of adapting aging grids to new demands are passed on by regulators to the consumers, effectively getting individual users to shoulder the burden of increased energy demand.
And this demand is staggering. The average data center uses about the same amount of electricity every hour as a small town. Today, they consume 4% of all electricity in the US, and estimates say this will likely rise to 12% by 2028.
DTE, of course, tells us that increasing costs would not happen here. So does Google. But our experience tells us such promises are most likely designed to blunt opposition, not to be taken seriously.
In addition to electricity, these centers demand water for cooling. One data center uses about 980 million gallons of water per year, or the equivalent of over 4 million homes. This raises issues of depletion of water resources, direct contamination, and temperature increases.
Further, their energy demands become a rationale for increasing fossil fuel power plants and the development of nuclear energy facilities.
None of this is good for communities, people, or the living systems upon which we all depend.
The growth in data centers is not because of our use for the internet for shopping, research, and entertainment. It is the need for artificial intelligence and its role in the war machine.
The data center partnership between the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory makes this clear. University officials, echoing the Hegseth school of thinking, said the center would be the“biggest, baddest, fastest computer in the world,” with over 90% of the facility’s computational power slated for LANL’s classified warfare project. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright proclaimed that the “U.S.” government’s buildup of AI infrastructure is “the Second Manhattan Project,” moving the world toward nuclear war on the backs of the local communities.
We have many questions to consider about our futures. The Detroit City Council is wise to provide space for public conversations that will enable us to explore the kind of world we want for ourselves and our children. We encourage our mayor to join in this effort.