This week, we detailed how Saline Township in Michigan got steamrolled by billionaires and their own governor when they tried to prevent a $7 billion data center that would service the ever expanding needs of Meta from being built in their community. In September, the town government voted against the plan.
The town was immediately sued by the big money interests behind the project. The decision was made that defending the lawsuit could bankrupt the local government, and so the denial was quickly overturned.
In that case, supporters of the data center included the so-called president as well as OpenAI, Oracle, DTE Energy, and Stephen Ross, the real estate billionaire who owns Related Digital, the developer of the data center. Even Michigan’s supposedly progressive governor joined the pigpile of monied interests intent on cramming the project down the throats of those who live in Saline Township.
For some reason, Michigan and data centers are in the news this week. Far north of Salina is Iosco Township on the shores of Lake Huron. There, DTE Energy proposed to build a large solar farm that would cover 3 square miles of the 549 square mile county with solar panels. Local residents were enraged. Just like the folks in Saline, they voted no on the project, and for many of the same reasons.
But a curious thing happened. The governor did not get involved. Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg did not lift a finger to get the project approved. No billionaire developers rushed to defend the project. That is odd because, according to WHMI News, the electricity from the solar project was primarily intended to power a new Oracle data center.
Residents at the meeting last week raised a number of objections, including government overreach (the state of Michigan has a plan to transition to clean energy), loss of rural character, decreased property values, a desire to protect farmland, environmental issues, as well as noise, health, and safety concerns.
Some argued that solar panels are basically useless in Michigan and that “the projects barely pay for themselves by the time they’re extinct.” That may be true, but it is hard to quantify precisely when such projects become “extinct.” It does seem unlikely that DTE Energy would propose a solar project that was unprofitable.
Once again, as we often say here at CleanTechnica, if the locals were allowed to benefit from the deal — perhaps in the form of lower utility bills — the political calculus would change. Few people care whether Larry Ellison gets a few million dollars richer, but they do care about the size of their utility bill each month. “All politics is local,” Tip O’Neill liked to say, and he was not wrong about that.
The question left unanswered is, how are these new data centers going to be powered? If solar and/or wind are not politically acceptable, Exxon and other fossil fuel companies are standing in the wings, ready to construct self-contained energy generation campuses that will burn methane to create electricity. The benefit, if there is one, for the surrounding communities, is more pipelines and more atmospheric pollution for their kids to breathe. One of the attributes of a rural lifestyle, apparently, is more children with asthma and various types of cancer.
This week, the House of Representatives passed the so-called SPEED Act, which slaps down local opposition to fossil fuel projects by watering down the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. The MAGAcrats were careful not to include renewable energy projects in the bill. No permitting relief for you! Heads we win, tails you lose. Unequal protection under the law, with liberty and justice for some.
In a statement after the SPEED Act passed in the House, the Sierra Club said, “At a moment when families are facing rising energy costs and communities urgently need more clean, affordable power, Congress should be focused on speeding the deployment of transmission lines, renewable energy, and grid upgrades.
“The SPEED Act fails that test. If Congress wants to lower energy bills and build a reliable, affordable power system, it should be focused on getting clean energy and transmission built faster — not giving fossil fuel companies a free pass. By prioritizing oil and gas projects and failing to address the barriers blocking wind, solar, and transmission, the SPEED Act would lock in pollution while increasing the risk of delays, lawsuits, and costly mistakes.”
Are we done with Michigan yet? Not quite. Inside Climate News reports that a bipartisan bill introduced Tuesday in the Michigan legislature would repeal the state’s data center tax incentive laws. They were approved in 2024 and have attracted more than a dozen data center proposals.
The proposed repeal comes just as public outrage over, and opposition to, data centers from across the political spectrum is reaching a fever pitch, ICN says. A “Michiganders Against Data Centers” protest is scheduled at the state capital Tuesday in which activists will call for a moratorium on the projects. Residents fear the data centers may increase their energy bills, pollute water, drive up water bills, and destroy the rural character of their communities.
Dylan Wegela of Detroit introduced the legislation, which was co-sponsored by Jim DeSana, a Republican in the state’s Freedom Caucus who represents a largely rural area at the outskirts of metro Detroit. Wegela said it is “absurd to be subsidizing some of the wealthiest corporations in the country. If they’re going to be coming here … then at the bare minimum we should be taxing them the same as everyone else.” DeSana said the incentives amounted to “corporate welfare. I don’t think we should give businesses tax incentives, period.”
The existing data center laws provide sales and use tax exemptions for tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and others who are the primary clients for those data centers. The tax revenue they are exempt from paying would otherwise go to the state’s school budget or its general fund.
The concern many of those who oppose the new data centers have is a provision in Michigan’s clean energy policy that provides an “off-ramp” provision allowing utilities to keep running or building fossil fuel plants if renewable sources cannot handle the energy grid’s load.
The newly proposed data centers are likely to trigger the off-ramp because the centers demand so much energy. DTE Energy executives in July reported to investors that they are working on plans to power those centers, which collectively need about 7 gigawatts. The total system capacity of the grid that DTE manages is about 11 gigawatts.
Clearly, a lot of new generating capacity will be needed to supply these power-hungry enterprises. Consumers Energy, Michigan’s second-largest utility, has 7.6 gigawatts of capacity, with potential demand for data centers that is double that number. Executives from both utilities have said they are considering new methane-fired thermal generating facilities to provide additional power.
Few politicians have publicly criticized the centers or big tech. “It is clear that both parties have been corrupted by big tech, and it is up to working class people on both sides of the aisle to stop big AI from putting centers all over the state,” Wegela told ICN.
Corruption is such an ugly word, and yet, if the shoe fits…. The Public Service Commission of Georgia this week rammed through approval of a plan that will massively expand the energy generating capacity of Georgia Power. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the panel — composed entirely of Republicans — took up a proposal from its staff that was revealed just minutes before the meeting began, giving opponents no time to review or respond to it.
“The scale of the expansion Georgia Power is now set to undertake is unprecedented in state history. The total generation capacity the utility is set to add — 9,885 megawatts — is more than double the combined output of the four nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta. It plans to add all of that in just five years,” the AJC reports.
Data centers are expected to consume most of the new power capacity, 60 percent of which will come from new methane-fired thermal generation. Georgia Power customers have been walloped by six rate increases in the past 3 years, largely due to the huge cost overruns at the Vogtle nuclear power plant that took nearly two decades to complete.
Voters have already weighed in by electing two Democrats to the PSC, who will take their seats on January 1, 2026. The existing commission made sure to approve the new plan just two weeks before that happened. Is that corruption? You are free to decide that for yourselves.
The upshot of all this is that data center mania is sweeping the nation, and for what? As regular reader Dan Allard pointed out recently, a lot of that data is not being used to find new treatments for cancer, it is tracking everything Americans do — what they buy, where they travel, what they write online, and what organizations they support.
We are voluntarily participating in the greatest surveillance state in history, one controlled by a demented sexual predator who is kicking around the idea of summarily executing those who oppose him. We the people are paying for this each month through our utility bills.
There are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who know what’s happening, and those who wonder what happened. The tech industry desperately hopes most of us are in that last category. But information is power. Now that you have been clued in to the game, please use that information wisely.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Florida or anywhere else The Force may lead him. He is proud to be “woke” and believes weak leaders push others down while strong leaders lift others up. You can follow him on Substack at https://stevehanley.substack.com/ but not on Fakebook or any social media platforms controlled by narcissistic yahoos.
Steve Hanley has 6497 posts and counting. See all posts by Steve Hanley

source