By Liz Kirkwood
Executive Director —
Michigan, the Great Lakes state, sits in the heart of 20 percent of the planet’s fresh surface water, and 95 percent of the U.S.’s fresh water supply. All Michiganders will tell you of their deep connection to these lakes. And now, Big Tech and other national manufacturing businesses are greedily eyeing our incredible water resources in their voracious search for climate-stable regions with access to
Michigan’s industrial legacy is comprised of both world-class achievements, including its automobile heritage, and also the devastation wrought by the lumber and mining industries that stripped most of the state of its forests and poisoned our waters and lands before the public stepped in to restore them. With a history of natural resource exploitation, it is not surprising that much of the environmental restoration work in Michigan centers on cleaning up legacy toxic industrial waste, as well as pollution from older natural resource-dependent communities. Nearly every community in Michigan faces contamination, remnants of the industrial past that threaten drinking water and hinder long-term economic prosperity.
The current quest to bring large data centers and related infrastructure to Michigan has the potential to become the latest chapter in the story of industry extracting and exploiting our publicly-held natural resources for private profit. It also has the potential to
take us off our path towards net-zero emission because of AI’s intensive energy needs.
In this decisive decade for charting a sustainable climate future, Michigan has an opportunity to lead and shed its Rust Belt industrial legacy.
Such leadership must show the nation that good jobs and climate protection goals are not only compatible but intertwined. The question is whether we will.
Michigan has set ambitious climate goals for the state, committing to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2040. So has Big Tech. Microsoft, for example, has pledged to move beyond net zero emissions and remove all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975. These shared commitments from government and industry are imperative if we are to meet these global goals to reduce carbon emissions and maintain a liveable climate.
Since the AI revolution began in earnest, however, there has been a notable shift. Some leaders in Big Tech now publicly admit that they are willing to miss climate goals to build out the vast computing infrastructure necessary for AI. Why? Because Big Tech is wagering that AI will solve our climate crisis. But what about the resulting water-related crisis with vast quantities of water needed to cool and operate these huge data centers?
Much national reporting has focused on the insatiable energy demands for data centers and the potential to generate three times the projected global greenhouse emissions between now and the end of the decade, according to a recent Morgan Stanley report. But the companion and often overlooked piece is the associated water demand necessary to cool these data centers for AI and computing. According to the Washington Post, large data centers can consume anywhere from 1.0 million to 5.0 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to the same amount of water as a town or city of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
Microsoft reports that 42% of the water it consumed in 2023 came from “areas with water stress.” Among the largest data center footprints, Google used 3.3 billion gallons of water in the US alone, and almost another 1 billion internationally. And 15% of Google’s freshwater withdrawals came from areas with “high water scarcity.” Even in water-rich regions like the Great Lakes, though, we cannot take our water for granted. According to the Senate Fiscal Agency, data centers that draw water from lakes, rivers, or groundwater sources could overdraft these water resources and jeopardize drinking water supplies and agricultural needs of the state. The Agency concluded: “Encouraging the expansion of data centers without implementing water conservation practices and strategic siting could strain Michigan’s water resources.”
No one ever thought the energy transition would be easy. But without true commitments to our intertwined climate, energy, and water goals, we will fail to transition at the scale and speed necessary. To further compound this problem, we already are failing to achieve most of the key climate goals for a just and equitable transition.
AI presents a troubling paradox for our climate goals because it is increasing both energy and water demands while upending efforts to improve energy and water efficiency – two key ingredients essential to achieving a net-zero future.
Michigan is at a crossroads now with Big Tech seeking favorable legislative tax breaks of up to $90M until 2050, along with unfettered access to energy and water resources. The Legislature is working at lightning speed to pass data center legislation that gives Big Tech use and sales tax breaks and merely “encourages” the use of renewable energy and water efficiency measures. The false dichotomy of jobs versus the environment must be soundly rejected. Good economies with good jobs go hand-in-hand with healthy communities that protect their air, water, and land and invest in renewable energy technologies in this transition. The Senate Fiscal Agency warned that “[s]upporting the expansion of data centers without sufficient environmental protections and regulations would contradict the actions taken toward decarbonization of Michigan’s power sector this Legislative Session.”
Let’s not give away the store, Michigan. We are calling on Michigan leaders to draft strong legislation that requires Big Tech to do its part to build out our renewable energy infrastructure and conserve and protect our precious water sources. Without these legal guardrails in place, Michigan will fail to learn the lessons of its past by again doing lasting damage to its public resources all in the name of chasing short-term economic gains.
