The Cloud

Storm clouds gathered quickly and appeared overhead obscuring a blue sky that once held promise of a beautiful day. Signs of nature are often used as a metaphor for life. Today, when clouds are discussed, it is often not in relation to weather, but to "using the cloud" for your data. The use of such terms, "storing data in the cloud" often obscures the actual facilities behind the whole term. Data, is not stored in some obscure location, like a cloud, but rather in a data center.  Due to artificial intelligence, data centers are becoming more and more common place. The storm clouds gathering overhead are the metaphor for the environmental costs associated with data centers.

Fitchburg, WI Data Center

Language is important as it provides a true description. Use of "the cloud" is not unlike the use of "solar farms" both seem to represent something innocuous, but in fact have true impacts. (To me, solar farms and the cloud are misnomers.) Solar farms are power producing facilities, not farms. They, are very land intensive, and rather than doing the smart thing, using rooftops, over parking lots, or as they do in Japan--over detention ponds, in the United States good farm land is used. Data centers are land extensive, too. As a nation we tend to think land is abundant, which leads to significant land use issues, mainly urban sprawl. The whole idea of "cloud computing" leads to more resource use, in a time when we should be concerned about climate change.

Buildings near Fitchburg Data Center

At least four major data centers are in-line for the state of Wisconsin, according to a Google search, which presented itself as using AI (see below). 

Proposed Data Centers in WI, July 2025

The table above is self explanatory. The missing element is how many square feet the build out of the data centers will be, from which we could calculate efficiency of land use using the common Floor Area Ratio. Although, data centers are composed of servers which can stack high, but for some reason, they do not go more vertical. When doing economic development, the number of jobs produced is often looked at. The DeForest site anticipates 425 people to work there, but that works out to less than one person per acre. I suspect that the some  Community Supported Agricultural centers have more jobs per acre, at least seasonally, than will that data center, but they are not as fashionable as data centers.  Clearly, they should not get funding for so few jobs given how much acreage is used. Data Centers do not need many people, just a few per shift to make sure the servers function properly.

Do data centers represent storm clouds brewing over 
Wisconsin farmland?

Data centers, or server farms (as they are sometimes called), may not be large employers, but they do use generous amounts of two critical resources--water and electricity. Here is the rub, the data centers produce significant amounts of heat, and require cooling every day of the year, every hour of the day, or as the old worn saying goes 24/7. Regardless of how cold it is in Wisconsin on that January night the data center is still cooled. Most are cooled using water. The data center in Fitchburg is an extremely heavy water user. The proposed center in Port Washington is proposed to use air cooling in a closed loop system, but whether or not they will is still a question.

The University of Notre Dame has its own data center and it heats a joint greenhouse operated by it and the City of South Bend, as a method to use the waste heat. I proposed that for the Fitchburg facility but was shot down and the then mayor gave no backing, lest we do something the business did not want to do. The Fitchburg center is in a business park, and the adjoining buildings could easily be heated. The reason they said, was security as a proposed tier 4 data center. Well, that was a lie, because they are a tier 3, under which it could have been done. Just an excuse, or a bait and switch.

What they all use, regardless of how they are cooled, is electricity. Tons and tons (or Kilowatt hour upon kilowatt hour) of electricity which makes the power company very happy--high energy user. They also require backup generation, which means either diesel or natural gas powered generators, almost combustion turbines. This means high energy use and a lot of noise. The Fitchburg data center partnered with MGE which allows MGE to use their generators for peak hours when extra electric generation is required. My wife and I subscribe to SmartHours through Alliant (MGE is the Fitchburg data center provider), which allows them to turn our air up, or heat down when a peak event occurs. Last week we had at least three such events from 4 to 6 pm. It makes me wonder why we try to conserver when data centers clearly chose not to use cogeneration to heat adjoining buildings. The company building the Port Washington facility has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2030. I am not sure how they will make that happen. 

Cooling towers, you can see the fans
Large generators, are rectangles south of building

But, beyond water and electricity, they could build better--build in existing urban sites that have been abandoned, think the former GM Janesville Assembly Plant. They could build in disadvantaged communities to add tax base, think Detroit or Northeast Wisconsin. Yet, the rich communities keep getting more rich. A letter to the editor in the Wi State Journal suggested the centers use the land of the old two year UW system campuses that are closing. They will not produce much employment per acre, which raises the question of efficiency. Data centers, in my mind, do not get high marks for efficiency of resources, land use or employment. We have to get away from the idea that our land is an unlimited resource. 

Former GM Assembly Plant site, Janesville, WI

There is a certain irony here, that in a time when we should be conserving resources due to climate change, artificial intelligence is demanding so many important resources in the form of data centers. Four large data centers and that is just in Wisconsin at this point in time. I wonder if there will develop a glut of data centers as the anticipated demand does not materialize.

With good land use decisions, data centers could
represent a clearing of sky following a storm

At least the data centers are in the US, one of the places which has the high demand. Too often the US externalizes its demand for materials--cobalt for batteries in African mines, or copper in South American mines. Green is more than clean energy. It is wise and appropriate efficient land use. It is choosing careful building materials, it is reuse, reduce and recycle. It is being cognizant of what is used. What we have to realize is that storm clouds are approaching in the form of data centers, which with better land use, air cooling, and renewable power could perhaps become cirrus clouds. The "cloud" is a figure of speech that white (or green washes) the impact. We need to be cognizant of the impacts of "the cloud!"

Images from Google Maps, Google and DCI Map