ABOUT DR. SARAH MILLS:
As the Director of Graham's Center for EmPowering Communities, Sarah manages UM's partnership with the Michigan Office of Climate and Energy, helping communities across the state consider energy in their land use planning, zoning, and other policymaking. Through this work, she is developing templates, case studies, and other guidance documents that can help local governments across the state set policies related to clean energy.
Sarah also conducts research at the intersection of energy policy and land use planning--especially in rural communities. Her current work focuses on how renewable energy development impacts rural communities (positively and negatively), the disparate reactions of rural landowners to wind and solar projects, and how state and local policies facilitate or hinder renewable energy deployment.
Prior to joining Graham, Sarah's work experiences include distributing food for the Lutheran World Federation in South Sudan, directing sustainability programs for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and working on the marketing team for the ENERGY STAR Change a Light, Change the World campaign. She has a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan, a master's in engineering for sustainable development from the University of Cambridge, a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University.
ABOUT LISA WOZNIAK:
Lisa’s career spans over two decades of environmental and conservation advocacy in the political arena. She is a nationally- recognized expert in non-profit growth and management and a leader in Great Lakes protections. Lisa is a three-time graduate from the University of Michigan, with a bachelor's degree and two ensuing master's degrees in social work and Education.
Lisa serves a co-host and content partner in 89.1 WEMU's '1st Friday Focus on the Environment.'
RESOURCES:
Michigan League of Conservation Voters
U-M Graham Sustainability Institute
U-M Center for EmPowering Communities
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and welcome to the May edition of First Friday Focus on the Environment. Many of our more rural communities are struggling with some significant challenges. More large-scale data centers are being proposed, and that raises questions about the use of land, water and energy. How do these projects impact communities, and what protections are in place? My partner on First Friday knows where to direct such questions. Lisa Wozniak as CEO and President of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. And you didn't have to look far. Did you, Lisa?
Lisa Wozniak: I did not. Just down the road, Dave. The answers to these questions and many more is at the core of our guesswork. Sarah Mills is the Director of the Graham Sustainability Institute's Center for EmPowering Communities at the University of Michigan. And thank you so much for joining us today, Sarah!
Dr. Sarah Mills: Thanks for having me!
Lisa Wozniak: Well, Sarah, your background and expertise is heavily rooted in rural communities. And as part of that, the siting of clean energy projects, like wind and solar. While some of these projects have been embraced and successfully cited over the past many years, others have really received some significant pushback. And as data centers have come on the scene, clean energy projects and data centers appear, in some cases, to have become conflated. What do you see as the difference between clean energy products and data centers for these communities?
Dr. Sarah Mills: That's a really good question. So, in part, because I think a lot of community members are asking some of the same questions of them--really, kind of how is this going to affect my quality of life? And while they wonder about the sound associated with wind turbines or solar panels, those are the same things that they're wondering about in terms of the sound profile of a data center, for example. I think one of the ways that they are significantly different is that many data centers are backed up by some sort of natural gas or diesel generator, and that's not the case at a wind or solar farm. So, that diesel generator not only, or natural gas generator, not only comes with sound, but it also comes with air pollution at that site. And so, that's one of the ways that they're different. I also think many data centers have security fences around them and security lighting associated with it. And we don't see that so much on a solar farm or on a wind turbine, for example. The wind turbines do have a blinking red light at the top that's required by the FAA, but it's not quite kind of like parking lot lights. And so, it can have an impact not just during the day, but also at night.
David Fair: So, we're talking about how land is being used, and when it comes to land use, much of the data center locations is farmland. What might the expanding demand for AI and data center developments do to our agricultural economy?
Dr. Sarah Mills: Yeah. Well, I think that that's a really good question. And like, my confession is that I sort of study energy and now data centers inadvertently. My Ph.D. is in farmland preservation, so I'm really glad to get that question. And at the local level, it certainly has an impact. Data centers, large, kind of hyperscale data centers, that we're seeing can take up a couple hundred acres. So, at the local level, this certainly could have an impact. At the broader level, to be honest, even at extreme data center buildout, we're not going to see a huge impact on our ability, for example, to grow food. And I would also say data centers have resource demands. I mean, I think an awful lot about energy demand. And the energy to power data centers is going to have to go somewhere, and that can have an impact on farmland as well. You know, that's one of the similarities between these two land uses--data centers and wind or solar farms--is that they want to go in rural areas where there's ample access to land, but they also want to places where there is a connection to the transmission grid. And so, that's why some of the same communities are being approached.
Lisa Wozniak: So, you referenced the significant amount of energy needed for these centers. The facilities also use a lot of water for cooling. How does that come into the conversation? And how does that fit into your concern?
Dr. Sarah Mills: Yeah. Well, I think that that is another place where data centers are different than renewable energy power plants. And they're not actually different than fossil fuel power plants. So, it is true. Some data centers use water for cooling, and they can be a significant water user in that local community where they're hosted. Some data centers, though, are not cooled by water. Instead, they are cooled either by air or by kind of a closed-loop fluid system, where the same fluid is circulated, and then electricity is used to effectively suck the heat out of that cooling fluid. So, it's possible to cool a data center and not use tons of water. The trick, though, is that, right now, a decent amount of our power comes from coal or nuclear power plants that are cooled themselves by water. And so, actually, those--they're called thermoelectric power plants--are by far the biggest users of water in the state of Michigan on a daily basis. And so, on the one hand, when you cool a data center with water, you're able to use less of that thermoelectric electricity that's having an indirect impact somewhere else, not in the host community. And when you don't cool it with water, locally, you may actually have a bigger impact on water use. Again, not in that place that's hosting the data center, but in the place that has that power plant. So, this is one where it's really tricky. Even in data centers that aren't cooled with water, there is an indirect water use. There's research right now on trying to understand which one ultimately uses less water. Is it cooling a data center with water itself or cooling it with electricity?
David Fair: WEMU's First Friday Focus on the Environment continues with Sarah Mills. She is Director of the Center for EmPowering Communities at the University of Michigan's Graham Sustainability Institute, and my First Friday Partner is President and CEO of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Lisa Wozniak.
Lisa Wozniak: Sarah, large scale wind and solar projects are not a new thing. There are numerous communities in Michigan that had projects built years ago and have been operating for years. How are those communities, most of which are rural, faring now? And are they realizing the benefits that were promised?
Dr. Sarah Mills: So, I think in many of the communities that currently host renewables, they are seeing a lot of those benefits. So, the community-wide benefits from a renewable energy project often come in the form of the property taxes that are paid to that community. Those property taxes support township and county services, so things like road construction. In a couple of places in Michigan, these rural communities didn't have trash collection. And so, they're taking the wind revenues and allowing residents to be able to not have to take their own garbage to the county landfill. So, they are seeing some of those benefits. Many of the communities that had hosted renewable energy projects are saying yes to more or allowing those projects to be repowered now with taller turbines. We're starting to get at the point where some of our very first wind turbines in the state are nearing time for replacement. And so, I know that a number of communities, including those in the thumb, are starting to to think about what repowering looks like there.
David Fair: There are a lot of promises made when these major billion-dollar companies come in and bring a data center or a new project to a small township who might be ill-prepared to negotiate with such an entity. So, I'm curious. How does a township or a municipality go about protecting itself and ensuring that all promises are kept and that it will be held harmless in the case of corporate malfeasance?
Dr. Sarah Mills: Yeah. Well, I think that that's a really good question. You know, a lot of these places don't have an attorney on their staff. If they want to have legal counsel, they've got to pay a consultant to come in. So, the key piece of advice that I give local governments is get everything in writing. So, if you're being told that backup generators are only going to run in the case of power outages, have the developer put that in writing, so that there's some teeth associated with it.
David Fair: Some of that contract language gets redacted though, and townships have to sign non-disclosure agreements. Transparency is not at the fore.
Dr. Sarah Mills: Yeah. I think that that's one of the things that whether they have to sign non-disclosure agreements or they're kind of pressured into signing non-disclosure agreements is a question. And I'll confess that that's sort of outside my area. What I think a lot about is what a local government can require when it's reviewing a site plan or evaluating the zoning associated with the project. Probably two months ago, we came out with a guidebook for local governments who are being approached by data center developers. And some of the key advice that we give there are some of the same lessons that we've learned from the renewable energy space. So, getting things in writing is really important, thinking about decommisioning the end of the life of that project, making sure that if the data center developer doesn't succeed, that that site is returned to a usable state. It's not just common. Like, it's ubiquitous, this idea of a decommissioning plan and some financial guarantee is common in the renewable energy space, so including that as well. And I would also say, again, for a lot of these communities, the primary benefit of any of this infrastructure is in property taxes. And I'll be honest that, in the renewable energy space, there have been changes over time, and places that hosted wind projects got less in property taxes than what they were anticipating. Some wind/solar developers are kind of learning from that and saying in case that happens in the state, we're going to guarantee today while we're talking to you that the property taxes that we're talking about will come to fruition even if the state changes the tax tables. And so, one of the things that we suggest that local governments think about asking a developer to do for a data center is take that example, take that model from the solar industry, and try to get a property tax guarantee, so that those benefits that are being discussed when the project is being sited truly come to fruition if that project is built.
Lisa Wozniak: So, all these communities, whether here in southeast Michigan or anywhere across the state, are looking, as you pointed out, for benefits and for economic development opportunities, projects that really, really help the community long-term. I'd like to ask you about whether or not there's been conversation about these big companies coming in, especially the data centers, and agreeing that, electron for electron, what they take off of the grid, they're willing to actually then put into the local community by offering energy efficiency opportunities to homeowners. So, in other words, new windows, roofing, et cetera, so that the costs to homeowners go down as this new entity comes into their community and sucks more of the energy off of grid. Has that been part of the conversation that you've been having with communities?
Dr. Sarah Mills: I mean, this is one of the things that's being discussed nationally as a way that data centers can actually help accelerate a transition to clean energy and can be a benefit--an energy benefit--to a host community. In Michigan, that's something that is harder for local governments to require, to be really honest, but something that we talk about as something that you can ask for to see if there's an opportunity there. I mean, I think one of the challenges that a data center is facing is trying to get enough power to supply it. It takes a while to get a big wind or solar farm or even a big natural gas plant connected into the transmission grid. And if you can instead put a whole bunch of solar panels on people's roofs or make their homes more energy efficient and save energy that way, then you may end up with the same energy benefit and actually quicker, because you don't have to wait to get your power plant connected into the transmission grid. Instead, these projects would happen at the distribution grid side of things, so the wires that service our individual homes. So, I think that that, Lisa, is certainly part of the conversation. It's really hard for local governments that the state policy context makes it difficult for them to force a developer to do that, but it's certainly something that they could ask for, and that, I think could certainly help something like a data center be potentially a solution to community problems. I mean, I'm very interested in how we can use land uses to help solve community problems, rather than asking a community to solve the state or the nation's problemx of siting infrastructure
David Fair: Sarah, we've talked longer than we have time for and probably should have. And yet, we've just not even scratched the surface. I hope you'll make yourself available, and we'll get to pursue these issues in even deeper measure as we move forward.
Dr. Sarah Mills: Certainly! Thanks so much for the conversation!
David Fair: That is Sarah Mills. She is Director of the Center for EmPowering Communities at the University of Michigan's Graham Sustainability Institute. My partner in First Friday Focus on the Environment is the other voice you've heard today, that of Lisa Wozniak, the CEO and President of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. And, Lisa, after a quarter century together or so, you and I will do this one more time in June.
Lisa Wozniak: I look forward to it, David! It's been such a pleasure working with you!
David Fair: Well, I can look forward to getting to spend that time with you as well! For more information on our conversation today and to access the First Friday archive, stop by our website at WEMU.org. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU Ypsilanti.
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