Michigan asks residents to fund two new gas power plants to support data centers
The poor and working class subsidize the rich, while contributing to climate change and polluting the air they breathe - all in the interest of increasing profits for the techno-fuedalist / capitalist class.
A tail as old as time
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/21/michigan-datacenter-bill-utility-pricesOpen linkView original on lemmy.today
9 replies
Data centers should be required to make their own electricity with solar. They should also be required to use ground source heat pumps for cooling. And I don't think it would be unreasonable to require them to be underground facilities too; as Ukraine has shown, data centers are valid military targets.
It's better than gas, but I'd hate to think how large of a footprint that'd require.
The only way I'd be on board is if they put the panels 15m up and the land was still used for growing food, which would then be provided to the local community for free.
Solar can be installed over other stuff: parking lots, waterways, rooftops, etc.
Also, agrivoltaics is possible. Not all plants do well in direct sunlight.
Not to lower costs lol
Tale
<3
Banged my knee on that in the OP and had to do this for awhile
I feel this is the kind of thing why, in an ideal world, we would all form cooperatives for any service where it's not feasible or economical to deploy infrastructure twice. And then refuse to buy from any non-coop service provider.
I don't think this will go anywhere while gas prices are where they are