Oct 2, 2026 · 50 min · 10 segments
As the AI boom continues, development of massive gigawatt-scale data centers has spread to regions in the United States beyond "Data Center Alley." The Midwest, with its abundant fresh water and…
Anna HaenschGuestEmilie LozierHostIt sounds like the uniting theme there is that these facilities have simply become unavoidable as we're considering these related energy questions.
And, you know, I'm glad you kind of dug into a little bit in your answer, Kavi, uh, on how there are impacts even beyond energy.
You know, we're hearing a lot about, uh, rising utility costs, sure, um, but also water usage, noise and air pollution, and so on.
How should the average citizen or policymakers and local officials be sorting through all of that information? Like, what do you see as being protections that are urgently needed right now?
So I work, uh, Voltala is a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, and we've been doing a number of town halls across the state of Illinois to learn about what people's main concerns are, and that includes folks that are in neighborhoods and communities where data centers have been built and ones where there have been ones proposed and ones where there hasn't been any action at all, but they're hearing about this, you know, from, from neighbors.
And I think definitely one of the big ones is the impact, the immediate impact of backup diesel generators and how they have such a high level of noise and air pollution.
But folks are alr- also learning more about the impacts on our energy, on our power grid, and on our water resources.
So that might be something that the regular, the average person isn't super well informed about, like the, you know, how the grid works and how water resources work and all of that.
But they hear that, and they're certainly seeing those effects on their utility bills.
The last thing I'll say that folks are concerned about is definitely transparency, and I think that is another, frankly, like, easy thing to solve, which is just, like, making sure that there's public notice for when data centers are interested in building in a certain locality, making sure that communities have ample time for engagement, because there have been cases where data center companies, you know, come to local government, say, like, "We wanna build," and the public isn't notified until quite late into the process, and by that time, it's kind of a done deal.
Turning to you now, Anna, I know you've gone to a lot of town halls in Wisconsin as well.
Does this reflect the public sentiment that you're hearing in those venues? Also, can you give some background on why you started going to those town halls? What's it like to be at one in person?
Um, so I started traveling around the state this spring with a group of folks from the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension.
They have representatives in every county of the state, and their goal is to bring the fruits of the university across to every resident of the state.
[laughs] And I believe that initially the goal had been to have a forum about, like, incorporating AI workflows into local governments, but then data centers just, like, really popped off, so they plugged in a data center module into this, let's call it, like, an AI roadshow, and they invited me to join them, and it was really cool.
Um, so I got to travel around speaking to representatives from local and tribal governments, and they were usually in, like, like, hotel ballrooms with, like, 50 to 100 people, and I just had this spiel about data centers, just kind of the technical ins and outs, things you wanna think about.
What are the kind of, like, relevant high points? What are the things you wanna ask when you're approached? And my goal for those forums was not to be pro or anti-data center really, but to say, like, "This is what it is, and this is what you need to know when someone's coming to talk to you about it.
Here are the questions you wanna ask to be as empowered as you can possibly be What I noticed most was that, like, people are just people everywhere, and people don't wanna be taken advantage of.
It sounds like the uniting theme there is that these facilities have simply become unavoidable as we're considering these related energy questions.
And, you know, I'm glad you kind of dug into a little bit in your answer, Kavi, uh, on how there are impacts even beyond energy.
You know, we're hearing a lot about, uh, rising utility costs, sure, um, but also water usage, noise and air pollution, and so on.
How should the average citizen or policymakers and local officials be sorting through all of that information? Like, what do you see as being protections that are urgently needed right now?
So I work, uh, Voltala is a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, and we've been doing a number of town halls across the state of Illinois to learn about what people's main concerns are, and that includes folks that are in neighborhoods and communities where data centers have been built and ones where there have been ones proposed and ones where there hasn't been any action at all, but they're hearing about this, you know, from, from neighbors.
And I think definitely one of the big ones is the impact, the immediate impact of backup diesel generators and how they have such a high level of noise and air pollution.
But folks are alr- also learning more about the impacts on our energy, on our power grid, and on our water resources.
So that might be something that the regular, the average person isn't super well informed about, like the, you know, how the grid works and how water resources work and all of that.
But they hear that, and they're certainly seeing those effects on their utility bills.
The last thing I'll say that folks are concerned about is definitely transparency, and I think that is another, frankly, like, easy thing to solve, which is just, like, making sure that there's public notice for when data centers are interested in building in a certain locality, making sure that communities have ample time for engagement, because there have been cases where data center companies, you know, come to local government, say, like, "We wanna build," and the public isn't notified until quite late into the process, and by that time, it's kind of a done deal.
Turning to you now, Anna, I know you've gone to a lot of town halls in Wisconsin as well.
Does this reflect the public sentiment that you're hearing in those venues? Also, can you give some background on why you started going to those town halls? What's it like to be at one in person?
Um, so I started traveling around the state this spring with a group of folks from the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension.
They have representatives in every county of the state, and their goal is to bring the fruits of the university across to every resident of the state.
[laughs] And I believe that initially the goal had been to have a forum about, like, incorporating AI workflows into local governments, but then data centers just, like, really popped off, so they plugged in a data center module into this, let's call it, like, an AI roadshow, and they invited me to join them, and it was really cool.
Um, so I got to travel around speaking to representatives from local and tribal governments, and they were usually in, like, like, hotel ballrooms with, like, 50 to 100 people, and I just had this spiel about data centers, just kind of the technical ins and outs, things you wanna think about.
What are the kind of, like, relevant high points? What are the things you wanna ask when you're approached? And my goal for those forums was not to be pro or anti-data center really, but to say, like, "This is what it is, and this is what you need to know when someone's coming to talk to you about it.
Here are the questions you wanna ask to be as empowered as you can possibly be What I noticed most was that, like, people are just people everywhere, and people don't wanna be taken advantage of.
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