From Nathan Dombeck

Janesville

To the Editor:

The ‘Mistake by the Lake’ epithet is commonly applied to Cleveland, Ohio; probably unfairly. An even bigger mistake by the lake is brewing in Wisconsin — the Port Washington Vantage Data Center.

While it is true that we require infrastructure to support our increasingly digital lives, is this the sort of development we’d like to attract to small and picturesque communities across Wisconsin? The downsides of data centers are well-documented and debated, but consider this: WE Energies plans to build out 6 GW of power generation in the short term to support such a data centers. 2 GW of this power will be from fossil fuels. The Vantage Data Center is projected to be the largest single energy user in the state.

The earth is rapidly reaching and blowing past tipping points that lead to more extreme weather events, damaging storms, changing rainfall patterns — and these effects are directly correlated to human-caused emissions. Do we really want to lock in decades more fossil fuel infrastructure for a data center? Can our land, water, and people really bear the brunt of the pollution and resource degradation that comes with dirty energy sources and data centers?