"A Regional Playbook for Managing Data Center Impacts in the Great Lakes" is a community/citizen guide that includes checklists for asking the right questions that was published in March.  Download it at:

https://greatlakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/AGL_DataCenter_Playbook_2026_Final.pdf

 

"A Finite Resource: Managing the Growing Water Needs of Data Centers, Critical Minerals Mining and Agriculture in the Great Lakes Region," while not specific solely to data centers gives a good background on water needs for data centers.  This was published in August 2025 and can be found at:

https://greatlakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AGL_WaterUse_Report_Aug2025_Final.pdf

 

Fact Sheet: https://greatlakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AGL_WaterUse_Report_Aug2025_Factsheet.pdf

 

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For electric usage, the "United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update" is helpful.  This can be found at:

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33m6w3x0

 

University of Virginia's Data Centers Fact Sheets :

https://www.coopercenter.org/topic-fact-sheets

 

Another "toolkit" for asking the right questions:

https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/data-center-policy-guide?_x_zm_rtaid=W2z38Cr1Qsa9G4A0TX79Pg.1767912847522.decd0eb0d4d7856261d6d372c0ae77e5&_x_zm_rhtaid=991

 

A handy map to track data centers and related power projects is at:

https://cleanview.co/

 

While this is from Scotland, it is an interesting analysis on the (false) promise of job creation using a data set from Virginia:

https://aprs.scot/resources/employment-and-data-centres-aprs-report/

 

What is the difference between small "micro" or "colocation" data centers that we've relied on for many years (medical field, company use, credit card transactions) vs. hyperscale data centers for A.I. ,etc. that are the electric/water guzzlers of today.  It is good to be prepared for those trying to justify data centers as having been around a long time for "The Cloud." 

Hyperscalers are beyond that. 

Here is a reference that might help in those discussions. 

https://www.matrix-ndi.com/resources/hyperscale-vs-colocation-data-centers-a-beginners-guide/