The heat flowing through 10 miles of pipe underneath downtown Lansing is generated by natural gas.
流经市中心兰辛地下 10 英里管道的热量是由天然气产生的。
But come 2027, Lansing Board of Water and Light customers downtown may be getting their heat from a novel source: Racks of computers lining a new data center in the city’s stadium district.
但到了 2027 年，兰辛市水电局市中心的客户可能会从一种新颖的能源获取热量：城市体育场区一座新数据中心的计算机机架。
U.K.-based data center builders Deep Green are partnering with Lansing’s BWL and proposing a 24-megawatt data center at the intersection of Kalamazoo and South Cedar streets. The $120 million project, which could begin construction in March 2026 if approved, differs from most other data centers not just because of its smaller size and being deep inside a city, but because the heat it generates would go to the BWL.
总部位于英国的 Deep Green 数据中心建设商正与兰辛的 BWL 合作，提议在卡拉马祖和南雪松街的交叉口建设一座 24 兆瓦的数据中心。这个耗资 1.2 亿美元的项目，如果获得批准，可能在 2026 年 3 月开始建设。它与其他数据中心的不同之处不仅在于规模较小且位于城市深处，还在于它产生的热量将供应给 BWL。
That’s a win-win for Lansing, said Deep Green founder and CEO Mark Lee and BWL General Manager Dick Peffley, at a news conference Monday.
在周一的新闻发布会上，Deep Green 创始人兼 CEO 马克·李和 BWL 总经理迪克·佩弗利表示，这对兰辛来说是一个双赢的局面。
“A lot of data centers spend an incredible amount of money cooling their process,” Peffley said. “Well, we need heat — that’s what keeps our downtown heating customers happy — and they want to get rid of it, so this is the perfect marriage.”
“许多数据中心在冷却过程中花费了巨额资金，”佩弗利说。“而我们恰恰需要热量——那正是让我们的市中心供暖客户满意的关键——他们想要去除这些热量，所以这简直是天作之合。”
Environmental and energy concerns around data centers have been growing along with the buildings themselves as the AI technologies continue to evolve. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company predicted in April that data centers equipped to handle AI processing would require over $5 trillion in investment by 2030. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in June that data centers would push U.S. energy consumption to record highs.
随着人工智能技术的不断发展，数据中心本身的环境和能源问题也在日益增长。咨询公司麦肯锡公司于四月预测，到 2030 年，用于处理人工智能数据的数据中心将需要超过 5 万亿美元的投资。美国能源信息署于六月表示，数据中心将使美国能源消耗达到历史新高。
But despite having by far the most data centers in the world, the U.S. has lagged behind the U.K. and Europe in finding uses for the excess heat that all those AI queries are generating. In Sweden, for instance, Microsoft is building a data center region expected to heat an entire large city. In the US, a Biden-era executive order to expand research into data center heat reuse was overturned this year by President Trump.
但尽管美国拥有世界上最多的数据中心，该国在利用这些 AI 查询产生的多余热量方面却落后于英国和欧洲。例如，在瑞典，微软正在建设一个数据中心区域，预计将加热整个大城市的范围。在美国，一项旨在扩大数据中心热量再利用研究的拜登政府行政命令今年被特朗普总统推翻。
It should come as no surprise, then, that a U.K.-based company is leading the charge to bring sustainable data centers to Michigan. And it’s the BWL that made the city a perfect fit.
因此，一家总部位于英国的公司正引领着将可持续数据中心引入密歇根的浪潮。而 BWL 正是让这座城市成为完美选择的原因。
“We approached a number of sites across the U.S., and in BWL we found a partner that was both willing to be innovative in the way it thinks about power provision, which is extremely important to us, but was also willing to be innovative about putting a data center into its existing key network,” Lee said.
“我们考察了美国多个地点，在 BWL 我们找到了一个愿意在电力供应方式上创新的合作伙伴，这对我们来说极其重要，而且他也愿意在将其数据中心建入现有关键网络方面进行创新，”李说。
The project could save the BWL around $1.1 million because the center would donate its excess heat generated by the center, and Peffley said it would additionally offset about a quarter of the fuel the BWL burns for its heating customers and could minimize future rate increases by reducing expenses.
该项目可为 BWL 节省约 110 万美元，因为数据中心将捐赠其产生的多余热量，而 Peffley 表示这将额外抵消 BWL 为其供暖客户燃烧的四分之一燃料，并通过减少开支来最小化未来的费率上涨。
He also said Deep Green will pay for all infrastructure upgrades necessary to implement the heat-reuse program, keeping customers off the hook for those costs.
他还表示，Deep Green 将支付实施热量再利用计划所需的所有基础设施升级费用，从而让客户不必承担这些成本。
The Lansing project will be Deep Green’s sixth and largest yet, according to its website, but it still pales in comparison to the massive data operations making headlines elsewhere. The footprint will be less than an acre, compared to the 250-acre project causing controversy in Saline Township, and will use 24 megawatts compared to the Saline project’s 1,400 megawatts.
根据其官网信息，兰辛项目将是 Deep Green 的第六个也是规模最大的项目，但与在其他地方引发关注的庞大数据中心相比仍相形见绌。该项目占地面积不到一英亩，而萨尔因镇引发争议的项目占地达 250 英亩，且 Deep Green 项目将使用 24 兆瓦，而萨尔因项目的使用量是 1400 兆瓦。
Peffley said that energy usage would have been “considerably higher” if Deep Green had to dispose of the heat itself, making the relationship symbiotic.
Peffley 表示，如果 Deep Green 需要自行处理热量，能源消耗将会“显著更高”，这种关系是共生性的。
Emma Bostwick, vice president of business attraction for the Lansing Economic Area Partnership, said the project was a major win for Lansing on an international scale.
兰辛经济区合作企业业务吸引副总裁埃玛·博斯维克表示，该项目对兰辛在国际上是一个重大胜利。
“We are competing internationally, and we’ve won this project as the first flagship for America,” she said.
她说：“我们在国际市场上竞争，我们已经赢得了这个项目，作为美国的首个旗舰项目。”
Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tim Daman said he was excited to see “high-tech economic activity” along what is currently a parking lot.
兰辛地区商会总裁兼首席执行官蒂姆·达曼表示，他很高兴看到目前是一个停车场的地方出现了“高科技经济活动”。
The project will be more efficient than traditional data centers, according to Lee, citing a projected power usage effectiveness (PUE) between 1.03-1.17. A low PUE, a ratio of power used by a data center to energy delivered to computing equipment, signals high efficiency. Data centers average around 1.8, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
李先生表示，该项目比传统数据中心更高效，引用了预计的电源使用效率（PUE）在 1.03-1.17 之间。低 PUE，即数据中心使用的电力与输送给计算设备的能源之比，标志着高效率。据国家可再生能源实验室的数据，数据中心的平均 PUE 约为 1.8。
Lee said there would be an estimated 35 or more construction jobs and the new architecture of the building was designed by local firm C2AE.
李表示，预计将有 35 个或更多的建筑工作，而这座新建筑的架构是由当地公司 C2AE 设计的。
Doug Bessette is an associate professor in Michigan State University’s department of community sustainability. He studies community support and opposition to large-scale renewable energy projects, and said concerns around data centers have been “a natural extension” of that work.
道格·贝塞特是密歇根州立大学社区可持续性系的副教授。他研究社区对大型可再生能源项目的支持与反对，并表示数据中心方面的担忧是他那项工作的“自然延伸”。
His feelings on the project are mixed.
他对这个项目的看法是复杂的。
“If you’re going to assume that we need to continue to build data centers because we want to pursue AI and cloud computing and cloud storage, this is the way I would recommend we do it,” he said.
“如果你认为我们需要继续建设数据中心，因为我们要追求人工智能、云计算和云存储，那么这就是我建议我们这样做的方式，”他说。
He described Deep Green’s perspective toward AI and cloud computing as “fatalistic,” saying the company seems to believe the continued demand for data centers is inevitable. If that’s the case, then recapturing and reusing the heat is the best path forward, Bessette said, but he doesn’t share that view.
他将 Deep Green 对人工智能和云计算的看法描述为“宿命论”，称该公司似乎认为对数据中心的持续需求是不可避免的。如果情况如此，那么回收和再利用热量就是前进的最佳途径，贝塞特表示，但他并不认同这种观点。
Bessette said he is nervous about both the potential risks of AI technologies themselves and their climate and energy impacts, so he doesn’t want to wholeheartedly support advancements in data center technology in any form.
贝塞特表示，他对人工智能技术的潜在风险及其气候和能源影响都感到紧张，因此他不想全力支持任何形式的数据中心技术进步。
“But if you think this is the way we’re going, then I would rather the data centers be built the way Deep Green has proposed this one,” he said.
“但如果你们认为这就是我们要走的路，那么我宁愿数据中心按照 Deep Green 提出的这个方案来建造，”他说。
He said he likes the project’s smaller scale and integration into an urban area, where it will generate tax revenue and keep the costs and benefits in the eyes of people actually using the center.
他说他喜欢这个项目的小规模，以及它融入城市区域的方式，在那里它将产生税收收入，并将成本和效益置于实际使用中心的人们眼中。
But he also said the sustainability focus is somewhat misleading.
但他也表示，可持续性重点有些误导。
“A data center will never be sustainable,” he said. “It will always require more energy to run than it could ever produce. So they’re arguing that it’s sustainable because it’s almost carbon-neutral and they’re producing heat the BWL needs anyway — well, yeah, but you also have to power the data center.”
“数据中心永远不会可持续，”他说。“它运行所需的能源永远多于它所能产生的能源。所以他们认为它可持续，因为它几乎实现了碳中和，并且它们产生的热量 BWL 无论如何都需要——好吧，是的，但你还得为数据中心供电。”
Peffley said the BWL has the surplus energy to power the center.
Peffley 表示 BWL 有足够的剩余能源为该中心供电。
Asked why he thought a project more familiar to Europeans will work in the U.S., Lee said, “It’s the right thing to do.”
被问及为何他认为一个在欧洲更熟悉的项目能在美国成功时，李说：“这是正确的做法。”
“It seems entirely logical for us to be reusing the heat that we produce from our servers and our computer capacity to actually decarbonize the heat networks that we operate within,” he said. “So it is the right thing to do, and that is absolutely the starting premise that we work from.”
他说：“对我们来说，利用我们服务器和计算能力产生的热量来实际脱碳我们运营的热力网络，这似乎完全合乎逻辑。所以这是正确的做法，这也是我们工作的基本前提。”