Call the Deep Green “data center” what it is: a power plant in a poor neighborhood.
The community learned only recently that the proposed project at “220 S. Larch Street and 3 adjoining parcels” would rely upon fuel cell technology (“New Details Emerge About New Data Center,” LSJ 2/5/26). The US Department of Energy writes “A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or other fuels to cleanly and efficiently produce energy” (energy.gov). Setting aside arguments about whether the process really is “clean” or “efficient,” it is clear that fuel cells are used to produce energy, such as electricity or heat. Fuel cells “provide power,” as the DOE states.
The UK start-up Deep Green wants to situate a power plant in our urban core, in a neighborhood with one of the lowest tree equity scores in the city of Lansing. Lack of tree canopy goes hand in hand with poverty. Supporters of the “data center” call this area “vacant” and “derelict,” erasing material realities of that specific part of the city, which, yes, is a neighborhood. The “vacant parking lot” is perhaps a vestige of the historic removal and partition of residential communities surrounding downtown Lansing. Engineering and urban planning projects, like the creation of Interstate 496, forced people to give up their homes for those downtown parking lots…