The proposed Naperville data center raises serious unanswered questions regarding fiscal responsibility, transparency and risk to taxpayers. Residents have repeatedly asked whether the project has a committed operator, secured financing, a concrete power delivery plan with enforceable timelines, and clear responsibility for costly off-site grid upgrades. Tax revenue projections based on near constant peak load also depart from industry norms and remain unexplained.
This project would directly impact four, soon to be five, neighborhoods representing more than an estimated 1,000 residents, and a petition opposing the proposal has gathered nearly 5,000 signatures. Despite extensive testimony and detailed submissions from resident and nonresident experts, many core issues remain unresolved, including discrepancies in noise studies, emissions, home value pricing impact analyses and projected tax analyses. Residents are increasingly concerned not only about the lack of answers but also whether all submitted information is even being fully reviewed.
How does a proposal that generated standing-room-only opposition and failed to meet required conditions still pass the Planning and Zoning Commission with only one dissenting vote? What changed after early indications the project would be denied? And how can a data center be sited next to homes and forest preserves at all, let alone without full transparency?
If these fundamentals remain uncertain, approving the project would shift legal, financial and planning risk onto the city rather than the developer. Even if these questions were fully answered and the project shown to be viable, it should be located on a site consistent with the city’s land use master plan, not on a parcel currently designated for future medium-density residential use.
Public confidence depends on decisions grounded in complete information, careful review and sound policy, not personal or partisan considerations. A project of this scale warrants caution, not haste.
— Sarah Baugh, Naperville
Renewable energy needs
The Jan. 11 editorial (“Ready or not, the data centers are coming. We must keep our electric bills from soaring”) rightly raises concerns about how the explosive growth of data centers will affect the reliability and affordability of electricity in Illinois. Requiring data center owners to shoulder the cost of new power generation and grid upgrades — rather than shifting those costs onto ratepayers — is essential. Households, seniors and small businesses already struggling with rising utility bills should not be forced to subsidize energy-intensive corporate users.
The Tribune Editorial Board weakens its argument, however, by downplaying renewable energy while pointing to nuclear power as an alternative. Climate change is already imposing real costs on Illinois residents, from extreme weather to higher insurance and infrastructure expenses. Nuclear power carries unresolved risks, including the potential for accidents, the absence of a proven long-term solution for radioactive waste, serious dangers to uranium miners and the decades required to bring new plants online. It is also the most expensive form of energy to build.
Renewable energy is not only cleaner and safer — it also is the cheapest and fastest way to curb rising electricity rates. The recently enacted Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act provides funding for virtual power plants, battery storage and energy-efficiency rebates that can quickly increase supply, reduce demand and lower customer bills.
Illinois has been a national leader in clean energy policy. As electricity demand grows, the solution is not to retreat from renewables but to double down on them — and to ensure that large corporate users pay their fair share.
— Mardi Klevs, Third Act Illinois, Evanston
Consuming land and water
The Tribune Editorial Board writes in its Sunday editorial, “Energy-intensive data centers are the backbone for artificial intelligence,” and then it goes on to present information about the centers’ dramatically increasing energy hunger. This presents difficult challenges for both energy providers and consumers.
But there’s another major concern that legacy media may pass over — the use and consumption of water and land for these centers. Data centers are resource-ravenous; even a midsize data center may consume as much water as a small town, while larger ones may use up to 5 million gallons of water every day — as much as a city of 50,000 people, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
The Lincoln Institute notes: “Some of the largest data centers being built today will cover hundreds of acres with impermeable steel, concrete, and paved surfaces—land that will no longer be available for farmland, nature, or housing—and require new transmission line corridors and other associated infrastructure as well.”
Further, and unfortunately for all of us, lawmakers aren’t just opening the door for these new developments; they are seeking them. The Lincoln Institute reports: “In Loudoun County (in Virginia), which has over 27 million square feet of existing data center space, officials expect the total real and property tax revenues collected from local data centers in fiscal year 2025 to approach $900 million, nearly as much as the county’s entire operating budget.”
Data centers need more than electricity, they also need significant amounts of water to keep cool. It may seem like we have an abundance of water in our nearby lakes, but each of us needs to take a look at our weather, our climate, our land, our electricity use and our water use and decide how much artificial intelligence we really want and need. Will our environment, our neighborhoods and our health be sacrificed to provide profit for developers and energy providers?
If it is true that “ratepayers shouldn’t be taking the risk on these massive investments,” then I hope the Tribune Editorial Board and the people of Illinois will consider that these massive developments for AI threaten more than just our pocketbooks. They will take our land and our water, too.
— Patrick Comer, Clarendon Hills
Dialogue on agreements
Thank you so much for the Sunday editorial on data centers. Chicago and Illinois simply avoided this necessary conversation on how best to proceed with data centers. The editorial will set the stage for important public dialogue on our technology, water, energy and land agreements with private industries.
— John Paul Jones, president, Sustainable Englewood Initiatives, Chicago
They need their own supply
So that Illinois ratepayers will not have to bear the cost of the increase in electricity demand by data centers, the legislature needs to pass legislation that requires data centers to build renewable energy facilities on their sites. If the centers need so much electricity, then make them pay for their own supply.
— Joanne Zolomij, Evanston
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