Will utility ratepayers foot the bill for the data center boom?

Wisconsin utilities are gearing up to provide power for several proposed data centers, each of which could use as much electricity as an entire city.

Chemical engineering may not be the first discipline that comes to mind when we think about protecting the environment, but in honor of Earth Day, the College of Engineering highlighted the efforts of several Wisconsin Energy Institute researchers from this often overlooked field to find solution

Just a few years ago, the technology seemed to be heading for the exits, at least in the United States. But with new data centers threatening to overwhelm the current grid, nuclear power — including traditional fission plants, experimental small reactors, and potentially fusion — could be on the verge of a renaissance. 

By digging, burrowing, eating, stomping, and piling, wild animals expend at least 76,000 gigajoules per year reshaping the planet, the equivalent of half a million extreme floods.

Chippewa County is one of the nation’s first Biofuel Development Opportunity Zones, a designation signalling readiness for bio-based manufacturing. With the frac sand industry in retreat, the goal is to leverage the massive rail terminals left behind to capitalize on the county’s rich agricultural resources. 

Renewable sources accounted for a record-high 10% of Wisconsin's electricity output in 2024 as a raft of new projects helped double solar energy output.

Fox, the Marvin J. Johnson Professor in Fermentation Biochemistry and chair of the biochemistry department, was among four faculty selected by their peers as winners of the 2025 Hilldale Award.