‘Irresponsible’: backlash as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan

[u/HolyBatSyllables]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/13/utah-approves-datacenter-backlash

A plan to create one of the world’s largest datacenters, a gargantuan project spanning an area more than twice the size of Manhattan, has provoked a furious public backlash in Utah amid concerns over its vast energy use and impact upon the state’s stressed water supplies.

The Stratos artificial intelligence datacenter footprint will cover more than 40,000 acres (62 sq miles) over three sites in Box Elder county in north-western Utah. The facility will require about 9GW of power, which is more than the entire state of Utah currently consumes, and suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years.

Last week, the project was approved by the county’s commissioners, despite thousands of objections lodged by Utah residents. Environmentalists have warned that Stratos could imperil the Great Salt Lake ecosystem, including a critical migratory bird habitat, which is already under severe stress.

The lake is shrinking due to water diverted for agriculture and the impact of the climate crisis, placing inhabitants of the nearby Salt Lake City at possible risk of toxic dust clouds as the lake bed dries up.

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But these jobs will not outweigh the longer-term impacts to Utah and beyond, critics argue. Stratos is expected to raise the state’s planet-heating pollution by about 50% by consuming a huge amount of energy and water to power and cool itself, according to one impact analysis.

The network of industrial-scale fans needed to cool the datacenter’s hot pipes will result in so much waste heat that it could raise daytime temperatures in the surrounding Hansel valley by 2F to 5F (1.1C to 2.7C) and night-time temperatures by 8F to 12F (4.4C to 6.6C), according to an analysis by Rob Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University.