The angry crowd’s jeers outweighed the voices of commissioners and guests, especially when they spoke about water rights and the county’s tax revenue prospects stemming from the project. Many in the audience asked to allow presenters to be heard, but shouts prevailed throughout the meeting.
No one was escorted out, but instead commissioners left the room and broadcast their quick vote on a screen available to the public.
“Cowards,” some in the audience yelled. Others repeatedly shouted “people over profit.”
The resolutions were required by state law to allow the Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, to move forward with the Stratos project. MIDA, an entity created by the Utah Legislature to advance economic development with a military focus, needed local consent since the data center would be located on private land without zoning regulations. [...]
The data center campus sponsored by Kevin O’Leary, a celebrity investor featured in the reality TV hit “Shark Tank,” is set to house its own natural gas plant to supply 9 gigawatts of energy to self-sustain the center, more than double what the entire state consumes in a year. That power generation will be isolated from the grid Utahns share, so it wouldn’t have any effect on utility rates, developers say.
Developers are also planning on using a closed-loop system to cool their equipment, using privately-owned water rights that are unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. But, without a definitive environmental study, the public remains skeptical. [...]
‘We can’t build anything in this country anymore’
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Thursday, during his monthly news conference broadcast by PBS Utah, that at the rate in which machine learning and artificial intelligence is changing, building data centers has become a national security issue.
“We have an obligation, I think every state has an obligation, when it comes to this space, to allow for these types of data centers to be built in their states,” Cox said. “We have to do this. We can’t just say ‘no’ and shut the doors and go home and let China win this, this technology race, so that just can’t be an option.”
Data centers can’t be installed everywhere, and the government should be careful with its resources, but this site may be able to fulfill environmental standards and won’t be someone’s nextdoor neighbor, Cox said.
“If you can’t put this here, then we can’t put them anywhere,” Cox said.
He also fiercely disputed that the approval process has been rushed.
“I’m so tired of our country taking years to get stuff done. It’s the dumbest thing ever. We think that taking time makes things better or safer, it absolutely does not,” he said. “You get a chance to give your feedback, and then decisions get made. That’s how we have to do stuff in this country and in this state.”
The state denies many requests because of feedback, but it can’t say no to everything, Cox said.
“We’ve let the people against virtually everything, destroy our country, destroy our industrial base, destroy our mining base, destroy our housing base, because we can’t build anything in this country anymore,” he said. “And those days are over. We’re done with that.”
