{"id":123,"date":"2026-05-23T19:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2026-05-23T19:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:38:51","slug":"critics-warn-utah-megadata-center-could-devastate-great-salt-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"Critics Warn Utah Megadata Center Could Devastate Great Salt Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plans for a celebrity-backed \u201chyperscale\u201d data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state\u2019s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is \u201cindustry\u201d and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development.<\/p>\n

The project, brought by \u201cShark Tank\u201d TV personality Kevin O\u2019Leary, would span 40,000 acres, demand 9 gigawatts of power once completed, and raise the state\u2019s carbon emissions by 64 percent, according to estimates. While its water needs remain unknown, the sprawling data center would neighbor the northernmost tip of the shrinking Great Salt Lake, which will likely hit a record-low elevation this year following an unprecedented dry winter.<\/p>\n

It could also create a massive heat island capable of devastating the area\u2019s ecology, said Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University. Davies estimated that the finished project would cover about as many square miles as Washington, D.C., making it the largest data center on the planet, and that it could produce enough heat to spike nighttime temperatures by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit in the high-desert valley. <\/p>\n

\u201cI suspected it would not be good,\u201d Davies said. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve found is, it\u2019s so much worse than I even thought it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of the proposed data complex, dubbed the Stratos Project, became public in April after the three commissioners of Box Elder County, the mostly agricultural community that would host it, approved the project. They pointed to the project\u2019s approval by more powerful state agencies and asserted that stopping it was out of their hands, while refusing to hear comments from more than 1,000 people who showed up to share their concerns. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, has since walked back some of his full-throated support.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany are asking questions about water, air quality, energy, land use, and the long-term impact on rural Utah,\u201d Cox wrote in a thread on X earlier this month after intense public outcry over the project. \u201cThose are real concerns, and all Utahns should expect clear standards and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The controversy in Utah is a stark illustration of a wider trend. Across the United States, data centers are drawing bipartisan backlash as communities clash with tech giants and developers over strained water supplies and spiking energy costs.<\/p>\n

At least two other massive data campus projects are proposed elsewhere in Utah, but they have not received anywhere near the pushback as the Stratos Project. Many opponents have pointed to efforts state leaders have made in recent years to support water conservation \u2014 Utah is among the driest states in the country \u2014 and the state legislature\u2019s multimillion dollar investments to help the Great Salt Lake refill. The lake\u2019s drying bed has already become a source of toxic dust threatening the health of millions of residents living on the Wasatch Front, Utah\u2019s urban core. <\/p>\n

It seems contradictory, then, to build a potentially water-intensive and explosively hot industrial development right next door to such an endangered and iconic spot. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe greed behind this deal is clearly blinding the officials to just how much is at stake for the rest of us,\u201d wrote Monika Norwid of Salt Lake City, one of the Utah residents who sent comments to the state\u2019s Division of Water Rights protesting the project. \u201cI refuse to let this greed imperil our already fragile wildlife, I refuse to allow some useless technology steal the rest of our insufficient water for a project that is way beyond the scale of this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with CNN,<\/em> O\u2019Leary downplayed the environmental impact of his project, saying Stratos is \u201cnot going to destroy air quality\u201d and \u201cnot going to drain the Great Salt Lake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Pritchett, a cofounder of West GenCo, the developer partnering with O\u2019Leary Digital Limited on the project, said that they plan to purchase roughly 3,000 acre\u2011feet of on\u2011site water rights and already have around 10,000 acre\u2011feet under contract from the nearby town of Snowville if needed. <\/p>\n

Added together, that\u2019s enough water to supply the basic needs of more than 20,000 Utah households. Utah\u2019s Division of Water Rights has only received one application for the project so far \u2014 to transfer 1,900 acre-feet currently used for irrigation by the Bar H Ranch. That application was pulled last week, but a representative with the ranch said it will refile and \u201cfully intends to move forward with the project.\u201d A division spokesperson said they anticipate more applications from the data center developers soon.<\/p>\n

Some scientists worry the project\u2019s power demands and resulting heat island effect will transform its high-desert climate into something more akin to the Sahara.<\/p>\n

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Stratos would build its own power plant, state supporters have said, and its fuel will likely come from a corridor carrying natural gas from Wyoming to Nevada, Oregon, and California called the Ruby Pipeline. O\u2019Leary specifically chose Box Elder County\u2019s Hansel Valley to build the complex because the pipeline spans it, state officials have said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could generate power at a significant level,\u201d said Paul Morris, executive director of Utah\u2019s Military Installation Development Authority, a powerful quasi-governmental state agency that provides tax incentives for development, during a public meeting in April. \u201cThis location was picked because of the gas pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies, the physics professor, has done some back-of-the-envelope calculations to better understand the sheer scale of the 9-gigawatt project. And what he\u2019s penciled out so far has him alarmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cNine gigawatts, that\u2019s a number that\u2019s really challenging to get your brain around,\u201d the professor said. \u201dCommunicating the scale has been a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire project will actually produce roughly 16 gigawatts of thermal energy, according to Davies. It starts with the massive on-site power generation, which will generate 7 to 8 gigawatts of waste heat just producing the needed electricity for the data center, since gas plants are only about 57 percent efficient.<\/p>\n

And once that electricity reaches the data center, every watt will turn into pure heat, because anytime a gadget consumes power, it converts it into heat, Davies explained, whether it\u2019s a toaster, a car, or a sprawling rack of computer servers.<\/p>\n

Typically, waste heat from end uses of electricity is dumped far from a power plant, in homes, businesses, or on roads where it dissipates. In this case, the Stratos project will release roughly 16 gigawatts of thermal energy into Hansel Valley, according to Davies. That trapped thermal load is the \u201cequivalent of about 23 atom bombs\u2019 worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day,\u201d Davies said.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the project would wipe out the landscape with an explosion or release dangerous nuclear radiation, but the heat it creates could devastate the local ecology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens if you deposit that much energy continuously into a topography like this?\u201d Davies wondered. \u201cRight at the north end of the Great Salt Lake, a watershed that\u2019s in collapse. A high-desert environment? A valley?\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies thinks dumping that much heat into Hansel Valley will raise local temperatures by 5 degrees F during the day and up to 28 degrees at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the difference between Utah\u2019s semi-arid climate and the Sahara Desert,\u201d said Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University who has reviewed Davies\u2019 estimates. \u201cThis would absolutely change the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evaporation would spike. The dew point could collapse, with devastating consequences on wildlife, plants, and the fertility of land owned by other ranchers in the valley, Abbott and Davies said. Abbott suspects Hansel Valley would become another source of dust on the Wasatch Front, in addition to the exposed and drying lake bed of the shrinking Great Salt Lake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to be further educated. Maybe I\u2019m getting something wrong here,\u201d Davies said. \u201cBut that is kind of the point, right? You literally have a hyperscale project that is getting no due diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The proposed \u201chyperscale\u201d campus would strain water, energy, and local ecology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nCritics Warn Utah Megadata Center Could Devastate Great Salt Lake - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=123\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Critics Warn Utah Megadata Center Could Devastate Great Salt Lake - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The proposed \u201chyperscale\u201d campus would strain water, energy, and local ecology.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=123\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-23T19:38:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"Critics Warn Utah Megadata Center Could Devastate Great Salt Lake\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-23T19:38:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123\"},\"wordCount\":1393,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/f9ff36e2205e9a83ad2f47270e7ba03c.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=123\",\"name\":\"Critics Warn Utah Megadata Center Could Devastate Great Salt Lake - 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