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This episode was recorded Sept. 16, 2026.
Read the transcript
Diego Mendoza-Moyers: Hey, all, one quick update before we get into the show. We recorded this episode before some news broke Thursday involving Project Jupiter.
The New Mexico Supreme Court lifted its stay on the air permit proceeding for the project’s fuel-cell power plant. That means the state can now restart the permitting process and schedule a new hearing. Project Jupiter still does not have the air permit it needs to operate, but the process to get one is moving again.
So, when you hear us talk about the data center’s air permit in this episode, just know we recorded when the permit hearing was paused and the Supreme Court had not ruled one way or the other yet.
Today: more news and notes on data center projects in El Paso.
When it comes to Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa and Meta’s data center in Northeast El Paso, there’s a lot going on.
Both Meta and Oracle have gone on a PR blitz lately, issuing press releases touting new donations and investments in El Paso. At the same time, both data centers still need to clear big hurdles before they can actually go into operation.
So, as of mid-September, what is the actual status of both data centers? And what should El Pasoans keep an eye on in the near future?
I’m Diego Mendoza-Moyers, a reporter with El Paso Matters. In a moment, El Paso Matters Assistant Editor Pablo Villa will join me to talk through the data center topic, including what we’re hearing about the economic impacts of the projects and some thoughts on the environmental questions both data centers present.
First, this El Paso Matters Podcast episode is brought to you by our podcast title sponsor Tawney, Acosta and Chaparro, truck crash and injury attorneys. Their team of local, seasoned trial attorneys are ready to help if you’ve been injured in a crash.
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Now, onto the show.
Pablo, good to be with you as always.
Pablo Villa: Diego, thank you very much for having me. Always a pleasure to be in the host seat. So, thank you.
You sort of set the stage for us already. Data centers have become a major issue on both sides of the state line here in El Paso and in southern New Mexico. Large projects planned, under construction (on) both sides. You’ve done a really great job of reporting extensively on those projects over the past several months – over the last year, really. What they could mean for economic development, but also the questions they’ve raised with regard to things like electricity, water, infrastructure and oversight.
There hasn’t been one major development that brings us back today, but there has been quite a bit that’s happened since we last took a broad look at the data center industry back in the summer. Companies have made new announcements, some financial commitments, some projects have moved forward others have sort of run into some hurdles. There are also some important decisions coming up that could help determine what happens next.
So, today, I’m hoping you can help us take stock of where things stand, what’s changed, and what people should be watching in the months ahead.
So, with that, Diego, let’s start with the big picture. The last time we really took stock of the data center industry was back in the summer, I believe in July. What’s happened since then?
Diego: Yeah, so, there’s certainly a big just kind of grab-bag of updates and things going on with the data centers.
So, I guess, number one – and we’ll distinguish these a little more clearly – but Project Jupiter, again, is the data center that’s under construction in Santa Teresa across the state line in New Mexico. And, so, that one, it’s well underway, certainly the construction, but there’s some court cases and the New Mexico Supreme Court actually put a stay on the project. Not on the project, I should say, but on its air permit application, which is really essential because Project Jupiter needs a power plant on site to operate, right?
They’re not going to connect to the grid, so they’re building their own power plant. It’s going to produce air pollution and greenhouse gases. So, they need to get an air permit from the New Mexico Environment Department that authorizes a certain level of pollution. And, so, that was supposed to happen on September 14th. It was supposed to be a hearing, kind of like a trial-like hearing in Sunland Park over should the state of New Mexico issue this air permit or not?
There were some environmental advocates that were going to fight this, fight against this with Oracle. And the New Mexico Supreme Court stepped in and put a stay on this whole proceeding. And, so, at the moment, the air permit proceeding is just halted. And, so, I don’t have a clear timeline on when exactly that’s going to get going again. But, for the moment, Project Jupiter basically has had to hit pause on the power generation part. Again, it’s like a sort of on-site power plant. They’re not able to build that.
But a key point is that the New Mexico Supreme Court didn’t put a halt on the whole project. So, we’ve gotten some questions of, like, “Why is construction still ongoing? We thought that the New Mexico Supreme Court halted this.” Really, they just halted the power plant. Otherwise, construction still going on the main campus.
And there are some other – there are some lawsuits about whether there was this well that’s been supplying water to Project Jupiter for construction. Was that sort of drilled correctly or did they get the right authorization? So, kind of some technical questions. I don’t think there’s some big judgment like, “Oh, Project Jupiter is illegal” or something like that. It’s kind of these procedural questions, I guess.
And just one other comment on that, an interesting thing of these court cases with Project Jupiter: Oracle is fighting against some of these environmental advocates, but it’s also state agencies or state departments within New Mexico that are kind of fighting against each other. The Office of the State Engineer has basically said everything’s OK with Project Jupiter’s water usage and this well that it’s been using. The New Mexico Attorney General disagrees with them.
So, it’s interesting – like, there’s internal disagreement within the government of New Mexico. It’s not just, like, Oracle fighting all these different parties. It’s really kind of different agencies of the state having different opinions on the project, I guess.
So, that’s what’s going on with Project Jupiter from a high level. There’s other things, too, but really it’s – the key hurdle going forward is will they get that air permit? And we can talk more about that.
With Meta, I think the interesting thing with Meta is that they’ve, clearly – I think them and Oracle are both hearing this major backlash. So, Meta has announced this $1 billion “Future is for (Everyone) fund”, right? And it’s supposed to be a billion dollars to go out to 28 communities that host Meta data centers, including El Paso.
And that’s about the extent of the details we have. Like, the city staffers gave a presentation to city council this week about this fund and saying, “Hey, we want to, basically, like, come up with a kind of written agreement and submit applications for funding and things like that.” And, so, I asked the city, the staffers, like, “What are we talking about here for Meta? Are we talking about $100,000? Are we talking about $100 million?” Probably somewhere in between, right? But the city, basically, could give me zero information about exactly how much Meta is going to pony up and dole out to El Paso.
Basically, Meta is saying – and, again, it’s 28 communities nationwide – Meta’s message is “Communities that host our data centers: have your nonprofits, have your organizations send us applications for funding, and then we’ll select them.”
So, my understanding is there’s not, like, really (a) guarantee El Paso gets anything. Realistically, I’m sure Meta will direct some funds here. But I think if you just divided $1 billion by 28, it’s, like, $35 million. And, so, will El Paso get $35 million? Mas o menos? I don’t know. Mayor Renard Johnson has asked for, like, an equitable share of the spending.
So, the point is, I mean, we could be getting some money from Meta here for whatever cause. It’s very vague, very early. We’re going to have to see what does Meta select? Like, (are) there certain things they prioritize? At City Council, they said they wanted things for public safety and sustainability, which is very vague, right? Like, what does that mean?
So, those are the high level things recently, is, like, Meta, I think, trying to assuage the concerns and plunk down a bunch of money and try to satisfy the communities where they’re locating, as they should.
Pablo: Good bird’s-eye view of both of those major projects happening here. Let’s see if we can nail down some of the finer points of each of those things.
So, one of the things you brought up, and I think it’s arguably one of the most confusing things that’s happening right now, is this issue between Project Jupiter and the New Mexico Supreme Court. As you alluded to, we’ve heard that some parts of the construction have been halted out there at the site, while others are still going on. Can you give us a clear picture of what exactly the court stopped and what’s still moving forward?
Diego: Yeah. So – and it’s not like the Supreme Court said – well, let me back up.
The real reason that this air permit is being contested is because Oracle wants to build a really, really big power plant that uses fuel cells, which are kind of a novel technology at a really big scale. Usually, your typical power plant has, like, natural gas turbines.
But Oracle did these fuel cells because they emit less pollution and they use less water and they’re kind of supposed to be more environmentally friendly and more advanced and things like that.
So, Oracle asked the New Mexico Environment Department, “Hey, we want to build these fuel cells. We think it could emit up to 10 million tons annually of greenhouse gases as well as separately some local air pollutants.” Ten million tons of greenhouse gases is more than the whole city of El Paso produces. So, it would be a massive power plant. It would be almost 2.5 gigawatts, which I’ve explained before, but that’s really, like, more power than El Paso Electric supplies to the whole region. So, it’s a massive power plant.
And, so, I think some of the environmental organizations, they saw that and they go, “Man, like, we don’t want this facility here” emitting not a ton of local air pollution – and we can talk more about that – but a ton of greenhouse gases, which are what cause climate change. So, that’s when this air permit became contested. And then I think that, like I said, there was going to be the September 14th hearing where it would be some of the challengers against Oracle. And there’s some drama in all of this. And the hearing examiner resigned. And there’s quite a bit of heat here in this air permit. It’s a really big topic.
But, so, the New Mexico Supreme Court stepped in. They halted it. And, so, again, the New Mexico Supreme Court isn’t saying “Project Jupiter, your power plant is illegal.” It’s just saying, “Hey, let’s put a pause on this and let’s hear arguments and, I guess, figure out a way to proceed.”
But again, just to reiterate, the power plant portion, it’s within the Project Jupiter footprint, but it’s kind of its own area. So, that has to stay halted. I think Oracle is still doing, like, earthwork and stuff, like, whatever. But construction of the actual data center part is still continuing because the Supreme Court didn’t rule on that. So, that’s really where it’s at. It’s: Should Oracle be allowed to build this power plant? And will they?
And then I think if the Supreme Court – or, for whatever reason, if that air permit is denied, big questions about whether Project Jupiter will proceed or not.
Pablo: And there’s another big piece of the puzzle here, and that’s the natural gas pipeline that’s going to need to feed into that site at some point. I know there’s a lot of geographic challenges, but plenty of other things as well. Can you sort of give us a picture of that, where that stands and what approvals are still needed?
Diego: Yeah, so – and this is also part of, I think, why these data centers are locating in El Paso, partially. I think there’s many reasons. But part of it is that both Meta and Project Jupiter are going to pipe in gas from the Permian Basin to supply the power plants that they’ll have on site. And I think that was an advantage for the developers, is being close enough that you could deliver gas via pipeline.
But, so, Energy Transfer, the pipeline company that is building a pipeline from – they’re basically just kind of extending an existing pipeline to Project Jupiter. They got their application denied twice by the, I believe, the New Mexico State Land Commissioner, who, basically cited, like, climate concerns. Like, “Hey, this isn’t a good use of public land or state land.” And, so, Energy Transfer tweaked the route and they made it go through less state land and kind of gave this state of New Mexico less ability to cancel it. It still, though, does have to cross some portion of state land. So there is kind of a question like “Will that pipeline get approved?” I believe the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, this nationwide entity is kind of reviewing it as well. So, that’s another open question.
Pablo: Yeah, and not to go to bat for either side on this issue here, but it is interesting that there have been stopgap efforts along the way here. And this is one of those, right? Like I said, we’ll see where it goes, and I know you’re going to be on top of it.
Diego: Yeah, a lot of things – that’s why I say, man, there’s just a lot of things in motion when it comes to the data centers at the moment.
Pablo: Yeah. So, another one of those a lot of things is that Oracle has committed $50 million for water infrastructure in Doña Ana County. Where does that money stand now and do we know what it will actually pay for?
Diego: So, this is another thing that we’ve talked about before and I’ve written about it, but it was, like, one of the key things of the benefits for Doña Ana County of why the – as Oracle was trying to sell the project – why the Doña Ana County Commissioners should approve tax breaks and embrace the project.
One of the reasons was, “Hey, we’ll direct $50 million – we, Oracle, will direct $50 million – to Doña Ana County specifically for water infrastructure in the southern portion of the county. Which, I believe, $10 million is earmarked to go into the hands of the city of Sunland Park, $40 million for kind of the area broadly, right, Santa Teresa, kind of that general area that has suffered with poor water quality, arsenic in the water and failures at the treatment plants. And just had a really, really bad situation with the water infrastructure there.
And I did a story a couple of months ago, because it seemed like Doña Ana County was having trouble, like, tracking this money and accounting for it. And I was, like, “Man, that’s kind of alarming.”
But, so, when I wrote that story, the expectation from what I heard from county and state officials in New Mexico was that the money will probably be available, like, early 2027. And now, the $50 million (has) accrued. It is in transit from Oracle to Doña Ana County. I think the state has to get involved there as, like, an intermediary for their processes. But just the point is, like, that $50 million is there. The county is going to get it. They’re going to start dispersing it. I don’t know exactly when it’s going to actually, like, they’re going to select projects and allocate funding toward that. But I could expect in the next, like, six to nine months, we’ll see some water projects proceed.
And it could be just simple stuff like replacing aging pipes or building a new water tank or just things like that. Like, nothing real fancy, but just updating the water infrastructure. Which – and I do want to talk about some of the other concerns later – but I have often pointed out when I talk to critics, the many critics of Project Jupiter, I go, “Man, like, $50 million is pretty significant for the people of Sunland Park” when you’re aware of the poor water quality that people there have suffered with for a long time.
Pablo: Yeah. And those are issues that you’ve covered in previous reporting, sort of irrespective of the goings on with data centers. Given all the previous reporting you’ve done on water issues in southern New Mexico, I mean, can you give us some insight on how significant this investment is of $50 million compared with the broader water and infrastructure needs that are associated with a project of this size?
Diego: Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t think it’s – $50 million is not going to, like, totally renovate the whole water system and build a bunch of new treatment plants or build a desalination plant. But some of the things that I’ve heard it go towards are, like, a chunk would go into researching and exploring the viability of a desalination plant, which we have in El Paso.
We have this groundwater – we have, apparently, a vast supply of groundwater, it’s just a little bit salty. And, so, if you can build a desal plant, all of a sudden, not only are you producing more water for the residents, you’re also tapping into a really abundant resource of water.
And, so, again, like, the $50 million wouldn’t – that’s not enough to build a desalination plant in Doña Ana County. But it’s enough to get the ball rolling.
The other thing is the mayor of Sunland Park has told me, like, “Hey, even if we just get $10 million, like, that’s a huge shot in the arm. It’s a one-time thing. It’s not going to completely rebuild our entire infrastructure. But where else are we getting $10 million?” You know what I mean? There’s not another immediately available source of that level of funding.
And again, like, it’s not the sexiest projects, right? Like, there’s aging pipes, there’s just these aging things that you have to replace that the money hasn’t been there. And the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, the water utility out there, much beleaguered, they haven’t had the money, the rates haven’t been high enough, they haven’t been bringing in enough revenue to do a lot of expansive maintenance.
So, I think it’ll just help with that. It’s not a panacea, not going to fix everything. But I think it’s really significant if you live there. Even the possibility of sort of getting a better idea of what it would take to build a desalination plant, I think that’s really significant too.
Pablo: I want to shift gears a little bit and head on over to El Paso. But, before I do, I know you have plenty of other information that has to do with the economics and all those things. Is there anything else you want to touch on with regard to Project Jupiter before we move on?
Diego: Yeah, well, I’ll just say this: So, a big concern has been the transparency of Oracle, right? And the project has shifted over time and some of the details have changed a little bit here and there. But one of the things has been, like, the jobs and how much are you hiring and are you going to look to hire locals first? And these things that are very valid concerns and that Oracle should do.
And, so, Oracle was supposed to issue some reports and they were a little bit delayed in sharing their information publicly about jobs and things like that. But they did come, I think a week or two ago, with this jobs report on, like, how many people they’ve hired. And, so, they’ve got about, as of September 8th, they’ve got 3,700 people working at the site of Project Jupiter. So, pretty significant, a lot of skilled trades, things like that.
So, out of 3,700, just under 1,000 of those are New Mexican residents. OK, so, again, 3,700 total, about 1,000 are New Mexicans, and a little less than 500 are Doña Ana County residents. So, I think Oracle acknowledged itself it would like to have more of the people working there from Doña Ana County. They talked about, like, trying to work with Doña Ana Community College and hire more people. Like, we’ll see. We’ll see. The other question I had that was unclear to me is how many people working at Project Jupiter live in El Paso? That wasn’t part of the data point. So, just something to think about.
But again, about 3,700 people total working there, a ton of jobs, and about 1,000 are New Mexican. And the other thing, too, is, I mean, in addition to that $50 million for the water infrastructure that Oracle is dispersing to the county, they’re also paying, like, tens of millions of dollars in just tax revenue to Doña Ana County and to the state of New Mexico.
So, again, I think there’s a lot of fair concerns and the transparency hasn’t been there and I generally think people just distrust these big corporations, understandably so. But I think, so far, the facts will tell you, like, there’s a lot of money coming in from Project Jupiter in particular.
Pablo: OK, good stuff, Diego. Good stuff. So, that’s what’s happening across the state line over in New Mexico. Let’s come over to El Paso for a little bit.
So, Meta recently announced a $1 billion fund tied to its data center communities, something you touched on at the top of the podcast. The city has also said it wants to establish a community fund. benefits agreement with Meta, right? So, go into that a little bit. What does this $1 billion mean? What would an agreement like that actually do? And what do we know so far about what El Paso might seek from Meta?
Diego: Yeah, so, I think that there’s, like, a disturbingly small amount of detail on this. I would think that the city – I mean, they did a presentation, city staffers did, to city council this week. And I followed up with questions because I kind of left that presentation about this apparent fund and community benefits agreement, I left, like, very confused. Like, so how much money are we seeking? Like, when is this going to be available? Is it a one-time fund? Is it a thing where every year Meta administers some funds? Just very, very vague.
And, so, I reached out to the city afterward, didn’t really get any clarity at all. They basically said, “Meta hasn’t told us how much money.” But at the same time, again, to my previous point, like, man, there’s a lot of money that these data centers could bring into the region. And, people can decide for themselves, like, is it worth it? Is it a trade-off? The city has already, basically, established rules to not recruit new data centers. And, so, maybe it’s just Meta and Project Jupiter, I don’t know. And people can have their feelings about them.
But, so far, I think they’re bringing in quite a bit of money. We’ll have to see with Meta. And they should.
And I think – just something interesting that I want to mention: So, there was a panel discussion. We’ll talk about it a little bit more. It was this panel discussion I attended (September 15) held by the Urban Land Institute that brought in various people from the data center industry to, like, tout the benefits of data centers in El Paso. And again, like, you take it with a grain of salt, right? Like, it’s very much set up to be a pro-data center thing.
But there was a woman named Victoria Archuleta who’s the economic development director for the village of Los Lunas. And, so, Meta has a big data center up there. They’ve had it there for 10 years. And, in some ways, I think the data center here is kind of, like, the sister data center to this Los Lunas one.
And, so, this lady Archuleta talked about sort of the benefits of Meta being there and all these road projects they’ve funded and so on and so forth, and the contractors they brought in and blah, blah, blah.
But she said she wishes that Los Lunas would have asked for more from Meta. And, so, I just thought that that was very interesting. Part of me wonders why the city of El Paso staffers didn’t maybe go up and talk to the village of Los Lunas and say, “Hey, you guys have a Meta data center. How did it work? What do you wish you would have done differently, et cetera?” Maybe we would have gotten more out of Meta, right?
But, so, I kind of see this community benefits agreement as, like, our version of that: like, that realization “Hey, maybe we didn’t ask enough out of Meta from the outset.”
Again, just to reiterate or remind listeners, like, Meta got an 80% property tax break. They’re still going to be paying, like, $15 to $16 million a year in city taxes, still going to be the biggest property taxpayer in the city. But instead of $15 million, maybe they could be paying like $60 million or $70 million, right? Like, then maybe it would be more favorable in the eyes of El Pasoans. I don’t know.
But I just think of this community benefits agreement as an effort by the city to go, “OK, look, this is highly unpopular. Like, we need more out of you, Meta.” And Meta should provide it, right?
And, so, again, we really have no idea what the money’s going to go to. It’s very vague. I think we’re gonna start seeing nonprofits and organizations in El Paso apply, and we’ll see. And I hope that Meta doles out a ton of money to El Paso.
Pablo: So, I can see why you definitely don’t know or don’t have any details on this. Is there anything you can tell us from the city side of things? Is there anything they’re gunning for? Is there anything they’re going to try to engage in over the next few months or years down the line to see what they can get out of this relationship they’re going to have with Meta?
Diego: I wish I had a better answer. I mean, I just think it’s so early and I was actually thinking like, “Man, maybe this is a story here about this thing.” And then, when I realized how little information is available at the moment, I think we just have to wait and see.
Again, I think that Meta gave, like, $2.5 million to the Paso del Norte Community Foundation. So that was probably like – I don’t think that that’s necessarily tied to the community benefits agreement, but I think that was the first round of giving by Meta. And we’ll have to see what happens going forward. But, yeah, I think Meta, again, it was very vague, but I think the areas that they said they want to fund are areas focused on public safety, sustainability, and, like, STEM education type of stuff.
Pablo: OK. So another Meta question for you. So, there’s been a significant change behind the scenes with the ownership of the data center venture that’s been engaging over here in Northeast El Paso. And you’ve touched on it before, but it’s this company called BlackRock, right? BlackRock now owns 80% of the Meta data center. What exactly happened there? And take us through it.
Diego: Yeah. And BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world. And, so, really, I think Meta bringing BlackRock in was just — it was because Meta is saying, “Look, this is costing so much money.” This data center here is, like, $10 billion. It’s costing so much money to build these data centers all over the country. I think they’ve got one that’s tens of billions of dollars in Louisiana. They’re building them all over the country.
And Meta is going, “Look, we, even though we’re one of the best-capitalized, wealthiest companies in the world, even we aren’t really comfortable just plunking down billions and billions and billions of dollars to build these all over the place.” So, they’re partnering with these big asset management firms in El Paso but elsewhere, where they do this kind of – and it’s very kind of byzantine and complex and you’ve got to be, like, one of these finance lawyers to really understand what’s going on.
But, basically, Meta is keeping a 20% stake in the data center here. And they did the same thing in Louisiana. And then they bring in a big partner. In Louisiana, it was Blue Owl. Here it’s BlackRock. And then BlackRock, they form these joint ventures and then they sell debt to investors and yada yada. Like, that’s how they raise the money for this.
So, one thing I’ll say, though, is, in the contract between the city of El Paso and Meta that was agreed to back in 2023, like, this scenario was contemplated in the contract. There’s a whole segment of the contract that contemplates what happens if Meta sells a portion of the project to an outside entity.
And, so, I think people heard of BlackRock entering the deal. There’s already all the skepticism of the data center, and I think even Josh Acevedo, a city council rep, like he’s called BlackRock evil and all these things. I don’t know if I agree with that or have a basis for saying that. But, yeah, there was a lot of consternation about BlackRock coming in. “Didn’t we give tax breaks to Meta? Like, is BlackRock getting them now?”
But I think it was just kind of, in some ways, a boring financial transaction. I don’t think anything’s going to change on the ground. But it was kind of upsetting for people. People felt like Meta was kind of pulling the rug out or something like that. But I think it was just a reality for Meta, like, “Man, we need some outside money coming in to pay for this.” And I think that’s really what that deal was about.
Pablo: It’s a bit of a business plan from their side?
Diego: Yeah, kind of make it so where it’s not, like, all on our balance sheet, all our money at risk. Let’s bring in some other people to share the risk.
Pablo: So, I guess from the standpoint of someone living in El Paso, does this ownership change change anything about the project and how it’s moving forward and any of the commitments that have already been made?
Diego: No. I mean, as far as I know, and from what Meta has told me and from what the city has said, no, there’s really no change in the operational day-to-day details at the data center. It’s not like BlackRock is going to have employees there.
I think it really is just about the ownership structure, trying to do something where you can sell debt to investors and then kind of pay it off over time. So it really, when I did a story on it, looked into it, it’s a little more boring and kind of complicated than sexy or interesting, I guess. But yeah, I don’t think it’ll change the on-the-ground reality much.
Pablo: OK. So, understandably, we spent a lot of time talking about the infrastructure and the power and some of the economic conditions that are impacting both the construction of these data centers and maybe some of the ramifications we’ll see down the road. What are you hearing from supporters, if anything, of the data center industry about the other side of this equation? What do they see as the economic case for bringing these things to El Paso?
Diego: Yeah, and again, I went to this thing hosted by the Urban Land Institute (September 15) that was a pretty comprehensive presentation from different people. Again, it was the lady from Los Lunas to share her perspective of their community has hosted a Meta data center for 10 years, and she spoke very favorably of it. Again, she did say, like, “We should have asked more for Meta,” and also she was kind of chastising Meta for not participating in the Los Lunas Chamber of Commerce. So, maybe that’s something we ought to try to push them to do here, I guess.
But, yeah, so, she was presenting and then there was like a commercial real estate guy from in town. There was the economic development director for El Paso Electric. And then there was this other guy, Tom Voutte, who was kind of involved in the background of some of these data center projects in town.
So, again, you take it with a grain of salt. Like, it’s the business community. They’re trying to respond to the criticism of data centers. The concern of the resource usage. Like, “Is AI even good for us and humanity?” There’s those broader questions that I’m not an expert on, but I think those are really rising to the surface and animating a lot of the opposition to data centers.
So, I think this is the business community’s response. “Let’s get up there, give some presentations.” And there was some really interesting information. I think that, for example, the manufacturing base in Juarez has really changed a lot to be the vast majority of what they’re producing over there is, like, computer hardware and computer servers that go across the border into data centers, not necessarily just here in El Paso. But the manufacturing situation in Juarez has really changed a lot.
There’s a lot of new warehouses going up in East El Paso that are tied to the computer and data center industry. Christian Perez Giese … this guy with CBRE, a local commercial real estate firm. I apologize if I’m butchering his last name. But he was saying how land values have accelerated so much and there’s all this investment coming in. And that also improves the tax base and the tax revenue that cities like Socorro get and communities out there. So, there’s stuff like that.
And then I’ve made this point before, that, like, when I try to talk to people about this, they look at me sideways. But El Paso Electric’s argument – which, again, have whatever take you want on it – their argument is, “Hey, you know the best solution or one of the solutions to your really high electric bill? Data centers.” Because data centers come in. EP Electric has to spend so much every year and they spread it across everyone. All of a sudden, you bring Meta in, it’s the biggest customer. They have to also absorb a share to the tune of $40 million annually, is what EP Electric has said. And I’m sure there’s some imprecision in that figure.
But the point being, like, Meta has to absorb a lot of – many, many millions of dollars of costs that are currently borne by El Paso ratepayers. So, over the long term, the argument is that you’ve got this big data center here, they are paying a lot of the costs for EP Electric, and then our costs aren’t rising as much as they would otherwise, I guess is the argument.
Pablo: Alright, good stuff, Diego. A lot of moving pieces here, a lot of moving parts. So, let’s sort of wrap this up by looking ahead a little bit. And I know there’s not one specific story we can point our listeners to today, because like I said at the beginning, we kind of just came at this because we want to give people a primer of what’s coming up.
So, with that, can you sort of give us some insight into what readers and listeners should be watching out for in the next couple months?
Diego: Yeah, and I’ll lead into one kind of final comment here.
But, so, the key hurdles remaining for Project Jupiter and Meta – despite both companies investing multiple billions of dollars at both Meta and Project Jupiter, they still have to clear some hurdles before they can go into operation.
We’ve talked about the air permit. Project Jupiter, in theory, and I think this idea scares a lot of people – in theory, if they didn’t get the air permit and they’re just like, “How are we going to get power?” Project Jupiter probably could find a way to connect into the EP Electric’s system. There’s, like, major questions there. I don’t even really want to get into that because who knows? That’s a big question. It’s a big load that EP Electric would have to serve. I don’t know.
But that’s the big question to keep an eye on looking forward. Does Project Jupiter get this air permit?
And, similarly for Meta – so, that’s Project Jupiter on their power source. Meta, El Paso Electric is building an on-site power plant for Meta. But EP Electric has not gotten the certification from the Public Utility Commission just yet. That’s something in the coming months: Will EP Electric be permitted to build this power plant for Meta? And those are the main questions.
Also, the gas pipeline. Will Energy Transfer be allowed to build a gas pipeline to supply gas to Project Jupiter’s fuel cell power plant?
And I’ll just touch on this too, just to kind of tease a big project we’ve been working on for quite some time: The big question I’ve had is, like, all right, say these power plants get up and running. Like, what is the air quality impact, right? I’ve talked to the protesters that have the signs like, “Let Santa Teresa breathe”. And I know there’s a lot of concerns from, particularly, people that live close to the Project Jupiter site as well as the Meta site. Like, is this going to foul the air? Like, what’s going to happen here?
And, so, I think that what we found through a pretty deep analysis of these, based on the air permit applications and kind of our pollution situation in El Paso, these data centers would produce an astronomical amount of greenhouse gases that are the substances that contribute to climate change.
So, we’re already experiencing record heat this year. These two data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than all of Las Cruces and El Paso do currently combined. Every vehicle, every power plant, all of the things that produce greenhouse gases here, these data centers could exceed that on their own.
And, so, that’s a little bit scary. There’s kind of a frustrating scientific reality that you go talk to the – I’ve talked to the New Mexico State climatologist, you talk to the academics, they’ll tell you that, basically, when it comes to global warming, a ton of greenhouse gases emitted in Europe has the same warming impact in El Paso as a ton of greenhouse gases emitted here, right? So, it doesn’t really matter where the greenhouse gases are emitted in the world. They just kind of go up in the atmosphere and mix.
And, so, it’s kind of frustrating because you can’t say, like, “OK, so, all these new greenhouse gases are going to lead to a direct warming effect in El Paso.” But we can say that they will contribute to the trend of climate change we’re already experiencing.
And then, OK, related to that, that’s greenhouse gases. I just want to touch, too, on the air pollution, right? Which is different from greenhouse gases. It’s just a key point I want to make for listeners. Like, a ton of CO2 emitted isn’t going to worsen the air quality in El Paso. It’s going to contribute to climate change and heat and all of that.
But things like particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, things that – we don’t struggle so much with carbon monoxide, but certainly NOx and particulate matter, we kind of struggle with pollution here. And I think that the data centers, I think they’ll have an impact on local communities. If you live in Chaparral, New Mexico, across the state line from Meta’s data center, you probably will have a little bit of a worsened air quality as a result. The communities that live closest to Project Jupiter probably will see a little bit of an air quality deterioration as a result.
But I think if we look across the air shed, I think listeners might be surprised to know, like, a far larger source of air pollution in El Paso is unpaved roads or construction sites, right? More than power plants, more than vehicles, more than these data center power plants. And, so, I guess in some ways it’s comforting. Like, I don’t think that we’re going to have a huge air quality deterioration as a result of these data centers, except in the areas nearby, which is a problem that I don’t think that the data center companies have a good answer to.
And, on the other hand, the greenhouse gases are going to be absolutely massive. We’ve just been putting in these climate action plans to reduce our greenhouse gases. These data centers are going to drive it up. I think that’s a problem.
But yeah – I know that’s a long-winded answer to your question. But the air quality impacts are a key factor. And, so, what happens with the regulatory approval at Project Jupiter and Meta, the power plants there, I think is going to be the key question going forward.
Pablo: We have nothing but questions. A lot of questions, a lot of concerns. But I know you’re going to do your work over the next few months and however long it takes to try to find answers for all this.
Diego: I just hope readers understand what a multidisciplinary topic data centers are, man. Like you’re talking about air pollution, you’re talking about water and water treatment, water planning, utility rate impacts, like, man. And then the municipal tax breaks and municipal finance and blah, blah, blah. Like, there’s just a lot, man. It’s a lot. And, so, we’re doing our best to keep a handle on it. But man, it’s a lot to keep track of, I’ll tell you that.
Pablo: It really is. And you do a great job of it. And your stories are always very comprehensive. And I’m not just saying that because you’re sitting in front of me. I do hope our listeners take that advice and go read your stuff over the next few months. So you wanted to tease one thing, though.
Diego: What did I want to tease?
Pablo: Oh, you have a little bit of a project coming up.
Diego: Oh, yeah, well, the air quality project. I’ve got some other things to tease, but I’ll keep those under wraps. But, yeah, we’ve been working with a national outlet on this story about air quality. What really will be the impact from data centers? I’m hoping we’ll publish it soon. It’s been a long process working on it, but that’s something that just to keep an eye out from El Paso Matters, just kind of this analysis of the air quality impacts of data centers, because I think the story is nuanced and complex. But there’s reasons to have concern for sure.
Pablo: And, so, that’s a near-future thing. So, I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for that in the very near future. But there’ll be stuff down the line, too. So, Diego, thank you very much for taking the time to talk about all these things. I know it’s a lot, but I think you’ve given us a really good primer for what we need to look out for in the months ahead. So, I appreciate it.
Diego: Thanks for taking over the host seat, Pablo. I appreciate it.
Pablo: All right, we’ll catch you next time.
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