By Lorien House
All over the United States, people are protesting new data centers because of obvious harms: energy consumption, water use and contamination, waste (including vast quantities of e-waste), air, light and noise pollution.
But people also are upset because of lack of transparency, and the coercive way these projects are forced on communities. Project Jupiter, the massive Oracle/OpenAI data center planned in Doña Ana County, followed the usual secretive agenda. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center has already brought two lawsuits against the county related to the project’s blatant lack of transparency.
Oracle’s belated charm offensive now tries to “greenwash” the harms as well as push the usual “prosperity and jobs” propaganda.
Jupiter says it will use Bloom Energy’s solid oxide fuel cells instead of gas turbines to power the plant. Fuel cells are not “green.” First, they require … uh … fuel.
According to journalist Tobias Mann, “The switch to fuel cells isn’t quite the sustainability win you might think” because “Bloom’s primarily run on natural gas. They can be converted to run on hydrogen, but for that to work, you also have to find a supply of H2 that was sustainably sourced.”
Cue the Bureau of Land Management, which fast-tracked a natural gas pipeline in New Mexico to power Jupiter’s fuel cells. Northern New Mexicans are now fighting plans to put a hydrogen plant in Questa despite concerns about contamination of groundwater.
Second, fuel-cell microgrids emit hazardous waste. As NMELC states: “(Oracle is) disingenuously painting the new microgrid proposal as a green energy solution despite emitting 10 million tons per year of greenhouse gas emissions, 124.01 tons per year of VOCs, 161.21 tons per year of CO24 and generating unknown quantities of hazardous waste … ”
Some of that hazardous waste is benzene, which causes cancer, and which Bloom has “historically … simply dumped into the nearest landfill,” according to NMELC.
Other known harms include contamination of groundwater and excessive water consumption.
Jupiter’s proposed “closed-loop” cooling system, even assuming it uses less than an evaporative cooling system, still relies on water in an area that has little of that vital substance. There are also potential contamination and “coolant” problems.
Oracle propaganda about using “non-potable” water is a distraction. Non-potable water is still water, and is as necessary in the real world as potable. More importantly, Oracle’s history of corporate misconduct and failure to pay penalties for violations speaks louder than its propaganda.
Less well-known harms include the “heat island” effect, which is “real and significant.” In hot, dry southern New Mexico, that should be a red flag.
What about the alleged benefits to the community? “Jobs jobs jobs” and “indirect” economic benefits? Even advocates for data centers admit they provide very few permanent jobs.
“Since centers largely consist of file servers and networking equipment, it does not take a lot of employees to staff them,” according to a recent report for Brookings Institution.
The permanent jobs are engineering and technical jobs, not blue-collar jobs. That’s no real help to most of the community. There’s also that problematic history of corporate misconduct, which includes employment related misconduct. So, good luck enforcing the dubious job promises.
As to indirect jobs through increased customers for local businesses, these, as some Jupiter cheerleaders have admitted, amount to a few out of state workers buying a burger and a pre-roll on their way home from the center. That’s an extremely low bar, and does not outweigh the harms.
Lastly, we don’t need more data centers. The United States has more data centers than any other country in the world – more than 5,400 – while the rest of the world combined has 1,469.
AI is not living up to the hype and that bubble is bursting. If you want “better AI,” then make all higher education free, as a start.
Most organized opposition to data centers comes from the Midwest, where people are perhaps more aware of big industry’s playbook and more willing to organize across political divisions.
Erin Brockovich, who is no stranger to corporate bullying, recently started a website offering tools and resources to help those affected fight back.
As most know, Jupiter is not the first massive data center in New Mexico, nor will it be the last. Reportedly, a data center over three times the size of Jupiter is being proposed in Lea County. That should actually scare New Mexicans. Maybe it’s time to organize.
Lorien House is a semi-retired paralegal and legal researcher. She also produces theater. Originally from Illinois, she has lived in New Mexico for the past 13 years.
The post Opinion: Why New Mexicans should organize against Project Jupiter and future data centers appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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